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Fraudulent Papers Stain Co-Authors
Rex Dalton | | 6 min read
SAN DIEGO—Young scientists unwittingly caught up in scandals over fraudulent research have found the experience to be a drain on their emotions and a stain on their professional careers. Interviews with nearly a dozen researchers whose, names have been linked to some of the best-known cases of fraud revealed that the practice of "gift authorship" has sidetracked academic careers, put federal research grants beyond reach and thrown into question other legitimate studies they have published

D Budget Impasse Heads for EEC Summit
Bernard Dixon | | 4 min read
LONDON—The summit meeting of European Economic Community leaders in Brussels on June 29-30 appears to be the earliest chance to resolve the longstanding deadlock over a new, five-year European research budget. The EEC's Framework Research Program embraces several collaborative R&D projects. Britain stands alone now in its opposition to the $7.5 billion budget suggested by Belgium as a compromise between a much larger figure requested by the European Commission and a smaller one proposed ea

Stronger Links Between School, Industry Sought
Sue Butler Hannifin | | 3 min read
ORLANDO, FLA.—Key industry and university research administrators are laboring over a model agreement meant to simplify and increase collaboration between the two groups. This unprecedented attempt to draft an agreement to govern various types of industrial sponsorship of university research is an outgrowth of a pilot project involving five federal research agencies and 10 Florida universities. That demonstration project, begun in April 1986, is aimed at freeing scientists from much of th

Kapitza: Popularizing Science on Soviet TV
Tabitha Powledge | | 10+ min read
Through his activities as a science educator and popularizer, experimental physicist Sergei P Kapitza has become one of the best-known scientists in the Soviet Union. Millions of people watch his biweekly television show on scientific issues, for which he received the State Award in 1980. Kapitza was born in England, where his father, Peter L. Kapitza, was working on low-temperature physics and magnetism at Cam bridge. After graduating from the Moscow Aeronautical Institute in 1949, Sergei Kapi

New Blood for Soviet Academy
Bernard Dixon | | 2 min read
LONDON—Younger directors will soon be appointed to about one-half of the 260 institutions directed by the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R. This follows the recent announcement by the new president of the academy, Guri Marchuk, that directors must retire at age 70 rather than holding their appointments for life, as is now the case. In addition to directors now being "prematurely" retired, many other senior scientists who enjoyed lifelong tenure will have to leave their posts when they re

Gift Means Reprieve for Issues
| 1 min read
WASHINGTON—An unexpected gift from the University of California has saved Issues in Science and Technology, the National Academy of Science's esteemed but money-losing quarterly journal of science policy. The university system's chancellors have volunteered a contribution of $150,000 a year for three years. The amount eases the magazine's $250,000 annual deficit enough for the Academy to rescind its decision to close Issues after publication next month of a summer issue. (See The Scientist

India's Scientists Seek Better Pay, More Perks
Subbiah Arunachalam | | 3 min read
NEW DELHI—Scientists in India's government laboratories, unhappy over receiving proportionately less money than other civil servants, are calling for salary increases and more perks. Leading the drive are the associations of scientific workers of India's autonomous research councils: the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the Indian Council of Medical Research and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research. The extent of the dissatisfaction became evident earlier this spring

Release Also Frees Scientist
Robin Webster | | 2 min read
BERKELEY, CALIF.—On April 29 Steven E. Lindow drove seven hours to the remote Tulelake area of northern California to begin open-air tests of bacteria genetically altered to combat frost formation on potato plants. For the University of California at Berkeley plant pathologist, however, the trip marked the end of a five-year journey. In 1982 Lindow discovered that the removal of a specific gene from the ubiquitous bacterium Pseudomonas syringae could shut down production of a chemical res

A Look Inside NAS Election Process
Jeffrey Mervis | | 4 min read
WASHINGTON—The recent controversy over the rejection of Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington for membership in the National Academy of Sciences, which spilled over into a rare public debate, has focused attention on the academy's election process. It's an elaborate procedure, deliberately shrouded in secrecy, that repeatedly screens out candidates until a consensus emerges on those most worthy of NAS membership. it is built around a system that divides all of science into five cl

Physicists Question SDI Weapons
Peter Gwynne | | 2 min read
CRYSTAL CITY, VA.—The American Physical Society's report on the science and technology of directed energy weapons, released here at the society's spring meeting last month, is a scientific document with inescapable implications for defense policy. Its reception indicates that every action connected with such a report can be, and almost inevitably is, interpreted in a political light. Specifically, the report suggests that several of the fundamental assumptions of the Strategic Defense Ini

AID Grant Funds Contraceptives
Helen Bequaert Holmes | | 2 min read
NORFOLK, VA.—The Howard and Georgeanna Jones Institute for Re-productive Medicine, which pioneered human in utero fertilization and embryo transfer in the United States, has moved strongly into research on contraceptives. The Contraceptive Research and Development Program (CON-RAD) is supported by a large grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development, $28 million over five years. Some of the work is being done here, but about two-thirds of the budget is going into extramural re

New Research Chief Sees Foreign Cooperation on SSC
Jeffrey Mervis | | 3 min read
WASHINGTON—The Superconducting Supercollider will have international partners in its construction, promises the new acting director of the Office of Energy Research within the Department of Energy. On April 27 James Decker took over as head of the $1.8 billion research program when Alvin Trivelpiece became executive director of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The 46-year-old Decker, who was hired by Trivelpiece in 1973 after working as a plasma physicist at AT&T B















