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As a schoolboy in England in the 1950s and ‘60s, I was first introduced to reference publishing by Kaye and Loby’s Tables. Here you could find all the “right” answers to experimental demonstrations in physics and chemistry, such as the viscosity of various mineral oils and Young’s modulus for steel, which then seemed rather remote from everyday life. And we used four-figure logarithm tables all the time. What a gold mine they were for publishers: in public examin

WASHINGTON—In what one observer called “its strongest international response in years,” the U.S. scientific community played a role in the ouster late last month of the unpopular government-appointed head of the University of Chile in Santiago. The National Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Institute of Medicine and the American Association of University Professors sent letters to Chilean President Gen. Augusto Pino- chet and

WASHINGTON—Almost five months after President Reagan announced the intention to nominate him, plasma physicist Robert Hunter waits in San Diego for word of his confirmation hearing to become director of the Office of Energy Research at the Department of Energy. The office, overseen since April by acting director James Decker after the departure of Alvin Trivelpiece, is the focal point for several of the hottest issues on the nation’s science agenda, including the Superconducting

LONDON—secrecy and the deliberate exclusion of information from the West are hadly damaging Soviet science, according to Academician Vitali Goldanski. In a strongly worded article in the general circulation monthly magazine Ogonyok (Little Flame), Goldanski recalled the harm caused by the misguided biological theories of Lysenko and drew attention to the problems faced by his colleagues in keeping abreast of outside developments. “In higher technical colleges everywhere,”

WASHINGTON—The American Psychological Association has beefed up its commitment to its scientific members as part of an internal realignment that intended to better serve the needs of an unusually diverse membership. A steady rise since the 1950s in the number of practitioners—those who provide health care directly to the public—has slowly tipped the balance against the academics and researchers who once dominated the 95-year-old association. As a result, that group has grown

WEST BERLIN—The chief funding agency for West German university scientists has proposed an ambitious expansion of its budget for the next three years. “The 1990s could become a time of blossoming for the German universities,” said Hubert Markl, president of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG).” The DFG, the German counterpart to the US. National Science Foundation, administered a budget of $600 million last year. That figure represents about 5 percent of the mo

LONDON—Squibb Corporation, the U.S. pharmaceutical company, plans to spend $32 million over the next seven years at Oxford University on basic neuroscience research. The agreement is one of the biggest between industry and academia since Hoechst announced its $50 million, 10-year investment in molecular biology at the Massachusetts General Hospital in 1982. Squibb is the first company to respond with cash to a workshop, organized jointly by the university and Britain’s Medical R

LONDON—An unusual alliance of scientific luminaries and the radical British Society for Social Responsibility in Science is campaigning for the adoption of an Oath for Scientists. Modeled after medicine’s Hippocratic Oath, it is a revised version of an earlier statement that recognizes the social impact of scientific developments. The 19 initial signatories of the oath include three Nobel laureates—Sir John Kendrew, president of the International Council of Scientific Unions

ZURICH—With two Nobel prizes in as many years, something good has to be going on at IBM’s research laboratory in Rüschlikon on the outskirts of this city. But apart from an environment that offers fine wines, Swiss cheeses and, on a clear day, a postcard view of the Alps, is there a lesson for other industrial research labs? The IBM lab’s achievements are by now familiar. Last year’s Nobel Prize in physics went to IBM researchers Gerd Binning and Heinrich Rohrer

WASHINGTON—NIH may lose a program to train researchers in primary medical care because of congressional concern that the money is going to researchers in other fields. The General Accounting Office has concluded that all 16 of the National Research Service Awards that NIH earmarked for work in primary health care in 1986, totaling $2.1 million, are instead supporting “biomedical research on specific diseases and in specialty areas of medicine rather than primary care.” Awar

AUSTIN, TEXAS—The Wild West has a new hero. Abraham Charnes, the founder of the Center of Cybernetic Studies at the University of Texas, has unhoistered mathematical equations to help Texas farmers win a long court battle over water rights from the Pecos River. The headwaters of the Pecos lie in central New Mexico. Flowing southward into West Texas to join the Rio Grande, the river runs through some of the most arid country in the United States. Texas and New Mexico have argued over

LONDON—Higher salaries at private companies have left Britain’s Ministry of Defense with hundreds of vacancies in its $12 billion procurement office. Ten percent of the 9,200 specialist posts are now unfilled. The problem is particularly acute among electrical and electronics engineers who assess, order and monitor the performance of sophisticated weapons systems. “We face a diabolical situation in defense procurement,” said Jenny Thurston, assistant general secretar