Articles by Abigail Grissom

For chemists, including those convening in Atlanta for the American Chemical Society's spring meeting this month, there is no shortage of reading material. The Philadelphia-based Institute for Scientific Information catalogs some 300 chemistry journals for its Science Citation Index database. In an attempt to determine which of these publications are considered by chemists to be the most influential, The Scientist looked to SCI to identify those journals whose articles have been the most freque

Someday soon, much of the produce available in grocery stores will be the result of genetic engineering-a synthesis of molecular biology and plant genetics to produce crops that yield greater harvests and are better able to resist insects, diseases, and environmental conditions such as drought and frost. Research efforts in engineering genes in major crop plants are not restricted to one segment of the scientific community. These investigations are being actively pursued by governments worldwi

The world of scientific publishing never ceases to change. Each year, while some journals go out of business, new ones appear, their publishers intent on filling a void in a particular subject's literature or augmenting the existing publications in that field. In addition, journal titles may change or publications may merge to create new journals with completely different titles. In 1989, the Philadelphia-based Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) added more than 100 titles to its existi

In spite of traditional gender biases women scientists may have encountered as students and as working researchers, they are tackling tough research problems and handling them well.

Diamonds are turning out to be industry's best friend these days, and, in a reversal of the old adage, the smaller the diamond, the better. In fact, thin films of tiny diamonds applied to mundane substances, such as iron, are revolutionizing businesses that make products as diverse as drills and cutting tools, stereo loudspeaker tweeters, heat sinks, sunglasses, prosthetic devices, and components for scientific instruments. The United States and Japan are the leading players in this rapidly gr

Of the four major regions of the United States, only the South boosted its share of scientific papers during the last decade. According to data for the period 1980-89 obtained from the Philadelphia-based Institute for Scientific Information's on-line database, the Science Citation Index, the South mustered a 3 percent increase from the first half to the second half of the 1980s. The Southern region of the U.S. upped its share of U.S. science papers from 34 percent in the period 1980-84 to 37 p

For seven of the past 10 years, the Annual Review of Biochemistry has exhibited the highest impact of any review journal (or nonreview journal, for that matter) in the life sciences. In 1988, its impact rating stood at a towering 48.3, a figure well above the second ranking journal Pharmacological Reviews, which had a rating of 29.4. The accompanying table lists the top 10 review journals, according to their 1988 impact ratings. Impact figures are measures of how often the average article in a

In the past few years, the problem of ocean pollution has captured the attention of the media and the public, especially in the wake of such disasters as the washing up of medical waste on the New Jersey shoreline in the summer months of 1988. The media and the public have yet to focus in the same way on the problem of pollution of inland freshwater, including lakes, ponds and streams. Scientists working in the field of limnology, however, have been quietly studying this issue for more than t

At the 19th annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, under way this week in Phoenix (see story on page 1), more than 150 papers will be presented on the subject of growth cones, including such aspects as process outgrowth and guid- ance mechanisms in neuronal differentiation, morphogenesis, and development. This represents a more than three-fold increase over the number of papers on this topic delivered just five years ago (see accompanying chart). By comparison, the total number of.

At next week’s gathering of the American Chemical Society—running from Sept. 10 to 15 in Miami Beach, Fla., more than 8,000 chemists will cover chemistry topics ranging literally from A to Z. The meeting is to feature 524 technical sessions and some 3,500 papers, ranging from agrochemical regulation to zeolite synthesis. To coincide with this event, The Scientist asked the Philadelphia-based Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) to search its 1988 Research Front database to i

Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is a relatively new laboratory technique that produces large amounts of specific DNA sequences in vitro, using only a small sample of genetic material. Researchers are using PCR to diagnose genetic disorders and to detect pathogens from viruses associated with AIDS, adult T-cell leukemia, and cervical cancer, as well as many other infectious diseases. The impact of PCR has, in fact, been so great that this field was identified as the second hottest area in all o