NSF told Congress about a great new plan for technology transfer but doesn't intend to spend much money on it WASHINGTON -- The National Science Foundation wants more university scientists to get into the technology transfer act. But a new program to do just that seeks only one tenth its originally planned funding. It also offers little assurance that the program will be around long enough to generate any commercial products. Last year NSF presented Congress with its plans for an $85 million

WASHINGTON -- Retiring Massachusetts Institute of Technology president Paul Gray was one. So were Stanford University president Donald Kennedy and Harvard University paleontologist and author Stephen Jay Gould, not to mention Nobel laureates Thomas Cech, Walter Gilbert, and Burton Richter. Like many others among the nation's scientific leaders, these researchers got their starts as National Science Foundation Fellows. Each year NSF gives out hundreds of three-year awards to the nation's outsta

An initiative by Japanese firms and government agencies outpaces U.S. efforts, despite America's head start in the field WASHINGTON -- Try to imagine Motorola, Corning Glass Works, Bethlehem Steel, Merck, and Revlon sitting down at the table with Citibank, Chase Manhattan, Bank of Boston, and a few insurance companies and agreeing to invest more than $90 million in a new research project. Then throw in the federal government, with a matching contribution of $90 million. Such a scenario, impla

Science departments seek high-tech instruments, promising companies a generation of skilled researchers in return. WASHINGTON--This spring two dozen students at North Carolina State University are mastering protein chemistry in the classroom with equipment usually found only in a state-of-the-art research laboratory. And the university didn't have to buy a single instrument. The reason? The new head of the biochemistry department, Paul Agris, convinced companies to loan or donate $500,000 in

WASHINGTON--Although it's been touted as the first scientific group to report to the president in 15 years and a symbol of George Bush's commitment to science, the President's Council of Advisers on Science and Technology was sworn in last month with little pomp and circumstance. With barely two hours' notice to the press and no written descriptions of the backgrounds of its 12 prominent members, Vice President Dan Quayle administered the oath of office and then, after a few comments, left wit

Bush asks for expansion in grants and minority training, but his 4.7% projected increase falls short of rising lab costs. WASHINGTON--Despite a budget that Health and Human Services Secretary Louis Sullivan says maintains an "unprecedented level of support" for biomedical research, the president's request for 1991 falls short of what's needed to sustain a flourishing biomedical enterprise. President Bush is asking for $7.9 billion next year for the National Institutes of Health, a 4.7% increa

Satellite design, data handling get most of the global change research budget; $15 million will go for training. WASHINGTON--Global change leads the way in the rate of increase for research projects in the president's 1991 budget request. From a 1990 total of $659 million, the global change research budget is scheduled to increase to $1.034 billion spread across seven federal agencies. And unlike last year, says Robert Corell, head of the National Science Foundation geosciences directorate, wh

Scientists are realizing that substances in the environment can have devastating effects on the human nervous system For decades, neuropathologist John Olney waged a one-man crusade to have "excitotoxins," chemicals in the brain that cause nerve cells to self-destruct, removed from foods. One of the worst, he argued, was glutamate, consumed by millions as the food flavoring monosodium glutamate. But nobody really paid much mind to Olney's concerns. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) did no

Together, the nation's marine lab directors hope to shape their futures and keep their institutes and coastal sciences thriving WASHINGTON--The directors of the nation's marine labs are banding together to keep their institutions afloat. Next month, as soon as the trustee ballots are in, Harlyn Halvorson will begin his tenure as the first president of the National Association of Marine Laboratories (NAML). This loosely knit network of directors and administrators intends to prove that, when it

The engineer who opposed the doomed launching of the shuttle finds himself ostracized as he embarks on several new careers. PHOENIX--When the shuttle Challenger blew up, the explosion lit a fuse in Roger Boisjoly's conscience. A structural engineer for Morton Thiokol Inc., the firm that later bore blame for the disaster, Boisjoly had argued against the launch the night before and, like the rest of the nation, watched in horror when the shuttle blew up. "I left the room and went directly to my

Too late, scientists agree too little is known about an Arizona mountaintop set to become a haven for astrophysical research University of Washington anthropologist Don Grayson went to Tucson in October to take part in discussions concerning the history of mammals in the desert Southwest. He left believing that he had taken part in an autopsy. The victim was Mount Graham, a mountain slated to become the home of up to seven telescopes. Like many of the 50 participants in the "Workshop on the Bi

A university institute for the optical sciences has turned Tucson into a haven for startups and new research. TUCSON--In 1981, scientists at IBM were looking for a better way to check whether the surfaces of the company's magnetic tapes were smooth. Dragging a stylus along the tape, the conventional method, threatened to damage the surface. Then IBM optics engineer Bherat Bhushen had a bright idea. Why not look for irregularities by bouncing light off the surface? Bhushen turned for help to J