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LENINGRAD--Dimitry Filotov is an unlikely scientific pioneer. The 30-year-old physicist, who wears a windbreaker and blue jeans in his lab and sports a shaggy head of hair, is not a member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, the prestigious organization that dominates the country's scientific enterprise through its network of some 350,000 scientists and technicians at about 500 research institutes. Nor does he drive a Mercedes Benz, the Soviet Union's most visible status symbol. In fact, at the

For His `Mitochondrial Eve' Research Allan C. Wilson, who used DNA to trace the origin of modern humans to a woman living 200,000 years ago, has received the 1991 3M Life Sciences Award, presented by the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB). The $25,000 award, sponsored annually by the Minneapolis-based 3M Corp. since 1975, was presented to Wilson in Atlanta at the annual meeting of FASEB, held in April. Wilson is a professor of molecular biology and biochemistry a

WASHINGTON--The National Science Foundation has quietly launched a new, highly selective program of research awards to young faculty. The initiative, to be called the Presidential Science and Engineering Faculty Fellows program, will offer more money than and have different ground rules from those of the existing Presidential Young Investigators (PYI) award, which will now be called simply the NSF Young Investigators Program. And more than a name change may be afoot for the original PYI progra

Loose Lips Sink Budgets, Says Massey Out Of The Ashes Of The Space Station No Silly Questions, Please Too Much Of A Good Thing With Congress once again poised to cut out start-up funds for the proposed $211 million Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO), NSF Director Walter Massey is blaming scientists for helping to wield the knife. In March, astrophysicist Tony Tyson of AT&T Bell Labs told the House science committee that LIGO won't be sensitive enough to measure

Well-rounded scientists who directly oversee the building of accelerators and reactors swap glory for grander achievements High on a ridge in Berkeley, Calif., construction workers swarm over a $100 million scientific instrument, called the Advanced Light Source, that will allow scientists to peer into living cells and photograph lightning-fast chemical reactions. A continent away, at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, N.Y., bulldozers have begun chewing up the dirt for the Relativistic

As more companies prove themselves with products and profits, biotech stocks continue to surge Early last month, three-year-old Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. shook the business world by raising $99 million--nearly double what the company had originally planned to raise--in its initial public stock offering. The deal was remarkable for two reasons. The amount of money raised in this IPO was second in the biotech community only to that of Cetus Corp., of Emeryville, Calif., which raised $115 mi

With species preservation now becoming at least as important as entertainment, researchers in many fields take up zoo residence "And on your right, enveloped by a cloud of vapor billowing from a just-opened tank that stores eggs, sperm, and embryos at sub-zero temperatures, the scientists in their white lab coats seem to blend into their habitat." This may be what a Cincinnati Zoo tour guide will say this fall as she takes a group of visitors through a unique feature at the zoo--an in vitro f

Despite their efforts to curb conflicts of interest, officials lament that some abuses will persist among scientists who consult WASHINGTON--Stung by recent episodes of improper behavior by some of its own researchers, the National Institutes of Health has begun to keep a closer eye on those employees who consult for industry. But even clearly blatant violations of the rules on reporting and limiting how much scientists earn for outside work activities are nearly impossible to detect, say NIH

SOME ZOOS NEED TO DO THEIR RESEARCH OFF-SITE (The Scientist, Vol:5, #11, pg. 10, May 27,1991) (Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.) ---------- Conservation scientist Sandy Andalman is looking for an off-site research and breeding facility away from Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo, where she works. She contends that such a facility is needed because of space limitations at the zoo, animal health considerations, and the fact that some animals breed better in more naturalized environment

Harvard's E.O. Wilson And B. Holldobler Share 1991 Pulitzer Prize For The Ants University Of Wyoming President Named Head Of Western Science Consortium Joseph W. Plandowski Leo W. Buss Edward O. Wilson, Harvard University's Frank B. Baird, Jr. Professor of Science, and Berthold H”lldobler, formerly Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology at Harvard, have won the 1991 Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction for The Ants. The 732-page, seven-pound book was published by Harvard Univers

DOD Supports Multidisciplinary Studies The U.S. Department of Defense has announced the latest round of funding for its ongoing program of multidisciplinary research grants to universities. The department's University Research Initiative will fund three- to five-year projects on a variety of defense-related science and engineering topics. It hopes to award approximately $45 million in grants each year. The grants are designed to allow researchers to emphasize complex problems requiring a multi

A chemist who was fired by the Canadian health department after criticizing the Mime breast implant now consults on the issue OTTAWA--For J.J.B. Pierre Blais, doing good science has also turned out to be good for business. Two years after the Canadian chemist was fired from his country's health department in 1989 after his repeated attempts to have the MÆme breast implant removed from the market (The Scientist, September 4, 1989, page 7; also see accompanying story), Blais is running a b