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CEOs underscore the commercial sector's reliance on academia's basic discoveries andtrained investigators DIFFERENT IN KIND: Increasingly, university research is company-backed, but most is direct-output work, says Batelle's Douglas E Olesen. In a recent letter to more than 300 members of Congress, the heads of 15 of the largest United States corporations argued for continued "robust" federal support of university-based research. Among those receiving the letter were presidential hopeful and

A National Science Foundation report, scheduled for release this summer, on the demographics of scientists and engineers (S&E) in the federal work force shows a rise in employment of about 6 percent_13 percent among scientists_from 1989 to 1993. But according to various federal officials, these figures may already be outdated, in light of employment cuts that have occurred since the report period or are being proposed by Congress and the Clinton administration. PARING DOWN: H. Ronald Pulli

Situated equidistant from Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill, N.C.--smack in the middle of the Research Triangle--sits the only National Institutes of Health institutional campus outside of the Washington, D.C., Beltway. The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) is currently responsible for nearly 50 percent of all federally funded research on such subjects. It commands a diverse research agenda that covers populations and geographical boundaries far beyond the triangle or t

In Recognition Of His Work On Health Risks From Lead Clair C. Patterson, 72, a professor of geology at the California Institute of Technology's division of geological and planetary sciences, has been awarded the 1995 Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement. Patterson was presented the honor--a gold medal and $150,000--on April 28 at a ceremony in Los Angeles. EMPHASIZING EDUCATION: William Wiley hopes to establish Sigma Xi as an intellectual resource for teachers and legislators at various c

President-Elect Of Scientific Honor Society Sigma Xi UNLEADED LEGACY: "These discoveries will affect the health of millions of people for decades to come," asserts Clkair Patterson, regarding the environmentally friendly products that have arisen from his work. William R. Wiley, corporate vice president of research and technology policy at Battelle Memorial Institute, Richland, Wash., was chosen to become the president of Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society, in 1996-97. Wiley was elected

For the second time in three years, the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) will hold its annual meeting together with the Division of Biological Chemistry of the American Chemical Society (ACS). The cooperative event will take place from Sunday, May 21 through Thursday, May 25 in San Francisco's Moscone Convention Center. More than 3,000 scientists are expected to attend the conference and exhibition, bringing together a broad span of chemists, biochemists, and biol

Contents Attention, Shoppers Ground-Breaking Discoveries The Streak Continues Bioengineers Find A Home Next Its Sweat and Tears Cleaner Living Through Chemistry Winning Rubes Flake Fate Just Say An announcement in a March 31 issue of Update, a newsletter of the National Association for Biomedical Research (NABR), that a guide to socially responsible corporations will delete positive references to animal research has resulted in "a big misunderstanding," according to an author of the guide. Updat

Some are vocal in their atheism; others see no conflict between science and religion, as long as the two are kept separate. Historically, the relationship between science and religion has been uncomfortable at best. Scientists today run the gamut of opinion on the compatibility of the two, ranging from those who feel they occupy vastly different realms of thought and reality that will never meet to those who see little reason why they cannot easily coexist. According to philosopher Michael Rus

Buoyed by enabling legislation and scientific advances, institutions are aggressively shopping their faculties' `blue-sky' investigations. In just the past year, patents on the genes implicated in obesity, breast cancer, and other disorders have generated headlines in newspapers across the United States. In several of these cases, scientists have turned their patented discoveries into lucrative commercial deals worth several times their funding from other sources--crucial money in light of pro

Government and private labs are springing up to accommodate expanded use of genetic evidence, but retraining existing workers. In less than a decade since DNA analysis brought forensic science into a new era, the growth of the discipline--as an evidentiary tool as well as an industry--has been massive, as more and more high-profile cases hinge upon the evidence it provides. Yet the phenomenal expansion of its use in courts around the United States is not translating into new entreprene

Buoyed by enabling legislationand scientific advances, institutions are aggressively shopping their facultiese 'blue-sky' investigations. In the past decade, university technology transfer has moved into the spotlight. Several hundred schools are now participating in what was once a relatively obscure function at a few institutions. Government, industry, and venture capitalists, in seeking successful commercial products to develop, are keenly interested in what researchers are creating today.

Sixteen individuals--one woman and 15 men--from a variety of disciplines in science, engineering, and mathematics are being honored for their scientific and humanitarian achievements at the 132nd annual meeting of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), scheduled for April 24 in Washington, D.C. Five of the 16 are already NAS members. Also taking place at the convocation will be the election of new academy members and the induction of new members elected last year (N. Sankaran, The Scientist, J