TOKYO—Physicist Ron Scott returned to the United States in 1980 after working in Japan on a one-year grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation. But two years after going back to work for McDonnell-Douglas, he said with his easy Texas drawl, “I felt I hadn’t seen it all. So I returned to Sendai for six months to write a paper.” Six years later Scott is still in Japan, working in the northeastern city of Sendai as a research physicist for the Inaba Biophoton Proj

TOKYO—Physicist Ron Scott returned to the United States in 1980 after working in Japan on a one-year grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation. But two years after going back to work for McDonnell-Douglas, he said with his easy Texas drawl, “I felt I hadn’t seen it all. So I returned to Sendai for six months to write a paper.” Six years later Scott is still in Japan, working in the northeastern city of Sendai as a research physicist for the Inaba Biophoton Proj

TOKYO—Stung by foreign criticism of its scant contributions to basic research, Japan has taken steps to break down its traditionally rigid system of funding university research and to launch new ventures. Budget figures released this summer show that government support is strongest, in fact, for the least traditional of the new programs, some of which involve substantial foreign participation. The Science and Technology Agency (STA) achieved a 23 percent increase in funds for its nont

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