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Editor's note: The U.S. armed services operate a network of in-house laboratories to pursue basic research that fits the mission of each service. In the months to come The Scientist will offer a glimpse of these little-known but well-respected facilities and the challenges they face. The first two articles in the series deal with the Army's labs. ADELPHI, MD.—"As Bell Labs is to AT&T, the laboratory command is to the Army Materiel Command," says Ira Marcus, associate director for engineer

WASHINGTON—Nearly two years after it was convened, a National Academy of Sciences panel is searching desperately for the middle ground in a bitter debate about the use and treatment of laboratory animals. A minority report, rare in an NAS study, seems likely to emerge from the 15-member panel, which has heard scientific discussion give way to personal attacks in the course of its nine meetings. The latest spark stems from a Wall Street Journal editorial relating an account of an alleged co

HAMBURG, WEST GERMANY—A new journal in a developing country must find a way to convince local scientists that it is a suitable home for their research work without setting standards that will scare them away. Delegates to the Fifth International Conference of Scientific Editors discussed that problem and others at a recent meeting here organized by the International Federation of Scientific Editors' Associations (IFSEA). Participants proposed various ways to encourage efforts by journal ed

BOSTON—The executive director of Sigma Xi, one of the nation's oldest and most prestigious scientific societies, has been forced out in a bitter dispute over the proper role of the organization. C. Ian Jackson, hired in 1981 as an outsider with a new vision for the 101-year-old honorary society, was asked to leave June 19 by the organization's board of directors. The board was scheduled to meet last weekend to discuss plans for choosing his successor. "I am not leaving voluntarily," Jackso

OTTAWA—Insufficient circulation has closed Canada's only English-language general science magazine and its French sister publication after four issues each. Science and Technology Dimensions and Dimensions Science et Technologie made their debuts in January after a National Research Council publication was turned over to Science and Technologie Mondex Inc. of Montreal. Publication was suspended after the May issue. The government publication, begun in 1969 and split in two in 1983, had a f

MEXICO CITY—A recent decision by Mexico's federal government to boost R&D spending has failed to stem growing dissatisfaction in the scientific community here over the lack of public support for science and technology. The government said last month it is diverting 5 billion pesos ($3.8 million) from other public programs to the National Science and Technology Research Council (CONACYT). Half of the supplemental funds are to be used for scientific research and half for technological develo

SYDNEY—Scientific issues played virtually no role in Australia's federal election earlier this month, dashing scientists' hopes that the campaign would focus public attention on policy and funding questions and raising doubts about the effectiveness of the country's new science lobby. The formation last year of the Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies (FASTS) had raised expectations that scientists' voices would be heard when the political dice were next thrown.

LONDON—Genentech's British patent on the blood clot-dissolving tissue plasminogen activator (TPA) has been revoked after a three-week trial that featured some of the world's leading biotechnologists. But High Court Justice John Whitford was not persuaded by the assertion of Nobel laureate Paul Berg of Stanford that Genentech had a monopoly on the skills needed to make TPA by recombinant DNA techniques when it filed its patent application in May 1983. Biochemist WJ. Brammar of the Universit

LONDON—Fears of a brain drain of British scientists have been quieted by a new survey from the Royal Society. Many researchers have pointed to the success of overseas recruitment—with U.S. institutions seen as the chief culprits—as a consequence of continuing tight research budgets in British labs. But the Royal Society was unable to find figures to back up the often politically motivated rhetoric. Overall, its report produces a picture of a global intellectual market from whic

NEW YORK—Olatunde Branche, a 31-year-old zoology student at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tenn., was ready to abandon his quest for a Ph.D. because of the cost. Then a professor showed him a magazine advertisement that described a minority fellowship program at Rutgers University. Four years later, Branche is within a few months of receiving his doctoral degree. "That program provided me with the money and the incentive," said Branche, who came to the United States seven years ago

QUEBEC CITY—A proposed blueprint for Canadian chemical research has been condemned by two of the organizations that commissioned it. The committee that wrote the report said Canadian academic research compared unfavorably with work done in the United States. It recommended a more selective funding structure that would bolster top-notch programs and allow them to compete internationally. It acknowledged that the policy would hurt smaller departments, whose faculty would receive fewer, small

DUBLIN—The Irish government, after months of delay and speculation, has committed itself to a science and technology development program with a special emphasis on biotechnology. Although the Irish government is in the midst of making sharp cuts in public spending, Prime Minister Charles Haughey said this new allocation to develop science and technology "will be a permanent feature of the annual budget." Ireland spends about $600 million annually on science, a significant sum for a country