The Scientist - Home

investigation that will carry advances forward The transfer of genetic materials into humans to correct diseases--gene therapy--is a new medical enterprise, barely three years old in the clinic. But in the short time since a research team at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., first treated a young girl's genetically compromised immune system with a transfusion of her own DNA-corrected white blood cells on Sept. 14, 1990, gene therapy has grown to command considerable public

to deepen the influence of its prestigious membership In the very near future, if things go according to plan, the traditionally low-profile Washington, D.C.-based Council of Scientific Society Presidents (CSSP) will be exerting influence in the science community far greater than it has ever exerted before in its 20-year history. According to its new executive director, Martin Apple, the organization--whose membership comprises past, present, and future leaders of some 60 scientific societ

Last month, the U.S. Senate approved funding for a modified version of space station Freedom, and a group of volunteers, many of whom are scientists and others involved in the aerospace industry, would like to believe that the weight of their arguments played no small role in saving the project. In at least one respect they are right. Over the summer, the group, calling itself the Space Station Freedom Fighters, collected more than 30,000 signatures on petitions calling for renewal of the stati

Amid the many graphs and charts signaling problems in the preparation of elementary and secondary teachers in the new National Science Foundation report Indicators of Science & Mathematics Education 1992 are a few statistics that some observers are taking as a glimmer of hope. According to the report, minority students at the elementary and secondary level have made slow but measurable progress in math and science achievement over the past 20 years. The report found, for example, that in m

Animal Welfare Group Creates Award Honoring Veterinarian The founder and first executive director of the Canadian Council on Animal Care (CCAC), Harry C. Rowsell, will be honored as the first recipient of an award created in his name by the Bethesda, Md.-based Scientists Center for Animal Welfare (SCAW). The Harry C. Rowsell Award will be presented to him in November at SCAW's national meeting in Nashville, Tenn. Rowsell says he hopes the award will raise researchers' awareness of the importa

pp.4 Gray Matter Parasitology Opportunities A Very Good Month? Poster Session Art Imitates Death Why Publish? Because It's There Gray Matter Added to the chorus of voices expressing concern over the Clinton administration's health-care reform is a coalition of 67 national research, health, and senior citizen organizations calling itself the Task Force for Aging Research. In a statement released over Labor Day weekend through the Washington, D.C.-based National Alliance for Aging Research, whic

On campuses across the United States, academic scientists and research administrators are beginning the 1993-94 school year with no expectations of relief from the fiscal and regulatory difficulties that have marked the past several autumns. States continue to cut back on support for public and private colleges and universities; moreover, the pool of federal funding is not growing sufficiently to keep up with the increased numbers of scientists vying for grants to support their research. "

Vincent Joseph Schaefer, a chemist at General Electric Co. for more than 20 years, died July 25. He was 87 years old. Schaefer is best known for inventing artificially induced precipitation, called "cloud seeding," by dropping dry ice through natural clouds to produce snow. He worked at GE in Schenectady, N.Y., from 1933 to 1954, the first five years as research assistant to Nobel laureate Irving Langmuir, who won the prize in 1932 for studies in surface chemistry. In 1959, Schaefer founded t

VOLUME 7, No:17 The Scientist September 6, 1993       Notebook(p.4) An Inspiring Message McBrontosaurus Pumping Up The Volume Interesting Alliance On-The-Job Learning Instructive Award New Kids On The Block . An Inspiring Message Faculty in Yale University's computer science department were greeted with a message from a familiar name on their E-mail early last month. Computer science professor David Gelernter, the victim of mail-bomb attack on June 24 (C.

VOLUME 7, No:16 The Scientist August 23, 1993 Universities Mobilizing Against Letter Bomb Threat Author:CONNIE O'KANE, p.1 Science departments and individual researchers take protective measures, in case the mailing of deadly missives resumes As faculty, administrators, and students start arriving back on campuses throughout the United States for the new semester, the intense, frightening publicity generated by separate letter bombs that seriously injured two science

Chemistry Job Horizon Author: MARCIA CLEMMITT, p.1 Especially for inorganic chemists, the employment picture for the discipline is said to be the grimmest it has been in decades A recent survey reveals that chemists currently face one of the worst job markets in the past 20 years in their discipline. Yet many of them believe that their field's growing importance to other research areas, especially biomedicine, will put chemists in a better position than many other science professionals

Many of them argue that, without the SSC, the field of particle physics may lose its vitality--maybe even its future The struggle in Congress over funding for the superconducting supercollider (SSC)--now something of an annual event--is disrupting work at the laboratory and raising frustrations throughout the high-energy physics community, say physicists. Many of them also worry not only about the future of the multibillion-dollar Waxahachie, Texas, project, but also about that of part