The Scientist - Home

Yale physicist D. Allan Bromley, already a member of the low-profile White House Science Council, will soon be wearing a second, more visible Washington science policy hat. On July 25, President Reagan announced Bromley’s nomination to the National Science Board, which oversees NSF. Staffers at each body say they foresee no conflicts between the two positions, adding that Bromley’s most serious problem may be finding sufficient time to serve on each panel. Bromley is part of Vice

WASHINGTON—Starting next month, NSF will be allowed to pay up to $95,000 to scientists accepting temporary positions in Washington. The new rule represents a boost of $17,500 in the federal pay ceiling created last December by Congress. But the higher cap comes at a price—a new ceiling on salaries for thousands of NSF grantees. That annual ceiling has also been set at $95,000, although typically NSF funds only the summer salaries of university scientists. The ceiling will be appl

PARIS-- In a country where thousands of physicians practics ho- meopathy the Beneviste affair has generated widespread publicity, much of it favorable to the French scientist. Paris Match magazine, for example acclaimed the initial paper about the alleged memory of water as a stupendous breakthrough, but did not mention Nature's subsequent investigation. The newspaper Le Point reported with tongue not in cheek, rumor that several Nobel Prize-winning physicists met in Bermuda, somewhere near

Benveniste’s “high-dilution” experiments are not the first to raise concern about science journals’ proper response to unconventional results. Twice before, Nature published papers dubious enough to warrant accompanying editorials questioning the results. And in one eerily parallel precursor incident, Nature’s then editor actually swooped down on a yet another Paris lab with “The Amazing” Randi and a third party to debunk unorthodox results—and

Despite recent corporate shake-ups at Philadelphia’s Smith Kline & French Laboratories, the R&D scientists will remain unscathed, according to the company. “We will invest more dollars in R&D in 1989 than we did in 1988,” Viewed Henry Wendt, SmithKline Beckman chairman and chief executive officer, when the resignation of Stanley T. Crooke, head of R&D, was announced August 10. The company—which employs 2,100 research personnel—has an R&D budget this year of $250

When organic chemist Anne B. Sayigh and Harvard MBA Josef von Rickenbach formed Parexel International Corp. in 1982, they weren’t the only entrepreneurs who stood to benefit. Their Cambridge, Mass., firm escorts other companies—particularly biotechs—through the maze of FDA regulations that govern the research and production of new health products. In addition to designing, managing, and finding suitable sites for clinical trials, Parexel publishes the U.S. Regulatory Report

Keith Davies has made Chemical Design a world leader in molecular modeling LONDON—By now we’ve all seen the numbers and heard the gloomy forecasts. Science in the United Kingdom is suffering from a dearth of funding, incentives, and political clout. The lack of commitment to R&D on the part of both the private and public sectors in Britain has sparked an alarming emigration of scientists and high-tech entrepreneurs. But for every rule there is an exception, and Keith Davies is

Although it claims that it has not taken a stand against dissection and vivisection, the National Association of Biology Teachers has passed a resolution that supports alternatives to animal research and pledges to recommend materials that teachers can use in place of animals. The resolution, passed unanimously by the association’s eight-member board, is in response to increased sensitivity toward animal-rights issues that has emerged during the past four years or so, says education dir

After years of passivity, the astronomy community is protesting telescope closings, cramped quarters, and scanty maintenance Like some ill solar wind, word is radiating through the galaxy of United States astronomers that they’ll have to shut down more of their small telescopes before plans to build a new one are approved. For many, this is the final straw. Throughout the past decade, U.S. astronomers suffered in silence as the National Science Foundation retargeted money to areas of s

One of the most promising attacks on the dread disease was produced far from the meccas of biotechnology The message transmitted from the fourth International Conference on AIDS in Stockholm this June was bleak. Seven thousand of the world’s leading scientists had gathered to hear more than 3,100 presentations and to discuss what has been learned about the virus. “Not enough” was the answer. An estimated five million to 10 million people have been infected with the HIV virus,

At least six experiments are aimed at improving the odds for innovative, cross disciplinary, and high-risk proposals WASHINGTON—The National Institutes of Health is changing the way that it does business with the research community. More than a half-dozen experiments are underway to improve the peer-review system—the tool NIH uses to weed out nearly two-thirds of the proposals it examines from those it will find. Most researchers consider peer review to be a pillar of science, ran

Celebrating its centennial, the Marine Biological Laboratory adapts to a new era in which money talks as loudly as science WOODS HOLE, MASS.—When Harlyn 0. Halvorson, the new director of the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, blows out the candles for his institution’s 100th birthday this summer, no one will have to ask what he wished for. The laboratory needs more money, more room, and more molecular biology if it is to remain in the forefront of scientific research durin