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SAN FRANCISCO—Animal rights and environmental groups have targeted several proposed research facilities here in what univer- sity officials see as a serious threat to basic research and academic freedom on their campuses. Although there is a nationwide pattern of activity by various groups (see related story on p. 5), the Bay area has emerged as a major hot spot. At present Stanford University, University of California-Berkeley and UC-San Francisco are all fighting for permission to ex

The Pasteur Institute is world famous for the science it has produced for the past century, particularly in molecular biology. But for the past year and a half, molecular biologists have been concerned about another institute matter: six of its molecular biologists working with the teclmiques of genetic engineering have developed cancer. What do these cancers mean? Do they show that genetic engineering is hazardous for workers, as has been suggested by its critics from the beginning? Or is

Looking back, my scientific career seems to have been liberally strewn with missed opportunities. In fact, right at its outset I missed an opportunity by force of circumstance. After a six-year break in my studies occasioned by service with the Jewish Brigade in the 8th Army during World War II, I began work on my Ph.D. thesis at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in 1947. The subject was a search for soil bacteria that would produce an antibiotic against typhoid and dysentery bacteria. At th

Q: How healthy is U.S. science? GOLDBEGER: I think U.S. science is quite healthy in most of the forefront areas. In biology, it seems to be extremely strong. In condensed matter physics and related device physics, it’s very strong. In astronomy, astrophysics, there’s little question that the United States is the unchallenged world leader. In elementary particle physics and high energy physics, we have sort of a bifurcated situation. On the theoretical side, the United States is pro

Researchers practicing good science must be concerned with the well-being of their laboratory animals; health problems, pain, and stress may introduce unwanted variables that can invalidate study results. Concern for laboratory animals also reflects a fundamental principle of ethical animal research: experimental animals, regardless of species, should not undergo unnecessary distress or discomfort. Attention to the animal’s wellbeing begins with research planning. Studies should be desi

WASHINGTON—As it starts a year-long celebration of its 50th birthday with a gala annual meeting in Boston this week, the American Society for Information Science faces a couple of paradoxes that together constitute an identity crisis. While the information industry is growing rapidly, the membership of ASIS is not. The society’s diversity, attested to by a membership drawn from a wide swath of academia, industry and government, has the disadvantage of diffusing its professional

EDINBURGH—Already renowned for its summer arts festival, the Scottish capital is preparing for an annual international science festival each spring. Organizers have already obtained a pledge of $120,000 from the town council, and hope to raise an additional $750,000 in each of the first three years of the festival. They plan a group of smaller events next year before kicking off the festival in 1989. The festival is expected to attract both scientists and the public. If a success, it

WASHINGTON—A small but popular NSF program to provide scientific instruments for undergraduate programs is being expanded to let in both two-year colleges and major research universities. The changes reflect pent-up demand within higher education for such teaching equipment and a feeling here that the federal government must do more to support the next generation of scientists and engineers. But the expansion may dilute the program’s value for its original audience. The College

WASHINGTON—NIH is looking into charges that it has improperly funded research on tissues and organs that have been removed from live human fetuses. The investigation stems from allegations by Jeremy Rifkin of the Foundation on Economic Trends, that the National Disease Research Interchange (NDRI) is not following appropriate protocols to establish death before obtaining the tissue and providing it to researchers. F. William Dommel, of NIH’s Office of Protection from Research Risk

WEST BERLIN—A West German physicist has begun a new effort to mobilize scientific and technical resources against some of the world’s most pressing problems. The idea of creating a Global Challenges Network is a “crazy vision,” admitted Hans-Peter Dürr, professor of physics and director of the Werner Heisenberg Institute of Physics at the Max Planck Society in Munich. But he said that the magnitude of the problem requires a worldwide effort involving the most ta

CAMBRIDGE, MASS.—City officials here are wrestling with a proposal to place experiments involving animals under the control of a new council-appointed body that would have the right to delay or veto any work it did not like. The city council is in the midst of hearings leading to a possible vote on two ordinances relating to animal research at Harvard University, MIT and other private institutions within the city limits. The first proposal would seek to ensure that all laboratories are

WASHINGTON—Federal biosafety guidelines for laboratories handling the AIDS virus are appropriate, a team of virus safety experts has concluded after investigating labs working with large amounts of highly concentrated AIDS virus. But workers need to better understand how and why the practices should be followed. The four-member group, formed last month after NIH announced that an unidentified lab worker was infected while working with the virus, spent two weeks at the dozen or so NIH