The Scientist - Home

WASHINGTON—Recent increases in the number and type of longterm grants from the National Institutes of Health may intensify competition between new awards and grants continued from previous years. But officials say the self-limiting nature of the new longterm grants and new institute controls should prevent problems that forced elimination of seven-year awards in the 1970s. “In any given year, about 85 percent of the NIH budget is a commitment [to grants] from previous years,”

LOS ALAMOS, N.M.—A British journal has taken a carrot-and-stick approach to encourage scientists to make their data on nucleotide sequences available quickly to the international research community. The controversial approach is being watched closely by officials of GenBank, the U.S.-funded project here that is expanding its data collection efforts. Beginning January 1, the journal Nucleic Acids Research will require authors to prove that their data have already been submitted to the E

WASHINGTON—The start of a report to Congress on fetal research, due next May, is being delayed by differences on abortion among the 12 congressional members of the Biomedical Ethics Board. Last August the board was able to appoint only the dozen “expert” members to its advisory committee. Their disagreements have prevented their filing the two slots reserved for citizens “who possess no specific expertise” in research, medicine or ethical issues. The advisory com

‘You crack an atom, what’s left? Particles, bits. It’s like Meccano: proton, neutron, quark. Don’t you see.. The things you knew. The rest of us set our horizons at the girls’ school down the road. Whatever you dreamed of, you left us in the dark. (‘I couldn’t follow him’, one friend confessed after the fact, then ‘Why? The waste, the waste! then again, ‘Did he know something we don’t?’) '... . there’s nothing to it

LONDON—Britan’s in vitro fertilization teams are preparing for a major battle to defend their research against hostile lawmakers. The U.K. government last month published the framework for comprehensive legislation to regulate IVF treatment and embryo research. But in a neat sidestep, ministers gave members of Parliament the option of either authorizing experiments under strict limitations or in effect banning research entirely. Debate on the legislative proposal is expected to

WASHINGTON—It’s hard to escape the dominance of Japan in worldwide technology, even if the subject is France. Gallic pride took a beating when its government asked American research administrators for their views on French technology. The U.S. executives said that France provides the United States with its stiffest competition in only two. categories—nuclear energy and aeronautics. The Japanese came out on top in a majority of the 11 categories, covering automobiles, comput

SYDNEY—The Australian government’s increasingly pragmatic attitude toward academic research has dismayed many scientists here and reinforced their feeling that the universities’ central activities are under assault. Their concerns recently have focused on the Australian Research Grants Scheme (ARGS), the annual round of competitive grants for scientists and others at the country’s 20 universities. Total funding under ARGS for 1988 is $32.3 million Australian ($22 milli

SANTA ROSA NATIONAL PARK, COSTA RICA—Biologists must join the fight to save tropical species or face the loss within a generation of the edifice upon which bioscience is built, says an eminent tropical ecologist. “Many, many scientists don’t understand that if they’re not out there proselytizing for the maintenance, development and actual preservation of the systems they work on, some competitive force is going to take it away from them,” said Daniel Janzen, a

LONDON—A consortium of four universities and three polytechnics in northwest England will host a new think tank aimed at improving Britain's ability to exploit its scientific research and development. The Centre for Exploitation of Science and Technology (CEST), funded by the government and private industry, is expected to remain independent of its academic hosts but conform to the standards of academe. Based in Manchester, it will maintain close links with all consortium members. CEST

WASHINGTON—White House science adviser William Graham has formed a new committee to shape administration policy in the life sciences. The 24-member coordinating committee will be chaired by Beverly Berger, assistant director for life sciences in the Office of Science and Technology Policy. It will consist of representatives from nine Cabinet-level departments and nine federal agencies, including several with the duty to regulate rather than finance research in the life sciences. The co

WASHINGTON—The American Society of Mechanical Engineers has thrown a life buoy to the Marine Technology Society. The support comes in the form of a two-year, interest-bearing loan and a temporary donation of office space, worth a total of $200,000. MTS, a 25-year-old interdisciplinary society, derives its $350,000 annual budget from dues of its 2,500 members, conference fees and publication sales, but the prolonged crisis in’the oil and gas drilling industry has put a squeeze on t

Ask Carl C. Peck of the Food and Drug Administration how important research is to his job, and he’ll simply point to the title of the center he heads.