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Prodded by savings-hungry Republicans in Congress, the colossus that is the Department of Energy (DOE) awakened in January to find itself under attack and its offspring-a cherished, $6 billion network of national laboratories-at risk of being orphaned. Alarmed, DOE embarked upon a campaign to save the department and reshape the laboratories, by shrinking and restructuring them. At the last moment, one day before the deadlock that led President Bill Clinton to shut down much of the federal gov

The Scientist 9[23]:1, Nov. 27, 1995 News Scientists' Heated Debate On Immigration Mirrors Issues Argued Throughout U. S. By Robert Finn Sidebar:INTRA-ETHNIC COMPARISONS OF NATURAL SCIENTISTS ON SELECTED VARIABLES Several recent studies demonstrating dramatic increases in the number of scientists and engineers coming to the United States from other countries have ignited controversy that mirrors the current national debate over immigration. Critics are blaming this inf

Study Author: Karen Young Kreeger Researchers have been comparing parts of genomes at the individual gene level for years. Portions of the genomes of tens of thousands of species-from bacteria to humans-reside in private and public databases around the world. Pharmaceutical scientists sift through these collections, panning for potential drugs and therapies, while basic investigators in an array of fields search for similarities and differences in the species' blueprints for life. But what re

Equipment Author: Robert Finn Last August, Brett Lane found himself on the horns of a dilemma. The scientists at VivoRx Inc., a Santa Monica, Calif.-based company that's developing diabetes treatments, needed a specific type of Shimadzu spectrofluorometer. But as VivoRx's director of facilities, Lane knew that the year-old company couldn't justify spending the nearly $20,000 that a new model would cost, especially since the instrument would get only occasional use. So Lane started calling use

Institute Of Medicine Author: Edward R. Silverman Sidebar: Members of the IOM With the election last month of its latest slate of members, the Institute of Medicine (IoM)-an honor society affiliated with the National Academy of Sciences-will have more women in its ranks than at any other time in its 25-year history when the honorees are inducted next year. Including the 15 women who are among the crop of 55 new members elected in October, women now constitute 21 percent of the society's 519 r

NIH Neuroscientists Sent Packing Out of This World Leech Locomotion Peaceful Research Honored Scent of a Book Deal Women Scientists: The Sequel The Great Beyond Online Wellcome Awards New Head at CCR Switches At Bell Labs The shutdown of the U.S. government on November 14, occasioned by wrangling between Republicans and Democrats over stopgap budget bills, sharply curtailed representation of National Institutes of Health researchers at the Society for Neuroscience meeting, held in San Diego Nov

William G. Baxt, professor and chairman, department of emergency medicine, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine; chief, emergency services, Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania Arthur L. Beaudet, investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and professor and acting chairman, department of molecular and human genetics, Baylor College of Medicine Helen M. Blau, professor, department of molecular pharmacology, Stanford University School of Medicine Murray F. Brennan, chairm

SELECTED VARIABLES Total Number Percent Median Percent Percent Ethnic Group Number per College+*Income Female Under 35 100,000 Non-Hispanic White Native-born 338,730 336 37.3% $33,072 25.1% 42.5% Foreign-born 22,726 714 69.8% $35,086 28.8% 34.6% Black Native-born 15,004 124 20.7% $30,573 38.8% 49.1% Foreign-born 2,167 256 52.7% $30,793 13.8% 39.0% Chinese Native-born 1,305 862 53.2% $30,403 38.5% 57.1% Foreign-born 8,338 1,225 80.5% $36,311 32.8% 30.1% Filipino Native-born 566 400 19.9% $28,66

Sidebar:NCI Divisional Structure Amid a swirl of controversy over leadership, budget priorities, and stifling bureaucracy, the new organizational structure of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) went into effect October 1. The reorganization was prompted by internal, agency, and congressional studies. Under the restructuring, many programs, laboratories, and branches fall under new or redesigned divisions, with an eye toward streamlining the agency, revamping its intramural program, and openin

Peace Prizes Author: Karen Young Kreeger Sidebar: 1995 Scientific Laureates Last month's announcements of the 1995 Nobel Prize recipients in the sciences were greeted with hearty approval by scientists from various sectors of the research community. Many of these investigators felt a sense of validation for their fields in the selection committees' choices. In physiology or medicine, the burgeoning discipline of developmental biology was recognized, and the subdiscipline of atmospheric chemi

When Michael Smith took a share of the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine in 1993 for his work in reprogramming genes, 1989 Nobelist J. Michael Bishop, University Professor in the department of microbiology and immunology at the University of California, San Francisco, offered some friendly advice: Learn to say "no." JUST SAY NO: 1993 laureate Michael Smith was advised to turn down invitations. Previous Nobel laureates warn that the attention and instant celebrity in the first year-even up

Sidebar: Major Pharmaceutical Companies Are Diving Into the Gene Therapy Pool As gene therapy enters its sixth year of high-visibility research, major drug companies are buying in, helping lay the technology's foundation and launching clinical trials. More than 100 gene therapy trials-most privately funded-are under way. And while the field's ultimate success is still quite uncertain, one thing is clear: There is a lot of science to be done and research opportunities to be pursued. ACADEMIA, I