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Deep Sea Vents Overshadow manic John H. Steele, director of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution for the past 10 years, has announced that he will resign next year. Steele presided over the venerable institution during a headline-grabbing era, in which Woods Hole scientists ventured into the ocean depths to discover strange forms of life and spy on the remains of the Titanic. But the most important find during his tenure, Steele says, "was the discovery of hydrothermal vents in the Pacific.

Congress debates proposal that could mean loss of grant money after drug conviction WASHINGTON--University and industry researchers may soon be on the front lines of the government’s war on drugs. For the past several weeks Congress has been debating legislation that would cut off federal research funds from any institution or company where illegal drugs are being used. On April 14, Benno C. Schmidt Jr., president of Yale University testified before a Senate subcommittee about the p

In 1985, Congress amended the Animal Welfare Act to recognize two basic facts of life: that dogs need exercise and that primates have psychological needs in addition to physical ones. Any self-respecting ethologist would, of course, argue that all mammalian species have these needs. Yet three years later, these amendments have not been put into effect. Organized science has once again gotten in the way, raising such a storm of protest that proposed regulations have been held up. Scientists w

Options More Protection For Lab Animals? AUTHOR: ARTHUR C. GUYTON Date: May 30, 1988 Unnecessary Rules Are Already Strangling Medical Research In the past few years, attacks on medical research by animal "welfare" groups have become vicious, even violent. Their tactics are clearly paying off. The costs of using animals in medical research have soared. Even more chilling, allowable procedures for using animals are becoming so restrictive that research now takes far more time, energy, and int

When It Comes To Awards, Just Say Yes Few awards in science, outside the Nobel prizes, are as distinguished as the Crafoord Prize. Yet, until perhaps last month, many in the science community knew relatively little about it. Established in 1981 by Anna-Greta and Holger Crafoord, chairman of the medical supply company Gambro AB, the Crafoord Prize is intended to reward outstanding achievement in areas of science not recognized by the Nobels. On a rotating basis, the award is given annually t

Scholarly and academic publishing is now in a state of unprecedented turmoil because of mergers and takeovers. Harper & Row is now linked with Collins (UK); D. Reidel in Europe has joined with Kluwer British publisher Longman has absorbed Addison-Wesley. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich fought off a raid by Robert Maxwell, but went into debt in the process and was forced to lay off staff. Such events are relatively new in the publishing world. Until World War II, science publishing was very much a

For the second time in three years, the Presidential Young investigator Awards program has been scaled back. Because of NSF’s tight budget only 148 scientists of the planned 200 were selected. In 1986 only half of the scheduled 200 were funded. The five-year-old federal effort is designed to keep new Ph.D.s from leaving academia for industry by providing them with up to $37,500 annually, for five years, as well as an annual $25,000 Stipend. The catch is that these are matching funds, and

The review process at NIH downgrades promising interdiscplinary work in cardiovascular disease because the review system is biased toward individual disciplines, says a former president of the American Physiological Society. Howard Morgan of the Geisinger Clinic in Danville, Pa. has charged that high-quality proposals from academic physiologists are, being ignored by individual study sections because section members lack a sufficiently broad clinical perspective to appreciate the value of

Foundation to fund research on cancer and cognitive neuroscience The James S. McDonnell Foundation in St. Louis is moving millions to support research in two new areas: cancer research and cognitive neuroscience. For thefirst time, the foundation is inviting proposals, due July 15, to fund research exploring both basic cancer biology and ways the knowledge gained from that research might be transferred to clinics. The foundation has budgeted up to $10 million over the next five years for the

Within five years, the National Science Foundation hopes to receive a "substantial" number of proposals electronically, according to Alvin Thaler, NSF’s point man for computerizing document transfer. By late fall, Thaler hopes to see a test proposal arrive electronically, complete with tables, equations, diagrams, and photographs. In the meantime about 40,000 proposals a year arrive at NSF, each one (with its copies) about a foot thick. Line them up on a shelf and you have "seven miles

THE BUSINESS OF SCIENCE: Winning And Losing In The High-Tech Age Simon Ramo Hill and Wang; New York; 289 pages; $19.95 Scientists like Simon Ramo are rare think of a utility infielder who batts .300, knocks in 100 RBI’s, and wins a Golden Glove award to boot Trained as a physicist at Cal Tech Ramo proved adept at technological innovation, with 25 patents by the time he was 30. He made major contributions to the development of microwave radar during World War II and helped develop the el

THE CONQUEST OF THE MICROCHIP Hans Queisser Harvard University Press; Cambridge; 185 pages; $24.95 Thoughtful U.S. scientists might wonder why Europe lags so far behind in microelectronics. Hans Queisser, director of the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Stuttgart, West Germany, offers a precise explanation: "The significance of silicon was underestimated, the economic miracle of post-World War II reconstruction was based on conventional industry, and public and government prior