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MIT: A Solar Car In Your Future Imagine owning a car without ever having to buy gas, change the oil, or pay for expensive transmission repairs. A group of students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology say they are ready to make that possible, forming a startup called Solectron that will market virtually maintenance-free solar-powered cars. James Worden, a graduate student in mechanical engineering and Solectron’s project manager, says prototypes for a $10,000 commuter car (with a

PALO ALTO, CALIF—In the high-pressure world of pharmaceutical research, scientists routinely risk corporate fortunes in a search for new compounds that could lead to big payoffs in such areas as cancer or heart disease. Indeed, virtually every major company has tried to speed up its process of creating and testing blockbuster drugs—a move that could save millions on development costs and beat a firm’s competitors to the marketplace. But progress in this high-stakes field has b

More than 8,000 chemists will gather in Miami Beach next week forthe 198th national meeting of the American Chemical Society. At the convention, researchers from around the world will present 3,500 technical papers and discuss issues faced both by the entire human race (environmental problems) and by ACS alone (membership problems). Twenty-nine technical divisions will sponsor sessions throughout the week. In addition to presentations of general papers, each division will feature special t

WASHINGTON—Last month, the Public Health Service issued regulations on how federal grantees should respond to allegations of scientific misconduct. The new rules, which take effect November 8, require universities and other institutions to certify that they will follow specific procedures and meet certain timetables in investigating and reporting allegations of misconduct involving their employees. By putting the burden on the institution, the government is abiding by the wishes of t

WASHINGTON—Everybody seems eager to see a federally sponsored academic research facilities program. But no one seems to know how to fund it. The lack of consensus on how the United States government would finance the rejuvenation of aging university laboratories has led to conflicting advice from traditional allies, mixed signals from the Bush administration, and a scatter-shot approach by Congress. As a result, the chances appear slim that any such program will get off the ground this

WASHINGTON—A decade ago, the United States whetted the world’s appetite for biotechnology with a tempting platter of Western hors d’oeuvres including hybridoma technology, diagnostic tests, and a handful of new drugs. But aromas from biotech kitchens across the Pacific have some U.S. experts worned that the main course will be served with chopsticks, not forks. One telling sign of this is Rand SNell's business card. Apolitical scientist conducting a study for the U.S. Off

Clinical Ecology: Irritant or Cure? An American College of Physicians committee seems to have had an allergic reaction to clinical ecology, a field of research based on the contention that certain people are sensitive to synthetic chemicals at very low doses. According to the committee, which published its review in the July 15 issue of Annals of Internal Medicine, clinical ecology lacks “definition,” uses “procedures of no proven efficacy,” and conducts studies that ar

The Best Defense Is A Strong Offense Allan Bromley, sworn in on August 4 as the president’s science adviser and the director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, appears to differ from his predecessors on the relative importance of national security in strengthening the nation’s scientific base. While William Graham and George (“Jay” Keyworth, with similar backgrounds in black-box military research, stressed the importance of defense-related R&D, Bromley took

WASHINGTON—Pressure has been building in Congress to provide higher pay for federal biomedical researchers. But it’s unlikely that any of three bills currently under congressional scrutiny—one of them a well-publicized proposal from President Bush that applies to employees at all government agencies—will make it into law this year. The driving force behind all three of the plans is a desire on the part of federal agencies such as the National Institutes of Health to

Kresge Works To Rebuild Labs Seattle University will renovate its chemistry labs; the University of Notre Dame is fixing up its Center for Biotechnology and Pollution Control; and Clark University in Worcester, Mass., will get new equipment for its Consortium Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Facility. These schools are three of 15 institutions to receive Kresge Foundation Science Initiative Grants. The two-year program provided $5 million in 1989 and will provide $5 million in 1990 to nonprofit inst

BETHESDA, MD.—Behind the scenes of the Human Genome Project—the 15-year, $3 billion effort to decipher our genetic makeup—researchers are working on a different sort of code. In a high-rise tower on the campus of the National Institutes of Health, a small group of programmers and molecular biologists are designing the computer framework for the genetic catalog of human-kind—an electronic database that will someday contain the information that biologically defines a hu

Argonne Reactor Program Turns To The East Faced with dwindling U.S. interest in nuclear power research, Argonne National Lab has turned to Japan to save its reactor research program. In July the lab reached an agreement with the Japanese electric industry that will see $20 million over five years poured into a lab program on “pyrometallurgical” fuel reprocessing. The technique separates radioactive elements from used fuel for recasting into new fuel, thereby allowing the reactor to