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LONDON—Spending on research and development by British pharmaceutical companies this year will exceed $850 million. That figure represents 11 percent of the national total for industrial R&D, although drugs comprise less than 2 percent of Britain's industrial output. In evidence to the House of Lords' Science and Technology Committee, officials from the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry expressed concern that the average period of patent protection for a new drug was only

CAMBRIDGE, MASS.—Medical researchers in this university town are no longer allowed to use two well-known animal toxicity tests after passage of the first legislation of its type in the country. The Cambridge City Council voted May 18 to ban the Classical LD-50 Acute Toxicity Test and the Draize Eye-Irritancy Test. The move is the latest step in a heated local debate on the use of laboratory animals. (A survey by city officials found that at least 50,000 research animals, mostly rats, were

WEST BERLIN—Both East and West Germany must come to terms with the various political views of Albert Einstein, a West German physicist told colleagues at the annual meeting of the German Physical Society here this spring. "Einstein needs to be rehabilitated" in both countries, said Jacob Szer, a theoretical physicist at the Technical University in West Berlin. Despite universal admiration for his early scientific work, Szer said, scientists and politicians on each side of the Iron Curtain

WASHINGTON—The Reagan administration has barred the Soviet Union from participating in an international scientific program to which the Soviets had already accepted an invitation. The decision was made by President Reagan late last month on national security grounds, after the Defense Department objected to the Soviets' participation in the project, which will analyze the composition of the ocean floor. The Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) is supported by the United States, the United Kingdom,

SAN DIEGO—Young scientists unwittingly caught up in scandals over fraudulent research have found the experience to be a drain on their emotions and a stain on their professional careers. Interviews with nearly a dozen researchers whose, names have been linked to some of the best-known cases of fraud revealed that the practice of "gift authorship" has sidetracked academic careers, put federal research grants beyond reach and thrown into question other legitimate studies they have published

LONDON—The summit meeting of European Economic Community leaders in Brussels on June 29-30 appears to be the earliest chance to resolve the longstanding deadlock over a new, five-year European research budget. The EEC's Framework Research Program embraces several collaborative R&D projects. Britain stands alone now in its opposition to the $7.5 billion budget suggested by Belgium as a compromise between a much larger figure requested by the European Commission and a smaller one proposed ea

ORLANDO, FLA.—Key industry and university research administrators are laboring over a model agreement meant to simplify and increase collaboration between the two groups. This unprecedented attempt to draft an agreement to govern various types of industrial sponsorship of university research is an outgrowth of a pilot project involving five federal research agencies and 10 Florida universities. That demonstration project, begun in April 1986, is aimed at freeing scientists from much of th

Through his activities as a science educator and popularizer, experimental physicist Sergei P Kapitza has become one of the best-known scientists in the Soviet Union. Millions of people watch his biweekly television show on scientific issues, for which he received the State Award in 1980. Kapitza was born in England, where his father, Peter L. Kapitza, was working on low-temperature physics and magnetism at Cam bridge. After graduating from the Moscow Aeronautical Institute in 1949, Sergei Kapi

LONDON—Younger directors will soon be appointed to about one-half of the 260 institutions directed by the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R. This follows the recent announcement by the new president of the academy, Guri Marchuk, that directors must retire at age 70 rather than holding their appointments for life, as is now the case. In addition to directors now being "prematurely" retired, many other senior scientists who enjoyed lifelong tenure will have to leave their posts when they re

WASHINGTON—An unexpected gift from the University of California has saved Issues in Science and Technology, the National Academy of Science's esteemed but money-losing quarterly journal of science policy. The university system's chancellors have volunteered a contribution of $150,000 a year for three years. The amount eases the magazine's $250,000 annual deficit enough for the Academy to rescind its decision to close Issues after publication next month of a summer issue. (See The Scientist

NEW DELHI—Scientists in India's government laboratories, unhappy over receiving proportionately less money than other civil servants, are calling for salary increases and more perks. Leading the drive are the associations of scientific workers of India's autonomous research councils: the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the Indian Council of Medical Research and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research. The extent of the dissatisfaction became evident earlier this spring

BERKELEY, CALIF.—On April 29 Steven E. Lindow drove seven hours to the remote Tulelake area of northern California to begin open-air tests of bacteria genetically altered to combat frost formation on potato plants. For the University of California at Berkeley plant pathologist, however, the trip marked the end of a five-year journey. In 1982 Lindow discovered that the removal of a specific gene from the ubiquitous bacterium Pseudomonas syringae could shut down production of a chemical res