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WASHINGTON—Although women and minorities still make up only a small percentage of scientists in most fields, their presence is being felt within the governing body of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. This fall, for the first time in AAAS’s history, all four candidates for the two vacancies on the board of directors are women and/or minorities. And the next AAAS president is University of Chicago physicist Walter Massey, who is black. AAAS officials downpl

LONDON—A new, open-ended program to fund AIDS research has drawn praise from British scientists who see the directed initiative as a refreshing change from the parsimonious attitude taken by the government toward most basic research efforts. Six months ago the government announced a special allocation of $23 million over three years for AIDS research. The program, overseen by the Medical Research Council, has already involved 24 laboratories at universities, hospitals and biotechnology

WASHINGTON—A $1.6 million study by an independent research firm is likely to provide ammunition for members of Congress who want the National Science Foundation to become more involved in pre-college science education. The study by SRI International of Palo Alto, Calif., requested in 1985 by Congress, was released during the August congressional recess. But it is likely to be “chewed over” next year, according to Thomas Van der Voort, staff director of the Senate Appropriat

SAN FRANCISCO—It’s not uncommon for one scientist to build on the work of another. But it’s rare for that research to spawn an organization dedicated to saving the lives of its subjects. For Molly Gleiser, a chemist at the University of California-Berke- ley, the idea for Suicide Prevention Among Scientists began with an 1984 article in Chemical and Engineering News that described a study of the causes of death among female chemists. One figure jumped out at her: the suici

BELFAST—The British Association for the Advancement of Science, for the first time in living memory, has entered the political arena to defend the interests of British scientists. The association, assembled here for its 149th annual meeting, sent a letter to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher asking for more government spending on research and urging her to chair meetings of the newly created Advisory Council on Science and Technology. It said scientists would back the government’s

MEXICO CITY—The official opening here last month of the Center for Electronics and Information Technology (CETEI) underscores Mexico’s efforts to strengthen ties between academic and industrial R&D sectors. The new center was created to support the development of the country’s fast-growing electronics industry by mediating technological supply and demand. The government is encouraging such university-industry cooperation in effort to offset spending cuts it has in academic

WASHINGTON—Members of the first of five newly created U.S.-Soviet joint scientific working groups have reached a tentative agreement to exchange data on space life sciences and rekindled hope for longlasting coordination of overall research efforts in space. The joint group, which met for six days last month in Moscow, agreed to update a comprehensive space biology and medicine text published jointly in the 1970s and to form a subgroup to explore cooperative projects in extraterrestria

One of the most eminent and controversial scientists of this century, nuclear physicist Edward Teller is perhaps best known for his role in the development of nuclear weapons at Los Alamos National Laboratory during World War II. Often called the “father of the hydrogen bomb,” he also played a controversial role in the loss of security clearance by J. Robert Oppenheimer, the former director of Los Alamos. More recently Teller has been an outspohen advocate of defensive weap- ons, in

Ever since I first became involved in research in 1932 I have been struck by the difference in quality of the thinking of even quite emi- nent scientists when they apply their minds, on the one hand, to their own specialized subjects and, on the other hand, to affairs of everyday life. Nor am I restricting my comments to the phenomenon of the distinguished Fellow of the Royal Society at the peak of a creative career who shows himself in committee to lack common sense, to say the least, when c

BELFAST—The strengths and opportunities within British academic research are being offered to industry, government agencies and scientists as part of a national academic data base created last year. The information, known as British Expertise in Science and Technology (BEST), was developed by the publishing firm Longman Cartermill, at the University of St. Andrew’s. Set up in March 1986, BEST covers 180 institutions and contains 14,000 records of scientists and their work. Michae

SAO PAULO—An international group of chemistry educators has recommended greater contact between working scientists and educators as part of an effort to improve public understanding of science. Delegates to the Ninth International Conference on Chemistry Education held here this summer suggested that scientists involve themselves in communicating news about their work to audiences beyond their professional groups. A conference resolution declared that national scientific bodies should

The first reporter on the scene of the Chernobyl accident in late April 1986 was Vladimir Gubaryev. He later wrote a play about the incident, excerpted here.