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WASHINGTON—When Robert Coleman took the phone call, the University of California at Berkeley mathematician thought the official-sounding voice was a sales man. When he heard the words "MacArthur Foundation," he expected to be asked for a donation. But when program director Kenneth Hope told Coleman that he was one of 32 new MacArthur fellows and that he would receive $215,000 over the next five years, the message finally got through. By at least one measure, how ever, the 32-year-old Cole

WASHINGTON—NSF's proposed science and technology centers should not be required to obtain industry support nor to encompass more than one discipline, according to a new report by the National Academy of Sciences. Funding should be ended after nine years, the report suggested, and the pro gram should not be supported at the expense of grants to individual investigators if NSF's budget fails to grow as quickly as the administration has proposed. The 11-member panel, chaired by chemist Richa

WASHINGTON-The question this summer for AIDS researchers is not whether, but by how much, the federal budget will be increased for work on the disease. President Reagan recently boosted his budget request to $523 million, up from the $413 million originally sought in fiscal 1988 for Public Health Service efforts to fight the disease. The additional money would increase funding for research on the causes of the disease to $266 million, and provide $257 million for the development of treatments an

AMSTERDAM—In a session specifically devoted to safety, participants at the 4th European Congress of Biotechnology held here last month expressed virtually no concern about potential dangers during large-scale production of microbes containing recombinant DNA or following the release of such organisms into the environment. Kees Winkler from the University of Utrecht, in views that were not challenged, argued that because such bacteria—like those in the natural world—would have

LONDON—An international review of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva has dealt a double blow to the laboratory's administration. Severely critical of CERN's management, accounting and personnel policies, it nevertheless has not identified cash savings that would persuade Britain to remain a member of Europe's premier high-energy physics center. The review panel, set up at Britain's instigation, presented its interim findings to CERN's council in early June. It

MADRID—Spanish officials have begun work on a first-ever National Plan for Scientific Research and Development that is meant to rationalize and invigorate the country's entire research program. Cell biologist Emiio Mufioz has been chosen to lead the effort, which stems from a law passed last year to promote and coordinate the country's R&D efforts. But Mufioz, who has overseen science policy for the Socialist government since it came to power in 1982, faces major obstacles to his goal of

LWERMORE, CALIF.—The Reagan administration once again has reached into industry to fill a key science policy position with the nomination of Robert 0. Hunter Jr. to head the Energy Department's Office of Energy Research. President Reagan announced June 23 that he will nominate Hunter for the position, which oversees $2 billion worth of energy research programs. The Senate, which must confirm the appointment, will set a date for hearings once the nomination is officially submitted. Hunter

Peter Ward, a marine biologist at the University of Washington in Seattle, is fascinated by the chambered nautilus, the lone survivor of an entire subclass of molluscs that emerged some 500 million years ago. In the course of thinking about how to open this world to the public—whom he calls "the real supporters of science"—Ward received a flyer describing a new publishing venture by the New York Academy of Sciences. The result is In Search of Nautilus, one of the first in a series d

WASHINGTON—False assumptions, deficient data, lack of guidelines and a bureaucratic handoff all figured in a federal advisory panel's decision last month not to recommend approval of tissue plasminogen activator (TPA), widely touted as biotechnology's first "blockbuster" drug. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) panel's action stunned Genentech Inc., the South San Francisco company that had hoped to begin marketing the blood clot-dissolving drug this summer. The company said it hopes to

WASHINGTON—Behind Donald Fredrickson's forced resignation June 2 as president and lifetime trustee of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute lies a tale of budget overruns and unorthodox purchasing procedures that HHMI trustees and officials say stem from his wife's active and inappropriate role at the institute. "It's big and it's bad," said HHMI chairman George Thorn about the results of the six-month review conducted by the New York law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, abo

Japan's effort to launch an international program in basic biological research has stalled again amid continued confusion over its specifics, according to U.S. and Japanese sources familiar with the project. The latest setback to the Human Frontier Science Program came earlier this month at the Venice economic summit, where Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone had been expected to unveil an official proposal. Instead, final details of the program remain under wraps, and the seven leaders of major in

Long before NSF Director Erich Bloch began beating the drums for multimilliondollar interdisciplinary research centers, foundation officials quietly embarked on a program to provide seed money for smaller cooperative research efforts between universities and industry. The program, which since 1979 has stimulated the creation of more than 40 such centers at schools around the country, offers valuable lessons in how to build industrial ties without sacrificing the quality of scientific research on