The Scientist - Home

A recent National Academy of Sciences study of five research reactors at the Department of Energy’s national laboratories left out far more than it actually said. The report, released in August, criticized DOE’s ‘fragmented” oversight of the reactors and concluded that aging and brittle components could be safety hazards. But the published criticisms were muted compared to what the academy told reactor officials in private. In informal sessions held before the report was

The feud can be traced to a four-year investigation by the inspector general's office into procurement practices at NIH that led to the forced removal last spring of sciencetist Edwin Becker--(see The Scientist May 10, page 20). the HHS report accused NIH of wasting millions of dollars. Wyngaarden and the NIH community believe that the report exaggerated the extent of procurement problems at NIH and that Kusserwo simply does not understand the importance of providing scientists with easy and q

A new photographic time machine,” when used with a high- speed camera, allows researchers to photograph events that occur before the camera’s shutter is opened. Called an image-preserving optical delay, the new device is an arrangement of optical components, including mirrors and a crystal shutter, that photographs an event “before it occurs after it happens,” says inventor Edward F. Kelley. Even though the camera is triggered after an event, its optical delay allows pho

STANFORD-- CALIF—Irving Weissman is a risk taker. He doesn’t mind losing bets: A bottle of wine here, a beer there. It’s a small price to pay for the progress of science. The last bet the Stanford University immunologist lost was with postdoc Mike McCune over whether a complete human immune system could be transplanted into a mouse. “I said, ‘Great idea, fantastic, but I’ll bet it doesn’t work,’ “ Weissman recalls. “Well, I was wrong

LA JOLLA, CALIF.—Donald Mosier and Darcy Wilson credit their latest success to what they call “interactive science,” which occurs when experienced researchers with fertile ‘minds get together and new concepts and approaches arise spontaneously. It even occurs, they add, when ideas are exchanged by scientists who do not agree. In fact, as the result of a serendipitous argument, Wilson and Mosier recently made the front page of the New York Times and dozens of other newspap

Perhaps the kindest thing to say about the recent report from the National Academy of Sciences on the controversial topic of laboratory animals is that it’s finished. The 73-page report, which cost $315,000 and took three years to write, breaks little new ground, coming out in support of the continued use of animals in research and urging Congress not to pass any more laws regulating their use until the current rules have been digested. The report’s most striking features are its ra

The two principal Charles Bluestone and Erdem Cantekin, key members of a group, that began a major clinical trial in 1981 to measure the efficacy of drugs used to treat diseases in the middle ear in children. Bluestone, an otolaryngologist, is director of the Otitis Media Research Center and principal investigator on the $5.6 million NIH grant that supported the work at Children's Hospital. Cantekin, a biomedical engineer was the center's director of research. Cantekin, whose paper remains unp

NIH should take an active role in this process, , but I don’t think we should tell instituions what to do." The 46-year-old biochemist took up the challenge, on October 10. On that day she became the second NIH employee—and the first scientist direct NIH’s efforst on misconduct. The office she leads was created six years ago as part of effort to codify research practices by those who receive federal funds. But its work relating misconduct, which includes investigating allegati

Sending Corporate Scientists To School When Robert E. Gee arrived at the University of Minnesota’s Center for Interfacial Engineering in February as director of technology transfer, he discovered four visiting researchers who were busy transferring technology. Unfortunately, they were all from Japan, and the flow of information westward across the Pacific was not exactly the type of transfer that Gee had been hired to promote. So Gee came up with a new strategy to get U.S. industry more

Who does Congress remember when it passes laws benefiting research? Caltech, Princeton, Johns Hopkins—you get the idea— but not Jackson Lab, not the Worcester Foundation, not the Medical Foundation of Buffalo. That’s how the independent labs see it. They feel uncelebrated, often overlooked not only by legislators but by foundation officials as well, and they’re fighting back. At the annual meeting of the Association of Independent Research Institutes in Buffalo, N.Y., ea

Make no mistake, the race to develop and manufacture a safe alternative to chlorofluorocarbons (CECs) is a hotly contested one. But fierce competition notwithstanding, the contenders in the race have banded together to shorten one key leg of what promises to be a marathon. Eight CFC producers from around the world—Du Pont, AKZO, Allied-Signal, Atochem, Daikin, ISC Chemicals, Pennwalt, and Solvay and Co—have agreed to share toxicity test information on HCFC-1 41 b, one CFC alternativ

By Febrauary Talbot’s travel schedule was full His first trip took him to San Francisco to visit UCSF and Stanford to visit Since neither school had yet issued him a formal acceptance he was a little nervous about how his in terviews would go. At UCSF he pressed with the friendliness of the faculty and their apparent interest in him. "They asked me what I wanted to talk about," he recalls. At Stanford Talbot liked the biochemistry departments small close-knit feeling. And he hit it off w