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WASHINGTON—Two recent public opinion surveys indicate that a substantial majority of adult Americans do not know what genetic engineering is and are ignorant of the ethical and scientific issues surrounding it. Nearly two in five people (39 percent) had not heard of genetic engineering, according to a survey conducted last spring for Novo Laboratories, a pharmaceutical company. The poll also found that nearly two-thirds of the remaining group—representing a total of 80 percent o

WASHINGTON—Thirty-Six states would like to be home to the central research facility for a proposed $250 million-a-year program aimed at developing cheaper and better semiconductors. Congress, spurred by concern over declining U.S. competitiveness, is preparing to pour up to $100 million a year into the joint government-industry venture. An industry panel assigned the task of picking a site for the semiconductor technology program—known as Sematech—has been “overwhelme

WASHINGTON—Since 1950, more than 2,000 Japanese researchers have passed through the National Institutes of Health—more than from any other foreign country. Now, in NIH’s centennial year, members of that group have formed the first NIH alumni association chapter overseas. Osamu Hayaishi, who in 195 1-52 was among the first Japanese scientists to visit NIH, said the NIH Alumni Association in Japan has been established “to express our gratitude to NIH and also to cultivat

DUBLIN—An environmental institute praised for the quality of its research is being closed by the Irish government as part of a new round of civil service cuts to combat the country’s financial crisis. About 100 environmental scientists expect to lose their jobs at the An Foras Forbartha (AFF), which was set up to do research and provide technical information for the Department of the Environment. AFF is the most serious of several blows to science in the government campaign to tr

LONDON—The 13-nation European Space Agency is expected to endorse a series of projects later this month that could boost the agency’s annual budget from $1.7 billion to $3 billion by 1993. The new efforts include a more powerful version of its Ariane satellite launcher, a manned Hermes spacecraft and the Columbus orbitbig laboratory that would be part of the U.S. space station. Hermes, which zoom into orbit atop the improved Ariane rocket, would give Western Europe its first opport

CHICAGO—A campaign to increase federal support for research and industrial applications of new technology began last month with a series of conferences held throughout the country. The conferences were designed both to garner support and thinking on new R&D initiatives and to provide regional views on global competitiveness and the declining technological status of the United States. Sponsored by the businessoriented Conference Board and the Council on Research and Technology (CORETECH

OSLO—Last year’s slump in oil prices not only ended a heady period of growth for Norway’s economy, but it also plunged the nation into its worst fiscal crisis in decades. Despite these problems, the government’s firm belief in the value of technological development has led to a promise to increase R&D spending significantly over the next five years. Norway’s continued commitment to science is made possible in part by its having prepared during the recent boom ye

WASHINGTON—A large black bust of Thomas Edison greets visitors to the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) here. Established in 1923 at the famous inventor’s urging, the lab was for more than 20 years the federal govemment’s sole facility for fundamental research in the physical sciences. NRL remains the Pentagon’s flagship research facility, conducting work in such fields as space, new materials, microelectronics and artificial intelligence. Some 700 of its 1,600 scienti

LONDON—Britain is using “ferrets” to transfer technology from its national defense research laboratories into the civil sector. These two-legged ferrets, all of whom have good technical qualifications, are employed by a technology broker to spot promising ideas and obtain licenses for them. The broker is a private company called Defence Technology Enterprises based at Milton Keynes. Owned by eight British financial institutions, it so far has signed up more than 200 associa

WASHINGTON—Thanks to the new tax law, many U.S. graduate students this year will owe taxes on their fellowships and stipends for the first time. And some will see their financial aid shrink accordingly. “There’s a lot of dissatisfaction, dissension and anger” among affected students about the new tax regulations, said Patrick Melia, assistant dean of the graduate school at Georgetown University here. “It’s created a lot of unneeded frustration.” U

WASHINGTON—The fear of lawsuits is blocking efforts to purge the scientific literature of articles by psychologist Stephen Breuning that are based on fraudulent data. The National Institute of Mental Health concluded this spring that Breuning “knowingly, willfully and repeatedly engaged in misleading and deceptive practices in reporting results of research.” Although all journal editors who published Breuning’s questionable papers were sent copies of the NIMH report, on

LIVERMORE, CALIF.—The University of California will continue to run the nation’s two federal laboratories for designing nuclear weapons, with a new five-year contract that nearly doubles its management fee. Officials said that much of the extra money will be spent on commercializing research from the federal labs. The regents voted 17-3, with one abstention, to maintain the university’s ties to the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif., and the Los Ala