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SYDNEY—The Australian government appears ready to follow the state of Victoria in passing a law that bans embryo experiments. According to Melbourne researcher Ian Trounson, a pioneer in work on test-tube babies, these moves threaten to stifle progress in the prevention of genetic abnormalities and the improvement of success rates for in vitro fertilization.

AMSTERDAM—A graduate-level institute to train experts in micro-electronics and information science, based on collaboration between industry and government, will open next fall in The Hague. The impetus for the new school, to be called The Hague Advanced School of Applied Informatics, came from a report last year that predicted an annual demand for 2,900 information scientists in this country, where universities could produce at most 1,200. That report, financed by the government and some

LONDON—A decision this month by Education and Science Secretary Kenneth Baker on how to allocate the additional 24 million pounds ($34 million) that the British government has promised to spend on science research is expected to push the country closer to dropping out of CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) and ending its support of particle physics. The Advisory Board for the Research Councils met late last month to advise Baker on solutions to the crisis facing academi

NEW YORK—Revlon has decided to end its support of a major university research effort into in vitro alternatives to the use of animals in product testing and research. Its action is the latest obstacle to progress in a field hampered by inadequate funding and differing approaches to the problem. The Laboratory for In Vitro Toxicologic Assay Development at The Rockefeller University was created six years ago by Revlon after intense pressure by animal rights activists to find an alternative

Date: December 15, 1986 WASHINGTON-Irregular funding and public ignorance are major problems facing scientists today, according to a survey of members of the scientific honor society Sigma Xi. The respondents believe that the distribution of government grants depends largely on "who you know" and that it is difficult for institutions lacking state-of-the-art equipment to obtain funds. The survey of more than 4,000 scientists in the United States and Canada was conducted by Sigma Xi as part of it

CHICAGO—A joint venture between the University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory marks another step forward in the burgeoning campaign to hasten the transfer of technology from the laboratory to the marketplace. The new corporation will be responsible for developing business applications for discoveries made not only at Argonne, which is operated by the university for the Department of Energy, but also within the various university laboratories. The new joint venture makes use of

LONDON—Two biologists from Sheffield University have applied citation analysis to rebut departmental rankings developed by the University Grants Committee as a basis for future funding. The Grants Committee has consistently refused to explain the basis of its rankings, although they are thought to rest on peer review and the size of grants obtained from such sources as the Science and Engineering Research Council. “It is astonishing that the costs of production should largely determ

LONDON-Next month in Stockholm the 19 members of the Eureka project will discuss whether to accept non-European countries. If they agree to an expansion, the fledgling research enterprise will have taken another big step toward its goal of stimulating collaboration among nations on high technology projects. The Eureka project is meant to force collaborative research and development partnerships between companies drawn from at least two different European nations. The goal is to develop new comm

WASHINGTON-The drive to quadruple federal funding for AIDS research to $1 billion annually faces an uncertain future within the Reagan administration and in Congress. A star-studded joint committee of the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine has urged the massive increase after an intensive six-month study. Its report, issued late last month, also chides the National Institutes of Health for not enlisting enough university researchers in its effort to better understand the

WASHINGTON-A still-unpublished paper by two NIH scientists on professional misconduct has spawned sharp debate within the scientific community on the responsibilities of co-authors and the role of lawyers in the publications process. The authors of the 1983 report, Walter Stewart and Ned Feder, have appeared in recent months before two congressional committees and a steadily growing number of university gatherings to discuss their findings and the larger issues it has raised. But the possibility

The information for these stories and the accompanying chart was gathered by freelance writers Bob Westgate and Susan Walton. WASHINGTON-Funding for science research, part of an overall federal budget that is expected to grow little in 1987, has increased significantly in several areas. Congress once again failed to approve appropriations bills for individual departments. Instead, on the day before it adjourned last month, it approved a $576 billion continuing resolution covering most government

Last March, Rep. Don Fuqua (D-Fla.) startled many in the science community by announcing that he was calling it quits after 24 years in the House, all of it serving on various science-oriented committees. The chairman of the House Committee on Science and Technology for the past eight years, the 53-year-old Fuqua has decided to embark on a second career as president of the Aerospace Industries Association, a Washington-based organization representing space and defense contractors. Under his dire