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WASHINGTON—The Somalia government has commuted the death sentences of two American-trained scientists whose brutal treatment in prison was the focus of an onsite visit by a delegation from the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and Institute of Medicine. The two men, civil engineer Suleiman Nuh Ali and mathematician Abdi Ismail Yonis, have instead received 24-year prison sentences after having been convicted of treason during a trial last month. A spokesman for the Somalia government sa

WEST BERLIN—West German scientists appear to be increasingly unhappy with their government’s decision to boost spending on space research at the expense of fundamental science. The Fraunhofer Society for the Promotion of Applied Research, the principal state organization funding applied sciences, has come out against the 16 percent increase for space planned in the country’s 1988 R&D budget. It echoes earlier criticism from the Max Planck Society, which is devoted to basic

WASHINGTON-A $363 million request for the Superconducting Supercollider, part of the Department of Energy's proposed research budget, faces an uncertain future in Congress. DOE officials will face some tough questions on the SSC at hearings later this week, said Edd Nolan, an aide to Rep. Tom Bevill (D-Ala.), chairman of the House appropriations subcommittee on energy and water. Bevill "doesn't know where the money is going to come from," said Nolan. The new proposal would consume one-fift

WASHINGTON—The proposed 5.4 percent increase next year for NIH is expected to be taken more seriously by Congress than previous budgets that President Reagan has submitted for health research. The 1989 request would lift the current NIH budget of $6.667 billion to $7.123 billion, a figure that includes $588 million for AIDS research. Last year NIH received $448 million for AIDS, a little less than one-half of the total federal spending on the disease. “This is the most realisti

Overall research and development accounts for $4.4 billion of the NASA budget request, up 33 percent from this year’s $3.3 billion. The largest share is the $967 million sought for the space station, which received $392 million this year. Other features of the NASA budget request were an increase from $52 million to $84 million for NASA’s participation in the transatmospheric research for the hypersonic aerospace plane project, and a five-fold increase, from $20 million to $102 mil

LONDON—The United States appears to have acceded to Western European demands for greater control over certain elements of the space station, paving the way for an agreement as early as next month on the $30 billion international project. Previous talks had floundered on American insistence that it remain in sole charge of the orbiting base, which is due to house laboratories for scientific experiments and accommodate about eight people. But last month, at a meeting in Washington with re

Michael Dukakis Governor of Massachusetts since 1982 and from 1974 to 1978. When U.S. presidential candidates take to the stump, science and technology policy is not among the principal topics they address. Press them about specific proposals-whether they would reinstitute the President's Science Advisory Committee, for example, or how they would pay for a space station or for sequencing the human genome-and many veer off into abstractions. While they may be more comfortable talking abou

BOSTON—For the 20,000 members of the American Mathematical Society, this year’s centennial is an occasion for both celebration and concern. American mathematics in many ways is at its zenith in terms of prestige and scope. Yet federal support for the “pure” mathematics represented by the AMS has failed to keep up with inflation, and there is little hope for a turnabout until the federal deficit is brought under control. There is turmoil as well inside the AMS. After a

NEWS ANALYSIS WASHINGTON—Budget analysts refer to it as Account 302b. But scientists may want to use more colorful names once they realize it will almost certainly block the sizable R&D increases being proposed for 1989 by President Reagan. The budget process works well when spending is rising gradually each year,” observed John Hoimfeld, a staff member of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee who later this year will complete a multi-volume report on science policy fo

FRANKFURT—Environmental groups have managed to delay the construction here of a test plant to process genetically engineered human insulin. The argument over the facility, proposed by the giant chemical and pharmaceutical company Hoechst, has focused attention on the absence of binding legal regulations for biotechnology production facilities. Hoechst Chairman Wolfgang Hilger has called the latest setback “terrifying” and “ridiculous.” Last October Hoechst receiv

Changing times have depleted the ranks of physicians who enter into careers as researchers. The shortage of physician-scientists has prompted the National Institutes of Health, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and similar organizations to offer fellowships and other incentives to entice graduated M.D.s into research careers. But these inducements may come too late in the education of a physician. Scientists often choose their careers because they were exposed at some point to a laboratory.

Ed Connors wants to send an SOS message to Congress: “Sorry, Out of Scientists.” That message makes Connors, a professor of mathematics at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, the winner of THE SCIENTIST’s slogan contest (see November 2, 1987, p. 2). Readers were invited to submit “the best phrase to describe the pending shortage of scientific manpower in the United States” in five words or less. Connors tried but failed to get a local slogan competition