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DUBLIN—The Irish government, after months of delay and speculation, has committed itself to a science and technology development program with a special emphasis on biotechnology. Although the Irish government is in the midst of making sharp cuts in public spending, Prime Minister Charles Haughey said this new allocation to develop science and technology "will be a permanent feature of the annual budget." Ireland spends about $600 million annually on science, a significant sum for a country

AMSTERDAM—The Dutch space program, once a leader in scientific research on many fronts, has been weakened to the point of ineffectiveness, according to scientists and aerospace industry officials. The chief cause, they say, is a reluctance by the government to adopt a long-range plan and commit the resources necessary to achieve it. "The Dutch government lacks vision and courage," said Karel Wakker, professor of space technology at the Technical University in Delft. "In most European count

WASHINGTON—Experimenters starved for spaceflight opportunities may find all the lab space they need in Earth orbit if a small Colorado company is able to turn the space shuttle's giant external fuel tanks into privately owned orbiting science facilities. Next week a group of 40 scientists, government officials and engineers will attend a closed workshop in Boulder to take a first crack at defining science requirements for the "Labitat," as the External Tank Company (ETCO) has labeled its p

TOKYO—A scientific work force five times larger than at present should be well along on developing a Japanese space shuttle and a manned space station by the year 2000, according to a panel studying the country's space program. That vision is one of several recommmendations in a report to Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone by the Space Development Committee. It is meant as a guide for government ministries as they seek budget approval for specific projects in the years ahead. Japan's space p

TOKYO—American fears that Japan is coordinating a national effort to achieve world supremacy in high-temperature superconductivity R&D are exaggerated, say Japanese scientists and officials, who point out that the government lacks the money and clout to orchestrate such a campaign. "Too many people in the U.S. are overestimating our abilities," said Masatoshi Urashima, director for development of advanced industries in the Agency for. Indus trial Science and Technology under MITI (the Min

BOSTON—Thousands of scientists and engineers who have been in the United States illegally over the past decade after arriving as students may not be able to gain amnesty under an interpretation of the new immigration law by Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) officials. The law, which promised amnesty to foreigners living illegally in this country since before 1982, is being applied "very liberally" to those who entered the country illegally—primarily undocumented workers fr

SANTA FE, N.M.—No project in modern times has brought science and religion into closer contact than efforts to assess the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin. And the debate about the role of scientists in the project has been every bit as heated as the religious discussions. At the center of the controversy is a group of scientists that make up the Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP). Formed here in 1976, the 30 or so volunteers rely on private donations to conduct their work. Robe

Poland, where Nicholas Copernicus was born in 1473, was one of the "people's democracies" singled out for particular praise in J.D. Bernal's Science in History, published in 1954. Having visited the country many times during the postwar years, Bernal wrote of the "new burst of activity in the scientific field" that ho had witnessed. "The physics laboratories of Warsaw University, for instance, are better equipped than any in Britain, and only yield place to those in the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R"

WASHINGTON—The National Academy of Sciences has assembled its blue-ribbon panel to assess proposals for the Superconducting Supercollider. And participants promise that the group will take a balanced—if not completely disinterested—look at the suitability of what are expected to be dozens of proposals to land the multibillion dollar construction and research project. "Short of getting Martians, there was no way to avoid bringing in people who might be affected by the ultimate

WASHINGTON—Whether the topic is AIDS or supernovas or high-temperature superconductivity, the blistering pace of discovery is prompting researchers in hot fields to flock to special meetings, spend hours on the phone, scan computer data bases and swap reams of journal article preprints in an effort to keep up and to record their own contributions. As scientists in those fields become increasingly dependent on such methods, however, some are concerned that the resultant short cuts have lowe

WASHINGTON—Scientists, science organizations and industry groups are investigating charges the federal government is improperly sup pressing publication of two fusion energy magazines tied to presidential candidate and conspiracy theorist Lyndon H. LaRouche Jr. On April 21 federal marshals seized the Washington, D.C., area offices and froze the bank accounts of Fusion magazine and The International Journal of Fusion E ergy, both published by the Fusion Energy Foundation, a LaRouche affili

WASHINGTON—The future of America's economy depends in large measure on the ability of industry to exploit new and emerging technologies, according to a new Commerce Department study. The report, prepared by experts from the National Bureau of Standards and other Commerce agencies, identifies seven major groups of emerging technologies that they believe will result in new products or processes in the next century. These include advanced materials, electronics, automation, biotechnology, co