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More Millions For Fellowships? Changes may be afoot in the handling of the Markey Trust. Ever since 1983, a year after Lucille P. Markey, owner of thorough-bred breeding stable Calumet Farms, died in Miami, the Lucille P. Markey Charitable Trust has been spending about $40 million a year on biomedical research. Markey’s goal was for her foundation to spend both the endowment ($300 million) and its income within 15 years, and quietly go out of business. So far, the foundation has funded b

Have Gear, Will Travel A major upgrade would normally be considered a sure sign of rowth at a national lab. But when the upgrade—in this case, a million dollar spectrometer—is specially designed to be transportable to other labs, there’s reason to wonder how long its creator will be around. That’s the word among scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory’s experimental accelerator facility, known as LAMPF. Last month, officials there decided to back a proposal b

If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t FCCSET? In 1976 Congress created the Federal Coordinating Council for Science, Engineering and Technology (FCCSET) to set overall federal policy in science. Known to insiders by its acronym, pronounced “fix-it,’ the 1 4-member council brings together the heads of all of the federal agencies that fund basic research. But the council, led by science adviser William Graham, has a major image problem: Its approach to tackling problems that range fro

Patent Protection For Worcester Discovery In an effort to speed the development of anti-AIDS drugs—and, perhaps, to profit in the process—the Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology has patented a class of substances known as anti-sense DNA.” These are pieces of synthetic DNA that have the ability to enter cells and “lock on” to the genes of a virus. The patent, received Feb. 21, is for work conducted by institution scientists Paul C. Zamecnik and John Goodc

Different Takes On The Weather Forecast U.S. and Soviet scientists are studying the greenhouse effect using very different methods—and, as a result, are coming up with some vastly divergent predictions for the future. U.S. researchers, who are modeling future scenarios with the help of supercomputers, forecast rising temperatures accompanied by summer droughts. But Soviet climatologists, who lack access to powerful number-crunchers, rely upon analyses of past climates to predict future t

Boosting Appreciation Of Science Your firm may want to take a page from the idea book of the Yale Council of Engineering: To celebrate February’s National Engineers Week, the council set its sights on increasing the number of books relating to science in area libraries. Realizing that the most successful effort would grow out of a strong community partnership, the council began by enlisting the help of local libraries and companies, it asked the Connecticut Library Association to make up

Monsanto Co. and the Soviet Union have brought glasnost to the lab with a three-year agreement to establish a joint laboratory at the modem Shemyakin Institute of Bio-organic Chemistry in Moscow. The agreement marks the first time that a bio- technology company has launched a major collaboration with the Soviet Union. The laboratory will be staffed by 10 to 15 Soviet scientists now being recruited from other laboratories at Shemyakin, and supported by Monsanto with a contribution of $300,00

Transgenic Sciences Is Metamorphosing Transgenic Sciences lnc.—a startup that is banking on a future where chickens lay eggs that contain pharmaceutical proteins, pigs grow up with more meat and less fat than-they do now, and mice produce beneficial human proteins in their milk—is undergoing a few transformations itself this month. Led by new CEO James Sherblom, formerly of Genzyme Corp., the firm aims to raise $5 million and augment its scientific staff as a result of the initial

[Editor’s note: Born in Cornwall in 1924, the son of a bank manager and a farmer’s daughter, Antony Hewish always enjoyed doing things with his hands. As a boy, he made models, gunpowder, and fireworks; decades later, he put his skills to good use helping to build and maintain some of the early radiotelescopes. When Hewish first started listening for radio signals from space, radioastronomy was an unfashionable field. But it soon became glamorous—and Hewish’s pioneerin

LIVERMORE, CALIF.—It seemed like a great idea at the time: In the spring of 1987, chemist Bob Peny, armed with a quiet resolve and the patent to a pollution-reducing process he had discovered while a researcher at Sandia National Laboratory’s Combustion Research Facility (CRF) in Livermore, left a secure, challenging, and well-paying job to start his own company, Technor Inc. Launched with a Department of Energy Small Business and Innovation Research grant, the startup seemed de

TOKYO—Takashi Chikayama is a true hacker—a person who spends long hours working to crack difficult software codes, not because he’s paid overtime, but because he loves programming. Unlike most members of his scientific cadre however, he doesn’t work in a basement university lab in Cambridge, Mass., or a plush office in Silicon Valley. Chikayama’s home is Tokyo—and he is Japan’s newest and quite possibly most potent weapon in the international battle

WASHINGTON—To some scientists the title will sound impressive; to others, it will be simply obscure: associate director for natural resources, energy, and science at the Office of Management and Budget. But scientists ought to know who carries this portfolio, because the person in that office has the potential to relax or squeeze important parts of the federal research budget for science. The current occupant is R6bert Grady. a newly appointed (see story, page 1) political scientist