The Scientist - Home

At a time when the supply of live animals for research use has become unreliable, expensive, and controversial, a Philadelphia organization is providing experimenters with a convenient alternative: human tissue. The National Disease Research Interchange, founded by Lee Ducat and funded in part by NIH grants, links scientists into a nationwide network of organ banks and hospitals whose excess surgical, transplant, and autopsy material would otherwise go to waste. In business for the past decade,

When fire swept through part of a mouse-breeding building at the Jackson Laboratory on May 10, there wasn't enough time for fear. 

The scientific jury may still be out on cold fusion, but some social scientists have already reached the verdict that the spectacle has been good for science. Just as a political scandal can invigorate politics by showing the public how it works, the cold fusion story has benefited science by exposing its hidden side, according to a panel of scientists, philosophers, and sociologists who met last month at the University of California, San Diego. "We saw science in the making. We learned a lot ab

WASHINGTON—in the three years since it was first proposed, the U.S. effort to map and sequence the human genome has joined the ranks of Big $cience with astonishing speed. Unlike the prospects for such controversial megaprojects as the superconducting supercollider and the space station, funding for the genome project appears to be going nowhere but up. The Bush administration has requested a total of $128 million more than double the current level of $53 million, and Congress appears

When the supertanker Exxon Valdez ran aground on the rocks of Bligh Island on March 24, the more than 10 million gallons of crude oil it carried, invaded every nook and cranny of Alaska’s Prince William Sound, polluting the air, fouling the beaches, and staining the water for miles around. Within hours, while the stricken yessel remained on the rocks that had sliced it open like a tin can, a second invasion began: the scientists. They included fisheries biologists, oceanographers, vete

REDWOOD CITY, CALIF. —Don’t look for high-tech razzle-dazzle at Advanced Polymer Systems Inc. (APS). Unlike most of its entrepreneurial neighbors located in the creative ferment of the San Francisco Bay area, APS is not built upon some headline-grabbing new technology. There are no genetically engineered organisms here, no new drugs poised to save the world, no superconducting substances ready to revolutionize electronics. Founded in 1983, APS is anchored upon a relatively humdru

WASHINGTON—Although many scientists may wish otherwise, the political debate over scientific misconduct is not likely to end anytime soon. Despite the decidedly mixed reviews of last month’s two-day grilling by Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) of MIT biologist David Baltimore and others involved in investigating allegations of error stemming from a 1986 Cell paper, Congress seems eager to extend the discussion. Two more congressional panels have scheduled hearings this month on the to

As science continues to push the envelope of experimentation, computer-based numerical simulation is gaining wide acceptance as a means of quantifying research subjects that are either too large or too small—or move too quickly or too slowly—to be measured by conventional instruments. Indeed, numerical simulation is now not only the domain of mathematicians and theorists, but also of researchers in most life- and physical-science disciplines. The virtues of numerical simuladon ar

Linus Pauling, the two-time Nobel Prize winner who revolutionized the teaching of chemistry by presenting it in terms of the laws of quantum mechanics applied to molecular structure, has been selected to receive the 1989 Vannevar Bush Award by The National Science Foundation’s National Science Board. The award is named for the former director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, whose recommendation led to the establishment of the NSF in 1950. The 88-year-old Pauling wo

If At First You Don’t Succeed The four states—Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Dakota—that have just been awarded three-year, $1.8 million grants from the National Science Foundation know what it’s like to try, try again. Each of them has lost out in previous bids to receive funds under a 10-year-old program that is meant to help states at the bottom of the federal research pile do better by improving the quality of their science. “Louisiana is going thro

If At First You Don’t Succeed The four states—Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Dakota—that have just been awarded three-year, $1.8 million grants from the National Science Foundation know what it’s like to try, try again. Each of them has lost out in previous bids to receive funds under a 10-year-old program that is meant to help states at the bottom of the federal research pile do better by improving the quality of their science. “Louisiana is going thro

WASHINGTON—Luther Williams, a molecular biologist and former president of a predominantly black graduate research university, has been named senior science adviser to NSF Director Erich Bloch. Williams becomes the fourth scientist to hold the job since Bloch created the position five years ago. Williams, 48, has spent the past 18 months at NIH, most recently as deputy director of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. From 1984 to 1987 he was president of the 1,100-stude