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New Rules Seen As Serious Threats To Academic Freedom LONDON--Gerald Draper is a worried man. Head of the Childhood Cancer Research Group at Oxford University, he often speaks at meetings of parents who live near nuclear installations, helping them understand why the risk of radiation-induced leukemia in their children is small. It is a daunting task, because the question of whether leukemia rates rise around nuclear power plants is one of the most contentious scientific issues in Britain.

Going it alone may seem appealing, but it isn't always possible. Take BioPolymers, a Farmington, Conn., start-up that employs 18 scientists. Its three founders, marine biologist J. Herbert Waite, microbiologist Christine V. Benedict, and businessman Thomas M. Benedict, had an idea that venture capitalists couldn’t resist: to synthesize the potent protein that mussels use to cling to rocks. The sticky substance, would be invaluable for medical applications such as eye surgery where suture

The Du Pont Co. may be its own best client for its own new venture: an innovative enterprise dedicated to cleaning contaminated groundwater and soil. Allies in the endeavor are two smaller companies: Biosystems, a Chester, Pa., firm specializing in groundwater clean-up and Dallas-based Halliburton Co., an engineering consulting firm to the petroleum industry. The three will operate jointly as DuPont Biosystems, employing microbiologists, chemists, environmental engineers, and geologists—

WASHINGTON--For J.R. Shealy, an electrical engineer at Cornell University, the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) isn’t about shooting down missiles. Instead, it’s a way to fund his pioneering research on growing semiconductor crystals. WASHINGTON--James A. Ionson’s four-year tenure as director of SDI’s Innovative Science and Technology (IST) program was punctuated by controversy over the idea of a strategic defense and the role of the academic community in SDI resea

The Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) is holding its 72nd annual meeting this week in Las Vegas. The meeting, one of the world’s largest scientific gatherings, features more than 9,000 scientific papers and nearly 1,000 scientific, technical and educational exhibits. FASEB officials expect more than 20,000 individuals, including 16,000 scientists, to attend the meeting. In addition to sitting in on conventional scientific sessions, attendees have the opp

WASHINGTON--Don’t add biomedical companies to the short list of U.S. industries that have agreed to form national research consortia to compete in world markets. The strain of mixing scientific cooperation with financial competition ap- pears to be too great. Although drug companies have yet to form a consortium to do basic research in biotechnology, their scientists can watch how one variant of the concept is playing in Peoria. Seven companies with interests in agricultural biote

SANTA FE, N.M--Jumping from a 165-foot cliff wasn’t in their job descriptions. So there was some grumbling when Hewlett-Packard lab director Frank Carrubba asked 20 of his scientists to attend an “adventure-learning” program in the wilds of New Mexico. One year later, the Palo Alto, Calif., researchers talk fondly about their four days at LEAP (Leaders Experiential Adventure Program). The experience brought people from different areas together "in a bonding way,"Carrubba sa

Ask a scientist about the media and you will get an opinion. But what do they actually know about it? They see the products, newspapers, TV programs, radio broadcasts, and may even have had their own work featured at some time, more or less accurately. But their conception of how these things actually come into being usually is extremely hazy, and the media itself does little to dispel the veil over this creative process. The British Association for the Advancement of Science coordinates a pr

Science in the Soviet Union, which inherited the Academy of Sciences founded by Peter the Great, is a difficult subject of study. Many war memorials in the Soviet Union carry the proud words, "Nobody forgets; nobody is forgotten." That is, nobody forgets those-who died in defense of the ideals of communism and the territory of the U.S.S.R. But, in light of others who perished, it might be added "Nobody remembers; those who do remember do not say."A number of major, but inconvenient, figures ha

For cancer researcher and medical historian Baruch S. Blumberg, communication is central element in the scientific enterprise This month, many Americans will see him in that role when public television station across the country broadcast "Plagues." A host of the one-hour program, Blumberg traces the origins of several deadly epidemics: malaria, which may have contributed to as many as half of all human deaths to date the 1849 outbreak of cholera in London; the 1918 Spanish flu; and Legionnair

BOSTON--By significant margins, and in surprising numbers, members of the American Mathematical Society (AMS) have voted to oppose the administration’s SDI program and military funding of their discipline. About 7,000 members nearly twice the number that normally vote each year for the society’s officers, cast ballots on one or more of the five resolutions. The first resolution, passed by 57 percent of those who voted, expressed the society’s refusal to lend “a spuriou

LONDON--A plan to have British industry pick up the cost of "near-market" research may jeopardize the jobs of thousands of agriculture and food researchers at state-funded institutes. Officials at the British Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food are reviewing the department’s $200 million annual budget to find which portions should be transferred to industry over the next two years. That approach parallels a recently announced policy that the Thatcher government would support R