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Ever wonder what happens to those bright-eyed science and engineering undergraduates who come to Washington each summer as interns to learn how policy is really made? Well, for at least one recent intern, a summer in Washington led to a high-profile job with the Bush transition team. Bradley Mitchell, 26, who was sponsored by the Society of Automotive Engineers in 1984, has become the presidential transition team officer to NSF, NASA, and the Office of Science and Technology Policy. His job a

Volume 3, #1The Scientist January 9, 1989 UNIVERSITY BRIEFS Astronomer Pins Hopes On His Star Appeal Exhausted by the hunt for research funds? Disgusted with departmental politics? Take heart, there may be an alternative. Witness the tale of Canadian astronomer Bruce Campbell. For four years, Campbell toiled at the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory in Victoria, British Columbia. But chronic underfunding made it impossible for the observatory to offer him a permanent positio

Editor's note: The Scientist talked at length with four black scientists and aspiring researchers about the problems they have faced living in a culture that offers them little or no encouragement to become professional scientists. The individuals stand at vastly different stages of their careers and pursue different fields, and their experiences vary dramatically. But their stories illuminate the problems facing black scientists in the United States, and hint at possible solutions. SHIRLEY JA

What if you know that patenting your discovery can increase its value but you are puzzled by the patent process? You might want to attend the annual conference for Inventors and Entrepreneurs, cosponsored by the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) and Intellectual Property Owners Inc., scheduled for February 10 in Arlington, Va. Topics to be covered in the one-day event include: dealing with the PTO, exploiting venture capital, working with large companies, and understanding the international t

Speeding The Use Of Supercomputers Supercomputers are fast, powerful - and worthless if only a chosen few are able to envision what the new machines can do. This is the message of Clifford R. Perry, Kodak's director of information and computing technologies, who told the National Academies of Science and Engineering recently: "Our number one priority, in my view, is to create better ways of communicating not only how we use supercomputers, but how we assimilate their use." He added that the cu

Out of the Minneapolis suburbs they swarm in business suits, popping up at technical conferences and slowly picking the brains of the best scientists in a given field. Reconnaissance complete, they return home to sharpen their plans. A target is singled out for the kill—and if all goes well, Cray Research Inc. has sold another multimillion dollar supercomputer. This is the company’s newest sales hit team, comprising 60 of the company’s best salespeople, engineers, and scientis

In March of this year, Colombia heard some important news that had nothing to do with the country’s infamous drug trade. A Colombian scientist named Manuel E. Patarroyo published a study in Nature showing that an experimental vaccine he had developed was tantalizingly effective against malaria, a disease that threatens two-thirds of the world’s population. Until then, the parasite that causes malaria had stubbornly resisted the efforts of hundreds of researchers in the U.S. and Eur

WASHINGTON—Anyone who may be wondering why John Sununu wanted to become White House chief of staff need only dig out a speech the retiring New Hampshire governor and mechanical engineer gave five years ago. Addressing the 1983 winter meeting of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Sununu said that good public policy depends on good technical information flowing into the government. But too often, he said, the quality of the information deteriorates as it moves up the chain of

PASADENA, CALIF.—Harry Gray can walk the 30 feet or so from his third-floor office at the California Institute of Technology and look out the window at a gigantic hole in the ground. Next to it is a huge mound of dirt covered with opaque plastic. The dirt, taken from the hole, will eventually be used for backfill, and the mound is affectionately called “Mount Beckman” after its benefactor, Arnold Beckman. Gray walks to the window frequently and happily; he is looking at the

New Aid For AIDS In an effort to capture more data on the treatment of AIDS patients, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) will make $6 million available to community-based physicians via a new project, called the Community Programs for Clinical Research on AIDS. The aim is to broaden the statistical basis for research on the disease by providing researchers, statisticians, and computer services to primary-care physicians who are now treating AIDS patients and othe

BIOMEDICINE: Nutrition research. $500,000 total over five years from Bristol-Myers Co. to Tufts University Schools of Medicine and Nutrition, Boston; I.H. Hospital, Mahidol University, Rosenburg, and Ramathibodi Bangkok, Thailand; V. I. Tanphaichitr Developing Investigator Award: investigation of basic mechanisms of the inimunopharmacology of allergic diseases. $300,000 over five years from the Burroughs Weilcome Fund [through the American Academy of Allergy and Immunology] to W.E. Serafin, Br

More than six years after it was completed, Oak Ridge National Labs Holifield tandem accelerator has finally reached its design voltage of 25 million volts. The long-awaited event, which took place last month, marked the end of a troublesome startup for the experimental facility, which was designed to conduct experiments involving heavy ions. A sparking “acceleration tube,” which maintains a vacuum around the ion beam, proved the biggest problem for the $8 million machine. The tube