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Although it claims that it has not taken a stand against dissection and vivisection, the National Association of Biology Teachers has passed a resolution that supports alternatives to animal research and pledges to recommend materials that teachers can use in place of animals. The resolution, passed unanimously by the association’s eight-member board, is in response to increased sensitivity toward animal-rights issues that has emerged during the past four years or so, says education dir

After years of passivity, the astronomy community is protesting telescope closings, cramped quarters, and scanty maintenance Like some ill solar wind, word is radiating through the galaxy of United States astronomers that they’ll have to shut down more of their small telescopes before plans to build a new one are approved. For many, this is the final straw. Throughout the past decade, U.S. astronomers suffered in silence as the National Science Foundation retargeted money to areas of s

One of the most promising attacks on the dread disease was produced far from the meccas of biotechnology The message transmitted from the fourth International Conference on AIDS in Stockholm this June was bleak. Seven thousand of the world’s leading scientists had gathered to hear more than 3,100 presentations and to discuss what has been learned about the virus. “Not enough” was the answer. An estimated five million to 10 million people have been infected with the HIV virus,

At least six experiments are aimed at improving the odds for innovative, cross disciplinary, and high-risk proposals WASHINGTON—The National Institutes of Health is changing the way that it does business with the research community. More than a half-dozen experiments are underway to improve the peer-review system—the tool NIH uses to weed out nearly two-thirds of the proposals it examines from those it will find. Most researchers consider peer review to be a pillar of science, ran

Celebrating its centennial, the Marine Biological Laboratory adapts to a new era in which money talks as loudly as science WOODS HOLE, MASS.—When Harlyn 0. Halvorson, the new director of the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, blows out the candles for his institution’s 100th birthday this summer, no one will have to ask what he wished for. The laboratory needs more money, more room, and more molecular biology if it is to remain in the forefront of scientific research durin

WASHINGTON—While Michael Dukakis may have chosen Lloyd Bentsen as his running mate for Bentsen’s ability to win over his home state and Southern conservatives, the Democratic senator from Texas also brings to the ticket a strong interest in space research, advanced physics, and high technology. Bentsen’s record on scientific issues suggests he may be primarily motivated by economic concerns— in particular, growth for Texas. But those interests have coincided with effor

Some advisers doubt the Japanese will comply with the terms of the science treaty signed in Canada last June WASHINGTON—The ink had hardly dried on the agreement signed by Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita to foster United States-Japan cooperation in science when the sniping began. But the snipers weren’t Democrats running for office, nor were they diplomats representing Japan’s commercial rivals. The criticism was coming from hardliners in the White House

The Scientist has asked a group of experts to periodically comment upon recent articles that they have found noteworthy. Their selections, presented here in every issue, we neither endorsements of content nor the result of systematic searching. Rather, they are personal choices of articles they believe the scientific community as a whole may also find interesting. Reprints of any articles cited here may be ordered through The Genuine Article 3501 Market St., Philadelphia, Pa. 19104, or by telep

A trio of relatively small Western European nations heads a recently published list of countries that produce high-quality basic research. The study, undertaken by the Information Science and Scientometrics Research Unit (ISSRU) of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest, found that the scientists of Switzerland, Sweden, and Denmark produced papers having significantly greater impact than expected, based on the average citation rates of the journals in which each paper was published. By t

Ever since President Reagan took office, the NIH budget has been a political football—artificially low requests handed off by the president have crossed the goal line as sizable increases in the final appropriations measure passed by Congress. But that tradition could end this year. The Reagan request for a small 6.8% increase over this year’s budget is being taken seriously on Capitol Hill, and it appears likely that the final figures for NIH will be only slightly higher. In June,

More research money may be going to AIDS, but other immune deficiences are still underfunded and under-researched, says Marcia Boyle, president of the Immune Deficiency Disease Foundation. To encourage work on the primary immune deficiencies, the foundation is starting a faculty development award of $20,000 for each of three years to go to a young researcher in the first three years of a faculty appointment. The award will be funded by pharmaceutical supplier Cutter Biological, a subsidiary of

International Data Acquisition & Control Inc. (IDAC) recently released a chromatography system that includes a data acquisition peripheral, data acquisition software, and chromatography software, all of which work with Apple Macintosh computers. Called IDAC-Chrome, the system provides five methods of analyzing integrated data. Points can be withdrawn and refitted to find the optimum calibration, which can be performed using both internal and external standards. Based in Amherst, N.H., IDAC sel