The Scientist - Home

Onchocerciasis. $99,000 from the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, New York, to Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, to develop a vaccine. Hearing research. Three grants each of $13,500 each under the Otological Research Fellowship Program of the Deafness Research Foundation: University of California, Davis, K. Adachi University of Michigan, M. T. Tsai; University of Washington, P. S. Bobrer Vision research. From Gannett Foundation: $40,000 and $31,390 to Baylor College of Medicine for genetic

Getting Nobel Fever All Over Again A quarter-century ago, three Brookhaven National Lab physicists discovered the muon-neutrino, for which they were awarded this year’s Nobel Prize. Today plans are afoot to bring new glory to the aging accelerator that was the site of their research. The Department of Energy wants to use the 28-year-old machine, known as the Alternating Gradient Synchrotron, as an injector for a much larger proposed accelerator, the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. ̶

Sensing Chemicals In People, Food Until now, sensors for salicylates—the active pain-killing ingredient in aspirin—and sulfites, which are commonly found in preserved foods, certain beverages, and even acid rain, have not been available. But using established electrochemical membrane-sensing technology, University of Michigan chemist Mark Meyerhoff has developed two polymeric-membrane electrodes that he says have potential for monitoring aspirin toxicity in patients taking large am

In 1914, an ambitious trans-antarctic expedition was organized by scientist/explorer Ernest Henry Shackleton. But during the middle of winter, his ship, the Endurance, was caught and crushed in the pack ice of the Weddell Sea. It wasn’t until 1988 that another ship ventured into that part of the ocean during the antarctic winter, this time with the goal of studying the delicate and complex food web of the region’s ice-edge zone, where the frozen and open ocean meet. Thoughts of Sh

Baseball 1, Science 0 World Series hero Orel Hershiser has pitched another shutout—this time against U.S. science and math teachers. Last month President Reagan passed up a ceremony honoring 104 of the nation’s top junior and senior high school science and math teachers, even though the White House began the program in 1983 to demonstrate its commitment to improving science education in the U.S. His excuse? The Los Angeles Dodgers were coming to town—at his invitation—a

We Want To Be Your Neighbor Cold Spring Harbor Lab was once the ‘best-kept secret” on Long Island, says Susan Cooper, director of public relations. But no longer. The lab is now mailing free copies of its quarterly newsletter, Harbor Transcript, to every household in the immediate vicinity, some 2,500 in all. In addition, the institute hosted 750 neighbors at the dedication of its new exhibit on modern biology, the DNA Learning Center, in September. Why the community relations effo

Space Center Citizenship Rule Relaxed When NASA solicits the next round of proposals for its university space engineering centers it is ‘highly likely” that the space agency will drop the requirement that faculty who receive direct funding from the program must be U.S. citizens, says Steven Hartman, a NASA program manager for university programs. This decision comes after the Association of American Universities and 11 individual universities complained that the citizenship require

The University of Arizona thought it had a perfect plan to pull astronomy in the United States out of its doldrums. In a single bold stroke the university would end the nation’s serious shortage of telescopes (The Scientist, August 8, 1988, page 1)—and establish itself as one of the leading observatories—by building the world’s largest instrument and six other scopes on the 10,000-foot peak of southeastern Arizona’s Mt. Graham. The university dubbed the plan the Co

New Canadian Patent Law Promotes R&D It looks like a change in Canadian patent law is achieving its goal increased R&D spending by pharmaceutical firms. Last November, the government decreed that the makers of generic drugs could no longer copy new drugs as soon as the pharmaceuticals hit the market, but instead must wait 10 years. In return for this guarantee of increased revenues, drug firms promised to double their R&D spending over the next decade. And last month the Canadian government go

The record-breaking heat of this past summer—a burden for everyone from city dwelling commuter to heartland farmer—was a boon to Lansing, Mich.-based Neogen Corp., an agricultural biotechnology firm. The scorching temperatures caused mold that produced a marked increase in aflatoxin, a carcinogen, in Midwest grain crops. Enter Neogen. The tiny company, which will see its first profit this year and has a full-time staff of 11 scientists, invented just two years ago an enzyme immunoas

LONDON—Picture a young company, incorporated in Luxembourg and headquartered in Munich, that conducts research in Britain, France, and West Germany, manufactures its high-tech product in France, has offices in six European countries, and owns a subsidiary in San Jose, Calif. Corporate Europe after 1992? sure but for at least one European startup, it’s a reality of today. European Silicon Structures (ES2) is one of the first pan-European companies: a company without a country. Or, p

In increasing numbers, European financiers are shrugging off their traditional conservatism and discovering the definition of venture capital that their U.S. cousins have always embraced taking a chance on an unproven idea or technology. To be sure, the spirit of risk taking varies from country to country—the U.K. is much more daring than West Germany, for example. But according to accounting firm Peat Marwick McLintock, last year—for the first time ever—there was more venture