The Scientist - Home

WASHINGTON-In the early 1980s, the lonely voices seeking funds for AIDS research were barely audible amid the din from the biomedical community as a whole. Over the past eight years, however, with the public also demanding that science step up its battle against the devastating-disease, the United States government has poured $5.5 billion into the AIDS epidemic, including $2.1 billion in the current year ending September 30. So far, about 40% of that total, nearly $2.2 billion, has been spent on

WASHINGTON-In an ambitious answer to the National Institutes of Health's Human Genome Project, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has sprouted plans for a parallel project to map the genetic structure of key food plants. The proposal, presented by USDA program manager Jerome Miksche at a meeting of the NIH genome project's advisory committee in June, would identify genetic traits that can increase yield and disease resistance. The price tag is estimated to be $500 million over 10 years. In recen

A team of geneticists working at the University of Pennsylvania has developed a technology that could speed the mapping of the human genome and boost the fortunes of Cytogen Corp., a Princeton, N.J., pharmaceutical firm that suffered record losses last year. Cecilia W. Lo and Jean Richa, two Penn molecular biologists, announced in the July 14 issue of Science that they had successfully transplanted human chromosome fragments into fertilized mouse embryos. Lo says her work, which was funded in pa

The advent of neural networks promised the computing world a machine that could actually think for itself-learn as people do, by extrapolating general rules from a set of examples, rather than being bound step-by-step by a program. From the start, however, computer scientists recognized a major problem: explaining how neural networks reached their conclusions. Now the Hecht-Nielsen Neurocomputer Co. has announced that it's developed software to open up and shed light on the "black box" that is t

Ninety-nine percent of all gifts to Cornell University for research and education are restricted grants designated for specific purposes. But between 15% and 20% of these awards do not contribute to the university's general expenses, such as maintenance and utilities. In response to this inequity, Cornell University Provost Robert Barker has introduced a policy requiring that a certain percentage of all gifts must go to pay indirect costs, regardless of the donor's specifications. In some cases

TENERIFE, SPAIN—Europe's astronomical community, meeting in the Canary Islands last month for its annual convention, has taken steps to establish the first Pan-European astronomical society. In addition to increasing the astronomical community's power by speaking with one coherent voice, one of the major goals of the new European Astronomical Society will be to enable closer collaboration between astronomers in the East and West portions of the continent, and to increase support of the Eas

As part of a new campaign to increase its visibility and impact, the 103-year-old honorary society Sigma Xi is heading south. The 110,000-member organization, with some 500 chapters and clubs around the country, has decided to sell its headquarters building in New Haven, Conn., and move to Research Triangle Park in North Carolina. "It's one of the most dynamic research milieus in the country," says society president Thomas Malone, "and it's got a can-do spirit that coincides with

UPTON, N.Y.—In the middle of Brookhaven National Laboratory, in Upton, Long Island, is a building whose gleaming white curves, bay windows, and identifying sign on the front lawn cause it to stand out from the barracks architecture prevailing at the rest of the site. The building is the National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS), and the composition of the scientists who work in its intenor is as unusual as the exterior. Scientists from AT&T Bell Laboratories examining the surface structure

In 1984 an annual subscription to Leukemia Research cost a library $160. It’s now $540. In 1985 a year’s worth of Gene was $627.40. This year it’s $1,870. Computers and Structures was $425 in 1983. Today’s rate:, $1,425. Brain Research, a weekly, is now priced at $5,080 per year. “Price gouging,” says Duane Webster, executive director of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL). “Devastating,” says Michael Keller, an associate librarian at the

WASHINGTON—The National Science Foundation is considering a major policy change that would limit its payment of salaries to university researchers. The controversial idea, still under discussion, would bar the 20,000 senior investigators the foundation supports each year from receiving any more than summer salaries in their grants. NSF now spends $200 million annually, roughly 12% of its total research budget, on salaries to senior scientists. More than half of that amount gces to provid

Last fall Congress gave Leo Young a tall order. In four months, Young—a staff specialist at the Department of Defense—was to pick 20 or so technologies deemed crucial for future national security and assess where the United States ranked, compared with other nations, in developing those technologies. The congressional request re flects the recent national preoccupation with icoking over its shoulder to see which countries are challenging its technological superiority. Ever since P

A survey of the 100 biggest corporate spenders in research and development in the U.S. shows that they spent 10.7% more on R&D in 1988 than they did the year before. Inside R&D, a newsletter published in Englewood, N.J., by Technical Insights Inc., says that the biggest increase in spending was by Sun Microsystems Inc., which more than doubled its R&D effort, followed by Genentech Inc.’s 65.1% boost. The most massive R&D was led by General Motors which last year spent nearly $4.8 billion