The Scientist - Home

Early Warning About 12 seconds before the October 17 earthquake shook the San Francisco and Oakland region, 10 sensors placed along the Bay Area Rapid Transit’s subsurface rail lines warned of the imminent tragedy. Detecting the harmless “P waves” that arrived from the earthquake’s epicenter shortly before the more destructive “S waves,” the sensors triggered an alarm system that brought the trains to a crawl until they reached their next stations. The senso

WASHINGTON—Four months after one federal agency killed the prospect of government support of cold fusion, a second agency has brought it back to life. The strange phenomenon of low-temperature nuclear fusion, announced at the University of Utah with great fanfare March 23 by two chemists, took another bizarre turn last month when a self-described “upbeat, enthusiastic” panel of experts assembled by the National Sci ence Foundation’s engineering division concluded tha

On Feb. 5, 1987, Vilma Ponce and her infant daughter were stabbed to death in their Bronx, N.Y., apartment. Police arrested a suspect, Joseph Castro, on whose wristwat they found a small bloodstain. The police took the evidence to Lifecodes Corp. in Valhalla, N.Y., where lab analysis convinced the company’s scientists that DNA retrieved from the blood on the watchface matched that of the dead woman. If true, this would have put Castro at the scene of the crime. Chances of the match bei

WASHINGTON—”Vietnamese science,” says physicist Nguyen Van Hieu, “is only a little boy. We hope that the United States can help us to become strong and healthy.” Fourteen years after the end of a bitter war, Vietnam is trying to enlist U.S. scientists in an ambitious campaign to rebuild its impoverished country. The job won’t be easy: The U.S. has a ban on all trade with Vietnam, the two governments have no diplomatic relations, and there is no tradition

A year ago, Ira Rubinoff was considering a gala celebration, with lots of media and top brass, to dedicate the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute’s new $8 million laboratory in Panama City. Not any more. When the Earl S. Tupper Research and Conference Center finally opens its doors this winter, months behind schedule, the event will be decidely low-key. Given the increasingly tense political situation between the United States and Panama, Rubinoff isn’t eager to draw atten

WASHINGTON—When forest biologist Richard Condit of Princeton University applied for a grant to study how trees in tropical forests are related, the National Science Foundation told him that he had a great idea. But they rejected his application because he couldn’t prove that his approach would work. Condit is trying again, but NSF has decided to give scientists like him a chance to prove their theories without wasting a lot of federal money on experiments that don't work. The ne

From Orphan To Startup After being bought and sold and then finally told that he just wasn’t wanted anymore, computer scientist David Jenkins is now calling the shots for his own computer hardware company, Visionary Systems Inc. of New Haven, Conn. It all began in 1986 when Jenkins was working on microchips for array processing boards as part of ITT’s Advanced Technology Center in Shelton, Conn. In December of that year, ITT sold Jenkins’ Cellular Array Processor project, alo

WASHINGTON—In 1985 the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health decided to find out if computer monitors cause miscarriages. So it did what any good research body would do: It drew up a questionnaire to ask women about their medical history, work and home life, and fertility. But because NIOSH is a federal agency, the survey first had to pass muster at the Office of Management and Budget (0MB). 0MB rejected it, carrying out its authority under a 1980 law, meant to reduce

The Merger That Didn’t Happen After months of discussions, plans for a merger of the nation’s two largest biotechnology associations have fallen through. The Industrial Biotechnology Association had proposed joining forces with the Association of Biotechnology Companies in July. In discussions that went on through the summer, the two Washington-based organizations couldn’t resolve questions about equal representation of their members, according to the ABC’s new executiv

Officials of the Fogarty International Center, a National Institutes of Health unit that has brought 2,700 foreign postdoctoral researchers to the United States since 1958, are considering steps to involve more scientists from Third World nations. A study of the center’s International Research Fellowship (IRF) program, commissioned by NIH and conducted by an independent firm earlier this year, generally praised the program, which was established to promote cooperation in biomedical re

Six months ago the Antarctic Minerals Convention seemed assured of passage. The treaty, eight years in the making, proposed strict—and some say neatly impossible—environmental standards for oil and mineral prospecting in the Antarctic. But today many observers believe the measure is as good as dead. Australia, France, and several other countries have withdrawn their support of the pact under pressure from environmentalists, who fear that if a mechanism—no matter how rigorou

The fence between industry and academia seems like a precarious place to sit. But a team of California scientists makes the balancing act look easy. Their perch on that fence has been the perfect place for cranking out highly cited research, including four “Hot Papers” identified by The Scientist in the past year (May I, 1989, page 12). The laboratories of immunologists Robert Coffman and Tim Mosmann are side by side on the secondfloor of DNAX Research Institute in Palo Alto. Se