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Professional Women and Minorities: A Total Human Resources Data Compendium, published in January. The statistical compendium shows that a significant number of women are getting higher educational degrees (54 percent of bachelor's and master's degrees in all fields in 1991 were obtained by women), but are still represented relatively poorly in the natural sciences and engineering, compared with their male counterparts, earning betwe

Editor's Note: This first part of a two-part series charts the shared ground between research into alternative medical therapies and basic biomedical research. Increasingly, researchers are using powerful cellular and molecular tools to uncover biochemical pathways that may, for example, explain increasingly evident mind-body connections in health and illness. The second part, to appear in the March 21 issue, will explore efforts t

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NEW MANUAL EMPHASIZES EDUCATION PARTNERSHIPS Author: Karen Young Kreeger Date: March 7, 1994 Science education in the United States is in the midst of a major reform movement, scientists and educators say; it is also, some of them warn, in crisis. "We have a tremendous national problem," says Bruce Alberts, president of the National Academy of Sciences. "We are so far away from where we should be with regard to the s

Researchers at many U.S. universities are participating in curricula that now stress hard science Top colleges and universities throughout the United States are responding to an unprecedented demand for environmental education programs with new undergraduate degree programs, graduate-level research opportunities, and environmental colloquia. What distinguishes most of these new programs from academia's previous environmental offer

Such threats, NSF noted in announcing the latest round of grants, occurs across all geographic regions, at all levels of life, and on scales ranging from the microscopic to the oceanic. "We're gradually evolving a broader concept of ecosystems," says Joann Roskoski, acting deputy director for NSF's division of environmental biology. The division usually approves between 15 and 18 projects each year and has so far doled out about $1

The Whitaker Foundation, headquartered in Washington D.C., has presented 14 Special Opportunity Awards in biomedical engineering to teams of investigators who have come up with proposals to establish novel training programs in the field. The awards range from $250,000 to $750,000. The foundation recognizes that the field of bioengineering is a meeting place for many different disciplines. Medical sciences such as physiology and pha

Bench scientists, along with antivivisectionists, wonder what an updated `bible' of animal care will bring Earlier this month, a National Research Council (NRC) committee held the last of three public forums to gather input for a revision of its widely influential Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals. Although publication of the new guide is not expected until next year, scientists and animal protectionists already are

Observers see organizational and budgetary challenges as potential impediments to office's effectiveness A year after former director John H. Gibbons's departure to become White House science adviser, the congressional Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) is going through a difficult period of transition, reorganization, and budgetary belt- tightening. Editor's Note: Office of Technology Assessment director Roger Herdman discuss

In just the past few years, technical advances have made possible laser-scanning confocal microscopes able to produce kinetic images of living cells. Depending on the system, neuroscientists and other researchers now can capture images at up to video rates--30 frames per second--or, sometimes, faster. Additionally, they can record those images digitally, or with a video recorder, or with a 35 mm camera. They can view cell events on

New committee says paper collections are threatened, but librarians say that the information glut demands new acquisitions strategies A committee of more than 130 scientists from different disciplines--newly organized by a consultant with longstanding ties to several commercial academic publishers- -is calling for more federal funding for research libraries. Increasingly, they say, libraries are failing to keep collections of sci

With projects on hold and downsizings, mergers, and acquisitions on rise, only firms with products in clinical trials can progress Among the myriad issues confronting the biotech industry in 1994, the most pressing problem companies will face is a lack of adequate financing, say industry observers. Fueled by concerns over potential drug-pricing controls related to national health care reform and two highly publicized biotech prod