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The past several weeks have been busy ones for the genomics crowd. Genome scientists from around the world can now lay claim to having determined the entire genetic blueprint for five free-living species, including brewer's yeast, the most complex creature tackled thus far. Late last month, scientists from a European-led consortium of more than 70 international labs released the yeast sequence. The genome of Saccharomyces cerevisiae is the first organism with a distinct nucleus, or eukaryote, t

Tenure To Female Chemist Colleagues 'Dismayed' By Decision 'SOMEWHAT SURPRISED': Sharon Palmer, who will have to leave next year, says "I thought it couldn't quite happen." When C. Pauline Burt was hired by Smith College to teach chemistry, the periodic table numbered 86 elements. The neutron had yet to be discovered. Pluto, too, was unknown. United States President Woodrow Wilson presided over the first meeting of the League of Nations. Babe Ruth still played for the Boston Red Sox. Burt wa

Battles between unions of graduate students and university administrators are heating up at institutions around the United States. This academic year is seeing an upwelling of union activity and an increasingly polarized debate between union activists and university administrators. Most notable among these was a highly visible protest by teaching assistants at Yale University, who refused to turn in students' fall-semester grades. ACTIVIST: U. Michigan union president Scott Dexter is a stude

Review But many critics are urging still other changes, including easier approval of 'off-label' uses DÉJÀ VU: NCI's David Parkinson sees parallels with AIDS drug testing. By Oncologists, industry officials, and cancer-patient advocacy organizations are applauding recently announced policy changes at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that speed up the approval process for cancer drugs. The plan, announced on March 29 by President Bill Clinton, aims to immediately streamlin

Mathematicians With Awards Two life scientists are among the 13 researchers receiving awards from the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in Washington, D.C., today as part of NAS's 133rd annual meeting. A 'CALL FOR NOMINATIONS' For the first time in five years, there are no women among the individuals receiving awards from the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in 1996. Catherine Didion, executive director of the Washington-based Association for Women in Science, stresses that each of this y

Average full-time salaries in academia for 1995-96 rose more rapidly than the Consumer Price Index for the third consecutive year, according to a newly released survey by the Washington, D.C.-based American Association of University Professors. This year's edition of the annual study found that average faculty pay increased 2.9 percent, or 0.4 percent above the 2.5 percent inflation rate. However, Daniel S. Hamermesh, author of the survey report, cautioned in his text (Academe, 82[2]:14-108, Ma

Influence Few and far between, scientists serving in and running for Congress say they offer benefits of reasoning, judgment. EYES ON THE PRIZE: Former pharmaceutical executive Charles Sanders hopes to be the Democratic nominee for Senate in North Carolina this fall. Charles Sanders hopes to give Bill Frist some company. Sanders, a cardiologist and former professor of medicine and pharmaceutical executive, is seeking North Carolina's Democratic nomination for the United States Senate. If he w

Uncertainties Of 1996 Presidential science adviser John H. Gibbons calls fiscal year 1996 a "grim year for science budgets." BACK TO BASICS: Rep. Robert Walker (R-Pa.) contends that the FY 1997 budget supports applied research at the expense of basic science. Small wonder. On March 19, President Bill Clinton submitted his FY 1997 government budget proposal to the United States Congress. Yet the FY 1996 budget, which was to take effect on Oct. 1, 1995, has yet to be agreed upon. For many scie

By Economic Embargo, Ideological Standoff Despite heightened political tension between the United States and Cuba, the number of collaborative projects conducted by scientists from the two neighboring countries has been quietly growing. Undeterred by events such as last month's passage of legislation strengthening U.S. economic sanctions against Cuba and February's shootdown by the Cuban government of two aircraft belonging to a Miami-based exile group, researchers are proceeding with collegial

March 16 was not the best of days for Sotheby's, the venerable New York auction house. Albert Einstein failed to sell, and Ross Perot failed to buy. HIGH-FLYING FIDO: This 1959 prototype canine high-altitude, partial-pressure suit for use in Soviet suborbital biological research flights sold for $25,300. A 72-page Einstein manuscript on special relativity, which first sold for $1.2 million in 1987, did not attract any bidders above the confidential minimum price. Earlier the same day, Sotheb

SEEKING SHELTER: Surplus lab chimps need a place to stay. While no plans are under way to build them a golf course or shuffleboard court, a nonprofit organization has been established to create a "retirement home" for chimpanzees not needed in biomedical or behavioral research. Chimp Haven, a San Antonio, Texas-based group, aims to build a facility to provide long-term housing for the unneeded chimps. The United States has a surplus of chimpanzees bred for research purposes, a result of the s

And Books Don't throw away that rough draft of your latest paper just yet, archivists advise. It may never have the multimillion-dollar value of Albert Einstein's draft chapter on special relativity (see story on page 3), but it may still be sought after by historians and collectors. Scientific memorabilia-including books, manuscripts, letters, instruments, and signatures-are actively collected. Einstein, who was a prolific letter writer, commands great attention and prices. So do Galileo, Kep