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WASHINGTON—The sudden and unexplained departure of Donald Fredrickson as president of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute is due chiefly to conflicts arising from his wife's participation in HHMI activities that exceeded the normal bounds of a spouse's interests, say several longtime friends and colleagues. According to these associates, Fredrickson's wife has played an active role in certain affairs of the $5 billion organization since Fredrickson became affiliated with the institute in 1

WASHINGTON—The Chinese government will not allow astrophysicist Fang Lizhi to come to the United States this year because of the potential "destabilizing" influence of such a visit on Chinese students in this country. Word of that decision came in a recent letter to scientists and administrators at the University of California at Santa Cruz, who had invited Fang for a month-long visit of lectures and joint research at the university's Lick Observatory. Last winter Fang was stripped of his

WASHINGTON—Surgeon General C. Everett Koop's plan to "revitalize" the Public Health Service's commissioned corps has drawn the fire of researchers at the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control. And the outcome of a May 18 NIH meeting designed to soothe them is not clear. "It looks like some of you came loaded for bear and weren't sure I was a bunny, so you shot anyway," Koop said following a series of pointed questions from the audience. Putting members back into

LONDON—A new report on technical collaboration in Europe argues for its value to society but warns politicians that it cannot solve all their economic problems. "Do not regard collaboration as a panacea for all of Europe's, let alone the United Kingdom's, high-technology problems," write British researchers Margaret Sharp and Claire Shearman. "But support it, and support it wholeheartedly. Decisions about European initiatives for R&D should be taken on their own merits and not be subordina

WASHINGTON—Federal funds for AIDS research would be funneled more quickly into labs and clinics under a comprehensive AIDS bill introduced May 15 by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.). The bill would ensure the timely review of research proposals, train more researchers, set up a network of AIDS research centers and create an NIH advisory board. Stepping up the pace of research is one aspect of a proposal to provide "new resources and new mechanisms to put the nightmare of AIDS behind us,"

NEW YORK—Superconductive power lines, high-strength composite cements and genetically engineered artificial sweeteners produced in the United States, Western Europe and Japan might seem of little concern to the people of Brazil, Zaire or other Third World nations. But an upcoming report from the U.N. Center for Science and Technology for Development (UNCSTD) says such a belief is not only mistaken but also damaging to the economies of those developing countries. It hopes to illustrate tha

OTTAWA—In 1898 the U.S. Department of State sent zoologist Charles Wardell Stiles to its embassy in Berlin to overturn protectionist measures the local government had taken against the import of American pork. Stiles won the commendation of the U.S. ambassador in that city for his successful advocacy of free trade. His larger place in history, however, is as the first person to hold the title "science attaché." Nearly 90 years later, science attachés are an increasingly visible p

WASHINGTON—The U.S. State Department is seeking scientifically literate recruits to join its 4,000-member Foreign Service. The campaign signals the department's recognition that science and technology are key factors in many international economic and political issues. The department says it wants "unintimidated amateurs"—peopie who know something about science and technology, can identify the foreign policy component of scientific issues, ask the right questions and find the right e

LONDON—Spending on research and development by British pharmaceutical companies this year will exceed $850 million. That figure represents 11 percent of the national total for industrial R&D, although drugs comprise less than 2 percent of Britain's industrial output. In evidence to the House of Lords' Science and Technology Committee, officials from the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry expressed concern that the average period of patent protection for a new drug was only

CAMBRIDGE, MASS.—Medical researchers in this university town are no longer allowed to use two well-known animal toxicity tests after passage of the first legislation of its type in the country. The Cambridge City Council voted May 18 to ban the Classical LD-50 Acute Toxicity Test and the Draize Eye-Irritancy Test. The move is the latest step in a heated local debate on the use of laboratory animals. (A survey by city officials found that at least 50,000 research animals, mostly rats, were

WEST BERLIN—Both East and West Germany must come to terms with the various political views of Albert Einstein, a West German physicist told colleagues at the annual meeting of the German Physical Society here this spring. "Einstein needs to be rehabilitated" in both countries, said Jacob Szer, a theoretical physicist at the Technical University in West Berlin. Despite universal admiration for his early scientific work, Szer said, scientists and politicians on each side of the Iron Curtain

WASHINGTON—The Reagan administration has barred the Soviet Union from participating in an international scientific program to which the Soviets had already accepted an invitation. The decision was made by President Reagan late last month on national security grounds, after the Defense Department objected to the Soviets' participation in the project, which will analyze the composition of the ocean floor. The Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) is supported by the United States, the United Kingdom,