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The world's foremost supplier of genetically engineered mice, the Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine, is scurrying to hire as many as 20 geneticists over the next three to four years. 

Now that the National Science Foundation's Strategic Systemic Initiative (SSI) is in its second year, with the second round of grants awarded on May 1, science educators have had a chance to assess the program's progress. And some of them are not pleased. Some critics contend that the initiative--an effort to foster widespread, comprehensive change in the way mathematics and science are taught in United States elementary and secondary public schools--is being hampered. The problem, they say,

Experts say opportunity is richest in areas where diverse fields of study intersect and where new tools thrive Given today's dismal economic climate, new science graduates aiming to gain a foothold on a professional career in research can expect to face a tougher challenge than did their counterparts in previous years. For a lot of them, according to working scientists and others interviewed for this article, the problems will be twofold: They must contend, of course, with the limited job poo

A recent document from the NRC is seen as a boost for entrepreneurs whose ventures center on the controversial technique A recently released National Research Council report on DNA fingerprinting not only puts the stamp of approval on the widely used technique, but also, according to one forensic scientist, should effectively mandate accreditation for labs preforming the test. And in the private sector, many in the business of providing DNA fingerprinting services and supplying reagents for D

In his home state and here, they cite the presidential candidate's inclination and aptitude for nurturing science The prospect of Bill Clinton as president--should scientists be concerned? Robert Wright, an environmental scientist who has worked in the Arkansas state university system under Clinton's governorship, says no. "Bill Clinton is a strong friend of the applied sciences," claims Wright, a professor of biology at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway. "He is acutely aware of w

Voters in Maryland strongly favor higher federal spending for health care and medical research, according to a recent poll commissioned by Research!America. The Alexandria, Va.- based nonprofit advocacy group sponsoring the study promotes the benefits of medical research. Seventy-six percent of those polled would increase federal spending on health care, while perennial favorites such as education and the environment fared slightly less well, with 72 percent and 68 percent, respectively, of re

Peace Dividend Slimy Characters Split Personality Move Over, Mickey Hair-Raising Possibilities Hormonal Edge Science, politics, and law intersected in a speech by Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz at a recent Philadelphia fund-raiser for Israel's Weizmann Institute of Science. Dershowitz, whose keynote address followed a talk by Hadassa Degani, head of Weizmann's nuclear magnetic resonance imaging and spectroscopy unit, said Israel's scientific prestige could exceed its curr

For 32 years, Richard Aulerich, a professor of animal science at Michigan State University, has dedicated his work to one area, mink research. An attack in late February by the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), however, destroyed his lab and most of his current data. Aulerich now finds himself in the center of what has become an archetypal struggle between those who favor animal rights and those who say they are engineering progress through the use of live animals. Mink research at MSU began in t

With recession taking its toll on campuses throughout the U.S., scientists seek ways to cope with hard times Sizable cutbacks in state funding to public and private academic institutions are taking an increasingly heavy toll on campus research, say university scientists and administrators throughout the United States. The debilitating impact, they claim, is being felt as the 1991-92 school year draws to a close. While summers past may have carried the promise to university researchers of a f

They fear that funding support for their vast gene-mapping project could erode now that the Nobelist is leaving While the head of the nation's premier health agency may not be losing sleep over the resignation of James Watson as head of the Human Genome Project (HGP), many genetic researchers are distressed to see him go. Genome scientists interviewed for this article say it will be difficult for the National Institutes of Health, via its search committee, to find someone with the same drive

Wisconsin geneticist Oliver Nelson: "Stick with the real problems. Stay flexible and learn new techniques." Scan the lists of grants awarded by the National Institutes of Health or the National Science Foundation and you'll find that there are several hundred scientists who seem to have the knack of finding a funding source and keeping it -- not for the one or two renewals that most scientists consider the answer to a prayer, but for two or three decades. How do they manage this? Scientists w

Henry Hurwitz, Jr., a physicist at General Electric Co. who pioneered the theory and design of nuclear power plants and most recently helped engineer the reactor for the Seawolf nuclear submarine, died April 14 in Schenectady, N.Y., at the age of 73. In 1955, a year after Fortune magazine named him as one of the top 10 scientists in U.S. industry, Hurwitz contributed to establishing the first atomic containment sphere for GE. The development advanced industry-wide safety protocols for enclosin