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WASHINGTON—The Reagan administration is seeking congressional sponsors for a bill that would revive plans to create a federally funded think tank to support research on the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). A move by the Pentagon last year to establish the proposed SDI Institute was blocked on Capitol Hill after questions were raised about the need for the center, its staffing and independence. According to one Senate staff member who requested anonymity, "the SDI Institute is in better

CHICAGO—Alvin W. Trivelpiece will take office April 1 as executive officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the AAAS announced February 15 at its annual meeting here. He succeeds Wffliam D. Carey, who is retiring after 12 years at the head of the nation's oldest and largest genera! science membership organization. The appointment was reported first in the February 9 issue of THE SCIENTIST. Triveipiece, 56, a nuclear physicist with experience in industry, academia a

CHICAGO—A new National Academy of Sciences report will recommend that basic science become "the principal objective of the space program." Speaking here at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Thomas M. Donahue outlined some of the major recommendations of the Academy's Space Science Board report, entitled "Major Directions for Space Science: 1995-2015." Donahue is an astrophysicist at the University of Michigan and chairman of the Space Science Bo

WELLINGTON, N.Z.—There are prospects for a major change in science and technology policy in New Zealand following the release of a comprehensive and plain-speaking report. The report, completed in December but just now being discussed, said the "key to prosperity" lies in moving the nation rapidly toward a Scandanavian-type economy based on science and technology, (e.g. small, high-value, high tech products in medicine, electronics and biotechnology). The report is named after Sir David Be

WEST BERLIN—A new Academy of Science to be created here has sharpened debate about the best way to improve the quality of research carried out in the city. On March 12 the city's parliament is expected to pass a bill introduced by the governing Christian Democrats to establish such an academy, the sixth in West Germany and the second in this divided city. (The academy in East Berlin is the legal successor of the Prussian Academy of Science, founded in 1700). There has been talk for many ye

LONDON—British science policy advisers sent their government a message of gloom and dismay along with their recommendations for the country's 1987-88 science budget. And they were backed by opposition politicians in the House of Lords who said the country's industrial future was threatened by its weak support for research. The Advisory Board for the Research Councils (ABRC) decided to award 20 million of the 24 million pounds ($34 million) that were added to Britain's 300-million-pound aca

WASHINGTON—When Donald Armstrong of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and his collaborators began to search for compounds that could kill the AIDS virus, they took an increasingly popular approach to the development of anti-viral drugs: they designed their own. Since October the National Institutes of Health have spent or set aside about $25 million for projects like Armstrong‘s that take a targeted approach to developing drugs against AIDS. Most extramural funding for the p

STOCKHOLM—The Swedish government hopes to increase its budget for research and development by $180 million over the next three years. The 3 percent increase will raise its R&D spending, already among the highest in the world at a rate of 2.7 percent of Gross National Product, to $5.7 billion. Nearly one-half of the new money will go into higher education, new research posts and professorships. The government will also push ahead with its controversial plan to compel commercial banks to con

WASHINGTON—More than four months after the Institute of Medicine issued its well-publicized report on AIDS, the disease is still outpacing federal efforts to contain and understand it. "Since the report came out, a lot has happened as far as the epidemic spreading, but very little has been done to implement the strongly felt recommendations of the panel," said June Osborn, dean of the University of Michigan School of Public Health and a member of the group that prepared the report. The nec

WASHINGTON—NIH is cutting research grants to scientists by as much as 20 percent to keep in step with a Reagan budget proposal that is given little chance of being adopted this year by Congress. Lobbying organizations for the biomedical community are preparing to sue the government to halt what they claim is a violation of the wishes of Congress and of the appropriate procedure to achieve such spending reductions. The administration, believing Congress was overly generous to NIH, wants to

PALMERSTON NORTH, N.Z.—A battle is looming over proposed restrictions on research involving in vitro fertilization (IVF) in Australia, a world leader in such studies. The extent of concern among scientists was evident in papers delivered during the annual meeting of the Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science (ANZAAS), held here in late January. "In the coming months, the federal Australian parliament may well become an epicenter of biomedical shock," said Rus

Corporate restructurings are forcing some U.S. companies to curtail R&D spending even as they are being urged to increase such investments to remain competitive. Many companies, saddled by the massive debts often involved in such transactions, are having "to change their business strategy from long-term to shorter-term cash flow, which can't help but have an adverse effect on R&D," said Roland W. Schmitt, senior vice president and chief scientist at General Electric and chairman of NSF's Nationa