The Scientist - Home

TUCSON—Karen Saucier’s first glimpse of her new workplace—the insect molecular genetics laboratory at South Carolina’s Clemson University—came as a shocking disappointment. “I almost cried,” recalls Saucier, who had just left a high-powered postdoctoral fellowship at a human genetics laboratory at the University of Miami and was eager to apply those techniques to insects. What confronted her upon arriving at Clemson last year was a huge storage room

From dedication inscriptions accompanying 17th-century Jesuit astronomical texts to the genesis of today’s animal rights debate, the past and present of scientific discovery were put under the microscope last month as the History of Science Society met at the University of Flor- ida, Gainesville, for its 65th annual conference. To society officials, several aspects of the three-day event affirmed not only the current vitality of the organization, but also its promising future: overal

The National Science Foundation’s cancellation of funding for the John von Neumann National Supercomputer Center has, as might be expected, drawn sharp criticism from supporters of the Princeton, N.J., facility. But here, the move is being watched as a leading indicator of where the program is headed. Assuming the failure of a lastditch effort by the Princeton center to reverse NSF’s rejection of its request for $70 million over the next five years, NSF officials say that the e

Fireworks At The Foundation Every year during the holiday season, Bassam Shakhashiri, NSF associate director for science and engineering education, performs a flashy chemistry demonstration intended to get children excited about science. This year, however, Shakhashiri has begun his pyrotechnics a little early with a controversial campaign to increase spending on education, including a recent article in Science (246:317, 1989) that examines his wish for a $600 million annual budget, three time

Navy Hikes New Investigators Awards For scientists who earned their doctoral degrees after Dec. 1, 1984, the Office of Naval Research now offers an even bigger Young Investigator Award. ONR will award about a dozen grants of at least $75,000 per year to young tenure-track scientists who are not already holding ONR contracts. The previous awards were limited to $50,000. Applicants can submit proposals to any of ONR’s 13 divisions. The award can cover salary, equipment, graduate student su

Eugene Cronkite, of the Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, N.Y., received the 17th Robert de Villiers Award from the Leukemia Society of America in recognitionof his research on hematopoiesis, the process by which the cellular elements of blood are formed. Cronkite, the recipient of a medal and a cash prize of $10,000, has been a member of the Brookhaven staff since 1954. He earmed his A.B. degree in 1935 and his M.D. in 1940, both from Stanford University. In the 1960s, Cronkite develope

WASHINGTON—Congress wants to cap the salaries that biomedical scientists receive for their work on federal research grants. Although the proposed limit .may not actually shrink the paychecks of individual scientists and will save the National Institutes of Health only about $10 million annually, it represents the latest move in a campaign to force universities to pick up a greater share of the cost of their research faculty. Asking universities to take on that burden, according to feder

Exit The Fusion Critic The persistent rumors that Robert Hunter was on his way out as director of DOE’s Office of Energy Research came true last month when Hunter resigned, effective immediately. His abrupt departure marked the end of a year-long battle with advocates of magnetic-confinement fusion projects like the Princeton Plasma Lab’s tokamak. Hunter preferred a process known as inertial-confinement fusion that is being developed at Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore national la

PHOENIX—It’s not often that Stephen Lisberger, a neurobiologist at the University of California, San Francisco speaks to 400 scientists at one sitting. But there was standing room only at this month’s 19th annual meeting of the Society for Neu- roscience when Lisberger—who uses monkeys to study eye movement—and two other researchers shared their experiences with proponents of theanimal rights movement. That panel discussion was one of three sessions designed t

Lederberg Plans Ahead With his successor, David Baltimore, waiting in the wings, Joshua Lederberg, president of the Rockefeller University in New York, can now think about his retirement. Lederberg, who has served as president since 1978, says he’s “looking forward to another change.” Lederberg will retire at the end of June, after reaching the mandatory retirement age of 65 in May. As for the future, “I’m still making my plans,” he says. “I’ll r

Lab’s Second Journal Debuts The Long Island, N.Y.-based Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory recently began publishing its second journal. Cancer Cells: A Monthly Review made its debut in September, joining Genes and Development, the lab’s 2 1/2-year-old periodical. “The lab has a big, publishing program, but it’s primarily books,” says Paula Kiberstis, Cancer Cells' editor. Kiberstis foresees even more Cold Spring Harbor journals in the pipeline: “The publications

WASHINGTON—A federal agency that polices the accuracy of U.S. advertising has sent a message to industry that it must report scientific results fairly and completely. Last month the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. reached an agreement on an FTC complaint brought against a 1985 advertisement by Reynolds that discussed the findings from a major National Institutes of Health-funded clinical trial aimed at reducing deaths from coronary heart disease. They