Chemist Lloyd M. Smith's entry into the world of gene sequencing came about during his postdoc days, in Leroy Hood's molecular biology lab at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. With his background in fluorescence chemistry and instrumentation, Smith saw a way to speed the tedious process of reading DNA sequences off gels. The result was the development of the first automated DNA sequencer (L.M. Smith, et al., "Fluorescence Detection in Automated DNA Sequence Analysis," Nature,

Everyone is using them, and a new study will try to learn how computer networks have changed the practice of science MADISON, Wisc.--The mail, as usual, is waiting for University of Wisconsin mathematician and psychologist Dennis Fryback when he arrives at his office. But it's not exactly "stacked up"; it's more "loaded in." This morning's batch--data from an off-campus collaborator about their research on cancer treatment cost effectiveness, a citation Fryback had requested from an editor in

Is conservation enough? This new breed of scientists seeks to do more, repairing the harm done by man CHICAGO--As a boy in his native England, ecologist Stuart L. Pimm spent almost every weekend watching birds. As an adult, he abandoned the outdoors to take up such theoretical pursuits as modeling change in biological communities. But now the University of Tennessee ecologist is back on a birdwatch of a different sort, this time in the tropical underbrush of a small Pacific island near Guam.

ARGONNE, ILL.--Amy Moore, a junior at a suburban Chicago high school, wears a combination madras-and-faded-denim skirt and has zipper pulls hanging from her multipierced ears. She does well in science, is computer literate, and wants to be an astronautical engineer. She's not sure what first piqued her interest in space, but she knows what influenced her career choice. "The "Challenger accident aggravated me to no end," says Moore. "I never want to see anything like that again. I don't want to