The Scientist - Home

LONDON—Government spending on research is becoming a major issue in Britain's upcoming elections, with the major parties staking out their positions. Campaigning is not officially underway, but the election is expected to take place by early autumn. There is a growing split between the Conservative administration of Margaret Thatcher, which argues that state expenditure on research is about right, and opponents who believe more cash is needed to strengthen basic research and stem the trans

MANILA—A new national Constitution does more for the Philippines than endorse the political reforms of President Corazon Aquino. Scientists hope it will also stem the emigration of doctors and researchers, encourage research to improve the country's economy, and promote involvement in R&D by the private sector. More than 12,000 Filipino scientists and engineers emigrated between 1966 and 1978, according to Fernando Sanchez, past president of the Association of Philippine Medical Colleges.

WASHINGTON—Director Erich Bloch, under congressional prodding last month, predicted that the National Science Foundation will come to grips in the next five years with many of the major problems facing American science. Bloch used the annual round of hearings on NSF's request for funding to flesh out the administration's wish to double the agency's budget, to $3.2 billion, by 1992. That financial goal is part of an attempt by Bloch, a former IBM vice president, to graft a corporate approac

WASHINGTON—In the scramble to point every available instrument at the recently discovered supernova in the Large Magellanic Cloud, NASA plans a campaign of balloon flights, rocket launches and airborne observations to begin next month. The crash program, if approved by NASA Administrator James Fletcher, will cost $15 million. It will include 16 or 17 instrumented balloon flights extending through late next year, as well as sounding rocket flights and infrared observations using NASA's Kuip

LONDON—Last month's sinking of the English Channel ferry the Herald of Free Enterprise has focused attention on a group of scientists and engineers whose unique expertise has been neglected in the rash of recent privatizations in Britain. Companies operating similar "roll-on, roll-off" (or Ro-Ro) ferries have not responded to efforts by the managers of the now privately owned company British Maritime Technology (BMT) to point out the design weaknesses of such craft. One consequence is that

"Most fortunately, Kendrew made a favorable impression on Luria: like Kalckar, he was civilized and in addition supported the Labor Party." That is how James Watson introduces us to John Kendrew, toward the beginning of The Double Helix. Later in his highly individualistic memoir, Watson recounts how he accepted what looked like "an open invitation to tuberculosis" when he arrived in England in 1951. After having difficulty finding digs in Cambridge, he recalls how "John and Elizabeth Kendrew re

OTTAWA—The Canadian government has promised to match contributions from industry in a new program to increase funding for research. But its procedures have led scientists and industry officials to doubt whether the program, which began April 1, will really stimulate industrial support for universities. The idea seemed simple enough last year when it was first announced: for every dollar provided for eligible university research by the private sector, the federal government would kick in an

NEW YORK—A surge of new research in superconductivity that began late last year is posing as much of a challenge to research managers and administrators as to solid-state physicists. Their problem: How best to allocate scarce people, funds and equipment to take advantage of the new fervor in this sector of science, in which the maximum temperature at which resistance-free transmission of electric current occurs has soared. Although physicists warn that several technical hurdles remain, com

LONDON—A novel international data base compiled on floppy disks may soon help American scientists disseminate their ideas for commercial applications of their work. This new venture in worldwide technology transfer is called Techstart International Inc. The New York company was founded by two entrepreneurs, Peter Ruof, formerly of the World Bank, and Paris del L'Etraz, a computer systems analyst with the Union Bank of Switzerland. The company plans to develop a network of national boards t

TRIESTE—This week Arturo Falaschi takes charge of 900 square meters of laboratory and office space in a newly completed facility just outside Trieste in northern Italy. He does so as director of the Italian portion of the new International Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB), set up by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) to bring the benefits of recombinant DNA and associated technologies to Third World countries. The Trieste lab and its coun

WASHINGTON—Some members of Congress are urging the administration to do more to carry out a law passed last year to help U.S. researchers and industry stay abreast of Japanese competition. At a Senate subcommittee hearing last month, Commerce Department officials were asked about their progress in implementing the Japanese Technical Literature Act. The act calls for the government to monitor technical developments in Japan, consult with the private sector about its needs for such informati

WASHINGTON—The changing nature of the field of mathematics has spawned efforts to alter the way math is taught in elementary and secondary school classrooms. The National Academy of Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, working with educators and policy-makers, have launched long-term projects to reform curricula, tests and textbooks. A key ingredient is expanded use of calculators and computers in the classroom. Last fall the National Science Foundation awa