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WASHINGTON—A group of public interest organizations has asked the United Nations to develop international standards for the re lease of genetically altered organ isms into the environment in the wake of recent experiments by American researchers in Argentina and New Zealand. The organizations, which included the Committee for Responsible Genetics, the Environmental Policy Institute, and the Natural Resources Defense Council, also asked the U.S. government to re view all federally funded g

Author: JOHN POLKINGHORNE Date: December 15, 1986 I am a subscriber to the “great man” theory of the history of science—the view that it is the insights of the men of genius that actually propel the subject. No doubt there is also a role for those of us who belong to the army of honest toilers, providing the background of expectation and exploitation, but the big ideas come from the big men. The first big man of theoretical physics that I knew was Paul Dirac, whose intellec

WASHINGTON—A small Salt Lake City horticultural firm thought it had a marketable idea when it found strains of a fungus that significantly improves the ability of plants to absorb water and nutrients. But Native Plants Inc. didn't have enough money to conduct the necessary research, and venture capital companies weren't interested in an unknown company. Enter the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, an attempt to share a small part of the federal R&D budget with small, high-

BRISTOL, ENGLAND—A survey of adults in Britain has found that: Three-quarters believe astrology is scientific, but only a bare majority believe ecology is; 33 percent of the population believe that penicillin attacks viruses; 20 percent see carbon dioxide as the chief cause of acid rain; 37 percent believe proteins “provide most of the energy needs of the human body,” and 19 percent chose vitamins. Only 36 percent chose carbohydrates. Those sobering findings are pa

LONDON—Nearly 90 percent of French teenagers expect scientists to find a cure for cancer within 20 years. A little more than 40 percent believe science will eliminate hunger in that time, 61 percent think it will make daily life easier, and 15 percent expect scientists to have “blown up the world.” These forecasts come from a survey of 5,000 adolescent readers of the French general interest magazine Okapi. The results indicate considerable optimism about science coupled with a

WASHINGTON—There is no single survey of American attitudes to-ward science that compares with the British and French polls. How-ever, the National Science Board of the National Science Foundation regularly reviews existing surveys in its biennial Science Indicators, an assessment of the overall state of American science and technology. The 1985 edition reports: Forty-seven percent of 943 respondents to a 1985 survey said they had a “great deal of confidence” in scientific le

WASHINGTON—The National Science Foundation has added two awards to its Research Opportunities for Women program that will provide funds for planning grants and career advancement. “The new programs were de signed to provide further opportunities and more flexibility to women scientists and engineers,” said Margrete S. Klein, program coordinator for the Research Opportunities for Women pro-gram. “The Research Planning Grants encourage women to pre pare grant proposals and

AUSTIN, TEXAS—The Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MCC) violates some fundamental precepts of establishment science. But four years after its creation by a dozen of the country's major high-technology firms, it shows promise of providing American industry with a new model for getting the results of science off the bench and into the market place. The corporation imposes severe restraints on the free exchange of information—both with the outside world and in-hou

WASHINGTON—A clearer focus and greater financial support from private industry hold the key to the survival of the National Coalition for Science and Technology. The Coalition, formed in 1981, has struggled to persuade the scientific community that it needs an overtly political organization to advocate greater resources for science. Its new slogan, “NCST—The Science Lobby,” is meant to highlight its broad focus and set it apart from the hundreds of associations and orga

SYDNEY—The Australian government appears ready to follow the state of Victoria in passing a law that bans embryo experiments. According to Melbourne researcher Ian Trounson, a pioneer in work on test-tube babies, these moves threaten to stifle progress in the prevention of genetic abnormalities and the improvement of success rates for in vitro fertilization.

AMSTERDAM—A graduate-level institute to train experts in micro-electronics and information science, based on collaboration between industry and government, will open next fall in The Hague. The impetus for the new school, to be called The Hague Advanced School of Applied Informatics, came from a report last year that predicted an annual demand for 2,900 information scientists in this country, where universities could produce at most 1,200. That report, financed by the government and some

LONDON—A decision this month by Education and Science Secretary Kenneth Baker on how to allocate the additional 24 million pounds ($34 million) that the British government has promised to spend on science research is expected to push the country closer to dropping out of CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) and ending its support of particle physics. The Advisory Board for the Research Councils met late last month to advise Baker on solutions to the crisis facing academi