The Scientist - Home

In the book Shoeless Joe, better known as the movie Field of Dreams, the main character converts an Iowa cornfield into a baseball field after a voice says, "If you build it, he will come." In Great Falls, Mont., supporters of the McLaughlin Research Institute (MRI) began construction of a 42,000 square-foot, state-of-the-art, genetics research facility on prairie farmland in 1991 with the hope that if they built it, scientists would come. The new building, constructed with federal and state f

STRONG WORDS: OSTP's Skip Johns blasts Congress for its "shortsighted act". Only a presidential veto--or a last-minute change of heart--could have stopped the Republican-led Congress from abolishing its only in-house source of science-policy analysis, the 23-year-old Office of Technology Assessment. But a threatened veto is now unlikely to come, and Congress has voted and moved on to other matters. OTA is history. On July 27, House and Senate conferees sealed the agency's fate in H.R. 104-21

A federal law written with corrupt Department of Defense contractors in mind has become a serious concern for university administrators, while at the same time giving scientific-fraud whistleblowers new hope for success in pressing their charges. BREAKING NEW GROUND: Scientist-lawyer Eugene Dong first saw the scientific fraud aspects of the False Claims Act. The False Claims Act, also known as the Lincoln Law, was passed in 1863 and amended more than a century later, in 1986. Originally, the

As the school year commences, returning scientists are again applying for grants, awards, and other financial support to pursue their various disciplines. But six academic scientists among the 24 recipients of this year's John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowships--popularly known as the "genius awards"--are in an extremely fortunate position: Their explorations for the next five years will extend as far as their imaginations will take them. "When the director called me up to co

Prime Time Physicists Rare Disease Research Lobby Lab Vandal Is Sentenced O.J. And DNA Powerfully Funny Math ACS Kicks In For College Aging Research Fellowships IMAGE-MAKER: Leon Lederman has TV dreams. Concerned about improving the popular image of scientists as personality-free nerds, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Leon Lederman is developing a television pilot that would instead show researchers as "skeptical, creative romantics," according to the New York Times Magazine ("Sunday," Aug.

Sidebar: Patent Primer MERCK SUES FOR LONGER PATENT TERM UNDER INTERIM GATT RULES Under a new definition of patent lifetimes in effect since June, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) hopes inventors who process their patent applications expeditiously can obtain an additional year or two of patent protection. But for scientists in the biotechnology industry, the question remains whether their inventions can be pushed through the system any faster. And even if PTO shortens the t

The goal of patent laws is to promote inventiveness and public disclosure of useful knowledge. In return, inventors are granted exclusive use of their inventions for a specified period. To obtain a typical patent, U.S. law requires proof that an invention is: a new and useful process, machine, manufactured item, or chemical substance; novel (never before described or existing in nature in the described form); and nonobvious. Patents are not allowed on ideas per se, only the application of a

Under interim rules included in the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (P.L. 103-465), a number of pharmaceutical companies believed they stood to gain an extended patent term for some very profitable drugs. Initially, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) agreed with the drug-makers, then reversed its position and turned down about 80 of the hoped-for patent-term extensions. Now, Whitehouse Station, N.J.-based Merck and Co. Inc. is suing PTO and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (

Directory assistance for the 919 area code in North Carolina no longer lists a phone number for Macronex Inc., a small biotechnology company located in Morrisville. Although technically still a going concern, Macronex currently has only two employees and is in the process of going out of business. STRAPPED: ImmunoGen CEO Mitchel Sayare observes, from hard experience, that "things are not going well for companies that don't have enough cash." "We've pretty much closed our operation . . . a cas

Within just a few years, a growing number of surgeons expect to be able to transplant cells, tissues, and organs from baboons, pigs, and other animals into humans as accepted therapy for a number of life-threatening conditions and diseases. Driven by scientific innovation and powerful medical need, the field of cross-species transplantation, or xenotransplantation, is moving ahead with several ground-breaking experimental human procedures this year, and more expected in the near future. EXERC

The Maturing Of Scientometrics And Informetrics Author: Eugene Garfield In the early 1900s, scientists and librarians were already conscious of the exponential growth of the research literature. Small-scale bibliometric analyses--studies of papers, references, and authors--had been done at the turn of the century. A few classics, like Alfred J. Lotka's 1926 paper on author productivity (Journal of the Washington Academy of Science, 16:217-23) and the 1927 citation ranking of chemical journals

College on Problems of Drug Dependence Martin W. Adler, executive officer Temple University School of Medicine 3420 N. Broad Street Philadelphia, PA 19140 (215)707-3242 Fax:(215)707-1904 E-mail: baldeagl@vm.temple.edu 310 members - Robert L. Balster, President Journal: Drug and Alcohol Dependence Telnet to tn3270.cu.nih.gov At the help prompt, type: logon fnflfn5/none/627 3270 For information on journals that cover the neuroscience behind drug addiction, consult the Neurosciences Citation Ind