At an April 1 meeting in Washington, D.C., the Carnegie Commission on Science, Technology, and Government formally began the process of going out of business. The commission's five-year charter ends June 30. The panel was convened in 1988 under the auspices of the Carnegie Corporation of New York to assess the ways in which policymakers take science and technology issues into account when making decisions. The blue-ribbon panel is cochaired by Nobel laureate Joshua Lederberg, former president

Two major scientific meetings will be taking place next week--one marked by controversy, the other by change. Denver is the site of the spring meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS), set for March 28-April 2. ACS officials say they are unfazed by a boycott of the state of Colorado by gay-rights activists and others angry about the passage in November of Amendment 2, an amendment to the state constitution banning local antidiscrimination laws for homosexuals. At press time, the boycott

One big, happy family of firms is the goal; but skeptics foresee internal squabbling An impending merger of the Industrial Biotechnology Association and the Association of Biotechnology Companies will enable the biotech industry to speak with one voice, say those instrumental in forming the unified group. Observers say they expect the combined association to send a clearer message to Congress about what the industry hopes to accomplish, and to provide expanded networking opportunities for it

Five months after it was delivered, a July letter from the National Academy of Sciences to a foreign associate member suggesting that he resign because of his alleged anti-Semitic activities is still generating controversy. Correspondence expressing support for the move, as well as letters protesting it, continue to arrive at the NAS office; two scientific societies have joined the chorus of supporters. The issue has focused attention on the criteria for membership in the academy, prompting so

There won't be any loss of continuity in the Albert Lasker Medical Research Awards program caused by the recent death of Alice Fordyce, former executive vice president of the New York- based Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation, say scientists associated with the program. Fordyce died September 9 at the age of 86, after a brief illness. Jordan U. Gutterman, who replaced Fordyce as Lasker Foundation executive vice president and director of the Lasker awards program on Dec. 31, 1990, says that the

Controversy centers on whether and how the elite science body should deal with members whose behavior is questionable For the first time in its 129-year history, the National Academy of Sciences has sent a letter to one of its members hinting that he should resign. The unprecedented move has called into question the academy's role as an ostensibly apolitical body. The ensuing debate has focused on, among other issues, whether NAS should censure its members whose activities are offensive to a l

An international group of senior scientists has appealed to Presidents Bush and Yeltsin for a permanent ban on nuclear explosive testing by the United States and Russia. In June, nine members of the Executive Committee of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs—chaired by John Holdren, a professor of energy and resources at the University of California, Berkeley—sent a letter to the two leaders, who were coming together for a summit meeting. The letter implored them to

Judith S. Rodin, Phillip R. Allen Professor of Psychology at Yale University and dean of Yale's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, has been named the Yale provost. Rodin, who also is a professor of medicine and psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine, will take office July 1, succeeding Frank M. Turner, who will return to full-time teaching and research in Yale's department of history. When she assumes her new position, Rodin will become the highest-ranking woman administrator in the Ivy Lea

Robert E. Pollock, Distinguished Professor of Physics at Indiana University, Bloomington, and Henry G. Blosser, University Distinguished Professor of physics at Michigan State University, have received the American Physical Society's Tom W. Bonner Prize. The prize, APS's highest honor in experimental nuclear physics, was presented on April 22 at the society's meeting in Washington, D.C. Pollock and Blosser will share the $5,000 cash award. Pollock, 56, conceived and designed the cooler facilit

Susan G. O'Leary, director of clinical training in the psychology department at the State University of New York, Stony Brook, and an associate professor in the department, has been elected chairwoman of the Council of University Directors of Clinical Psychology for 1992-94. The council includes directors of 144 doctoral programs in the United States and Canada. O'Leary earned her Ph.D. in clinical psychology in 1972 from SUNY-Stony Brook. At Stony Brook, she was an assistant professor in 1973

Igor E. Dzyaloshinskii, former head of Moscow's Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics, has been appointed a professor in the department of physics at the University of California, Irvine. Dzyaloshinskii, 61, was a student of Lev Landau, considered a father of modern science in the former Soviet Union. He headed the Landau Institute, named for his mentor, from 1965 until 1991. His areas of research specialization include magnetism, liquid crystals, and high-temperature superconductivity. Acc

William Jefferys, Harlan J. Smith Centennial Professor in Astronomy at the University of Texas, Austin, and principal investigator of the Hubble Space Telescope Astrometry Science Team, has received the 1992 National Aeronautics and Space Administration Exceptional Scientific Achievement Award. He was presented with the award on March 27 at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. Astrometry, explains Jefferys, 51, is the "measurement of positions and motions of stars and other celest