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The Kresge Foundation, one of the dozen largest private foundations in the U.S., is well known for its financial support of nonscience-related construction and renovation. And indeed, over the years it has been instrumental in funding some very flashy libraries and gyms. However the foundation has always been open to science-related proposals as well, and earlier this year it offered to fund equipment as well as buildings. (See The Scientist, June 13, page 23.) According to program officer G

Scientists who have joined the ranks of secretaries, journalists, data processors, and others who spend most of the day glued to a VDT screen, take note. Last month James Sheedy, chief of the University of California, Berkeley’s Video Display Terminal Eye Clinic, reported that an eye-focusing problem in people in their 20s and 30s was the number one problem in clinical studies of 153 patients. The study did not prove a causal relationship between regular VDT use and difficulty with eye

Emil Thomas Kaiser, the Patrick E. and Beatrice M. Haggerty Professor of The Rockefeller University in New York, died on July 18, at the age of 50, from immunosuppressive complications after kidney transplant surgery at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston. Kaiser was a member of both the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences. He also served on the editorial board of The Journal of the American Chemical Society, the National Institutes of Health panel evaluatin

Heinz R. Pagels, executive director and chief executive officer of the New York Academy of Sciences, died in a mountaineering accident on July 23 while attending the summer session of the Aspen Center for Physics. A theoretical physicist, Pagels, 49, worked in the areas of relativistic quantum field theory and cosmology and was noted as being a popularizer of science. He authored three books on science: The Cosmic Code (1983); Perfect Symmetry: The Search for the Beginning of Time (1985); an

At its annual meeting in June, the Iondon-based Royal Society elected one new fellow and six new foreign members. Also at the meeting, the Council of the Society announced the recipients of its medals and honors for 1988. In honor of her contributions to the history of contemporary science, Margaret Gowing was elected a fellow of the society. Cowing, a specialist on the implications of atomic energy in Britain and the person responsible for establishing the Contemporary Scientific Archives

Yale physicist D. Allan Bromley, already a member of the low-profile White House Science Council, will soon be wearing a second, more visible Washington science policy hat. On July 25, President Reagan announced Bromley’s nomination to the National Science Board, which oversees NSF. Staffers at each body say they foresee no conflicts between the two positions, adding that Bromley’s most serious problem may be finding sufficient time to serve on each panel. Bromley is part of Vice

WASHINGTON—Starting next month, NSF will be allowed to pay up to $95,000 to scientists accepting temporary positions in Washington. The new rule represents a boost of $17,500 in the federal pay ceiling created last December by Congress. But the higher cap comes at a price—a new ceiling on salaries for thousands of NSF grantees. That annual ceiling has also been set at $95,000, although typically NSF funds only the summer salaries of university scientists. The ceiling will be appl

PARIS-- In a country where thousands of physicians practics ho- meopathy the Beneviste affair has generated widespread publicity, much of it favorable to the French scientist. Paris Match magazine, for example acclaimed the initial paper about the alleged memory of water as a stupendous breakthrough, but did not mention Nature's subsequent investigation. The newspaper Le Point reported with tongue not in cheek, rumor that several Nobel Prize-winning physicists met in Bermuda, somewhere near

Benveniste’s “high-dilution” experiments are not the first to raise concern about science journals’ proper response to unconventional results. Twice before, Nature published papers dubious enough to warrant accompanying editorials questioning the results. And in one eerily parallel precursor incident, Nature’s then editor actually swooped down on a yet another Paris lab with “The Amazing” Randi and a third party to debunk unorthodox results—and

Despite recent corporate shake-ups at Philadelphia’s Smith Kline & French Laboratories, the R&D scientists will remain unscathed, according to the company. “We will invest more dollars in R&D in 1989 than we did in 1988,” Viewed Henry Wendt, SmithKline Beckman chairman and chief executive officer, when the resignation of Stanley T. Crooke, head of R&D, was announced August 10. The company—which employs 2,100 research personnel—has an R&D budget this year of $250

When organic chemist Anne B. Sayigh and Harvard MBA Josef von Rickenbach formed Parexel International Corp. in 1982, they weren’t the only entrepreneurs who stood to benefit. Their Cambridge, Mass., firm escorts other companies—particularly biotechs—through the maze of FDA regulations that govern the research and production of new health products. In addition to designing, managing, and finding suitable sites for clinical trials, Parexel publishes the U.S. Regulatory Report

Keith Davies has made Chemical Design a world leader in molecular modeling LONDON—By now we’ve all seen the numbers and heard the gloomy forecasts. Science in the United Kingdom is suffering from a dearth of funding, incentives, and political clout. The lack of commitment to R&D on the part of both the private and public sectors in Britain has sparked an alarming emigration of scientists and high-tech entrepreneurs. But for every rule there is an exception, and Keith Davies is