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Too late, scientists agree too little is known about an Arizona mountaintop set to become a haven for astrophysical research University of Washington anthropologist Don Grayson went to Tucson in October to take part in discussions concerning the history of mammals in the desert Southwest. He left believing that he had taken part in an autopsy. The victim was Mount Graham, a mountain slated to become the home of up to seven telescopes. Like many of the 50 participants in the "Workshop on the Bi

Nationalism is major issue in much of developing world as U.S. scientists seek to learn more about this endangered ecosystem When Harvard entomologist E.O. Wilson thinks about the 1950s, his recollections are tinged with more than a little nostalgia. Not because life was necessarily better then, he explains. But his kind of science was certainly easier to do. Wilson, a noted authority on tropical ants and widely recognized as the "father" of sociobiology, the study of how biological traits in

When Charles S. Johnson and his colleagues designed an experiment that standard nuclear magnetic resonance equipment couldn't handle, they decided to build a unit that could. The result: an electrophoretic NMR, a device that combines electrophoresis (a method of separating and identifying large molecules) and high-resolution NMR (a means of performing chemical analyses). "We're doing NMR in the presence of a large electric field," explains Johnson, Smith Professor of Chemistry at the University

Yet another voice in the scientific community's debate over animal research has made itself heard. The New York-based Medical Research Modernization Committee, a group of health care professionals who say that "most animal `models' are irrelevant or outdated," has published its first issue of Perspectives on Animal Research. Stephen Kaufman, an ophthalmologist and coeditor of the new journal, says its main purpose is to evaluate the clinical significance of different research methods, such as c

Researchers, discouraged by mapping's drudgery, doubt that a 5-year plan to finish high-resolution image is now feasible. WASHINGTON--After three years of escalating expectations, rising financial support, and congressional accolades, the Human Genome Initiative has encountered its first major hurdle. A key element of the project has fallen several years behind schedule, in part because peer review panels at the National Institutes of Health decided that some incoming grant proposals on the to

With a neuroscience institute in Washington and an emphasis on basic research, FIDIA aims to bolster respect worldwide WASHINGTON - Long after the vinyl and paper folders from a typical scientific conference have been tossed in the trash, a genuine imported leather portfolio with bright red decorative stitching and the inscription: "FIDIA-Georgetown Institute for the Neurosciences, November 3, 1985" is likely to remain on the shelves of many scientists. It's just too nice to throw away. That

Under attack by animal rights campaigners, federal health agencies counter with a vigorous drive yo gain public support WASHINGTON - Top health officials in the Bush administration have begun an offensive on behalf of the use of animals in research. Their campaign is meant to counter the continuing efforts by animal rights activists to disrupt and condemn animal research as part of the movement's broader attack on the treatment of animals. This new, more aggressive attempt to preserve a scien

A university institute for the optical sciences has turned Tucson into a haven for startups and new research. TUCSON--In 1981, scientists at IBM were looking for a better way to check whether the surfaces of the company's magnetic tapes were smooth. Dragging a stylus along the tape, the conventional method, threatened to damage the surface. Then IBM optics engineer Bherat Bhushen had a bright idea. Why not look for irregularities by bouncing light off the surface? Bhushen turned for help to J

Optimizing A New Journal A sure sign that a realm of science or mathematics is gaining recognition is an increase in the number of journals devoted to the field. And that kind of growth is what optimization - the study of the mathematical procedures involved in making something as functional and effective as possible - is getting now, thanks to the Philadelphia-based Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics. John E. Dennis, Jr., chairman of the mathematical sciences department at Rice Uni

The Incredible Shrinking Tax Credit Congress has once again retained tax credits to companies both for their in-house R&D and for contributions to basic research at universities and other nonprofit research institutions. But the credit is steadily shrinking. The original law for new R&D spending was a 25% credit for four years. In 1986 the credit was extended for two years and lowered to 20%, and in 1988 one more year was added. The basic research credit, created in 1986, has followed a similar

The president's global change program looks impressive, thanks to a cooperative Congress and some sleight of hand. WASHINGTON--This year the federal government will invest $664 million to study global climate change, a fivefold increase over its 1989 efforts. But this seemingly huge increase is more a reflection of a broader definition than of a bigger pocketbook. The biggest change occurred when the National Aeronaytics and Space Administration shifted almost $500 million into its global chan

GTE Sponsors Science And Society Talks "Technology and Ethics" is the theme of the 1990-91 GTE Lectureship Program, which provides grants of up to $4,000 to sponsor talks on university and college campuses about science, technology, and society. The program seeks to encourage public awareness and participation in issues related to science and technology and to stimulate universities to develop an interdisciplinary focus on these issues both inside and outside their campuses. The S&H Founda