The Scientist - Home

PEOPLE RALPH E. GOMORY has been appointed chief scientist of International Business Machines Corp. and will head an organization consolidating IBM's divisions of research, technology assessment and university relations. Gomory joined IBM in 1959 as a research mathematician and was named an IBM fellow in 1964. He headed IBM's research division since 1970 and was elected a vice president in 1973 and a senior vice president in 1985. BRYANT W. ROSSITER has joined ICN Pharmaceuticals as vice presiden

WASHINGTON -Alvin Thaler of the National Science Foundation thinks scientists should not have to play elaborately boring games on their computers to be able to ex change information with their colleagues. A new $2 million program within the Foundation's Office of Information Systems holds out the eventual hope of permitting the free and easy exchange of data that is supposed to be the hallmark of science. The first step is called EXPRES, which stands for EXPerimental Research in Electronic Submi

LONDON-If international science is a race, Great Britain is beginning to tire. A study published this month shows a steady decline in Britain's scientific performance from 1973 through 1982. The decline is par-ticularly steep in physics, where the country of Maxwell and Lord Kelvin has been overtaken in many respects by France, West Germany and Japan. The Royal Society conducted the study on behalf of the government's science policy advisers after earlier figures suggesting a fall in the country

The typical U.S. scientist is a white male college professor of around 50 who juggles teaching and research, has been in his job a decade or more, and earns between $50,000 and $60,000 a year, according to a survey of almost 700 researchers undertaken by THE SCIENTIST. His salary accounts for almost all of his income, although he makes a little extra from such activities as consulting, honoraria, writing and, in one case, growing grapes. His employer underwrites a long vacation, sick leave and p

WASHINGTON-Government agencies, in their zeal to demonstrate support for biotechnology research, may have unintentionally complicated efforts to regulate the burgeoning field, according to federal officials. "We have opened up a complex regulatory world that need not have been," asserted David Kingsbury of the National Science Foundation. There is a growing "tendency to 'do' all of biology," he added, as conscientious regulators "examine things that have been going on for long periods of time. W

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M-Gary Seawright has a confession to make. "I'm probably an entrepreneur in scientist's clothing, and have been all along." The experiences of the former virologist at Los Alamos National Laboratory demonstrate both the perils and pleasures of moving technological discoveries from the laboratory to the marketplace. That subject was the topic of discussion at a congressional hearing and a two-day conference here. Seawright left Los Alamos in 1984 to join fellow scientists Randy Bro

WASHINGTON-Officials at the National Science Foundation are considering major changes in a five-year-old program that provides federal science agencies with information on research topics that are ripe for additional funding. The program was begun in 1982 at the request of George Keyworth II, former presidential science adviser and director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. It enlisted researchers in an annual effort to identify a handful of fields where additional fund

Editor's note: The new tax reform package approved this fall by Congress will affect the scientific community along with the rest of the U.S. economy. THE SCIENTIST talked with representatives of that community about important provisions of the law that. will shape the future of scientific research and development in academia, throughout private industry and in the public sector. Their comments have been combined into a question-and-answer format. What will be the overall im-pact of tax reform o

WASHINGTON-The Association of American Universities has brought together university administrators and congressional staff in a new effort to stop the growing practice of lobbying Congress to obtain funds to build academic research facilities. Known by its detractors as pork-barrel politics, the approach has long been a favorite among those seeking dams, federal buildings and highways. Since 1983, however, it has become the favored route for dozens of universities and research facilities that ha

WASHINGTON-China is moving ahead with its reform of science and technology by weaning re search institutes from state support, rewarding scientists who develop commercial products, and encouraging proposals for basic re search from individual investigators. Wu Mingyu, vice minister in the State Science and Technology Commission, discussed these and other developments during a recent 10-day visit to the United States. Wu led a six-man delegation that gathered information on the relationship betwe

COPENHAGEN-The use of human embryos in industry should be banned and their use in therapeutic and scientific work strongly regulated, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has recommended to its 22 members. Its recommendation, approved Sept. 25, calls on European governments to forbid "the maintenance of embryos in vitro beyond the 14th day after fertilization." "We realize the scientific world will find this very restrictive," said Bjoern Elmquist, a Danish member of parliament an