We live in a society in which public, private, and nonprofit institutions co-exist in a competitive environment. Ironically, in the world's most for-profit free enterprise society, nonprofit institutions abound. There is an endless variety of them recognized by our tax laws. Most nonprofits are tax-exempt. They range from religious to educational to professional societies. In exchange for this status, they must give up some of the privileges of being private or commercial. Public corporations,

There were at least three reasons for scientists and nonscientists alike to celebrate the month of April: One was the 20th annual celebration of Earth Day on April 22. Another was the 100th birthday of Marjory Stoneman Douglas on April 7. The third was the deployment of the Hubble Space Telescope on April 25. While all three events certainly are associated with significant activity of particular relevance to the science community, all serve as reminders that one does not necessarily need forma

Perhaps more surprising than the news that this year's Lasker awards have been suspended (The Scientist, March 19, 1990, page 7) was the way the news was announced - or not announced: More than a month after reports of the suspension, the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation still had not officially announced or explained its action or the prospects for a resumption of the highly respected awards. In a recent conversation, Alice Fordyce, Mary Lasker's sister and the foundation's executive vice pr

In the previous issue of The Scientist (Feb. 19, 1990), we devoted a sizable portion of editorial space to the international science community's golden opportunities and potential pitfalls stemming from the Soviet Union's dramatic policies of perestroika and glasnost. In that issue, physicist Sidney Drell poignantly discussed his friend Andrei Sakharov, who - with his dedication to intellectual freedom and open communication among nations - must be regarded as a prime mover toward the great re

With this issue, The Scientist steps forward into its fourth year of publication as the trade newspaper for the science professional. In celebrating this milestone, I can say with confidence that The Scientist has indeed arrived and is here to stay. Following its startup in October 1986, our young paper - like most fledgling publishing ventures - suffered its share of uncertainties. The solid gains it has posted in subscriptions and advertising since then - particularly during the past six mon

Since October 17, when UNESCO opened a six-week general conference in Paris, 158 member nations have been debating the United Nations organization’s strategic plan for 1990-95. The member nations should weigh their decisions carefully, for UNESCO’s future hangs in the balance. What is at stake is whether UNESCO can recover the vitality and leadership it lost in 1984, when the United States withdrew from it, and 1985, when the United Kingdom followed suit. Since then the organiza

The Albert Lasker Clinical Medical Research Awards are certainly prestigious; indeed, they are widely regarded as comparable to the Nobel Prize. Since the Lasker awards were established in 1946, 48 winners have later been awarded Nobels, including J. Michael Bishop and Harold E. Varmus, University of California, San Francisco, who share this year’s prize in medicine for their breakthrough research on oncogenes. I take pride, incidentally, in our forecast of their recognition in the Octobe

Latin America is experiencing a prolonged economic crisis that is eroding its science and technology base. The burden of a $400 billion foreign debt has forced deep cuts in government spending on research and development, and drastically devalued currencies have made it prohibitively expensive for scientists to travel abroad, buy foreign-made equipment, and subscribe to international journals. We should recognize the United States’ role in this and other Latin American problems. Our ban

In this issue’s page 1 story on next week’s national meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS), president-elect Paul G. Gassman points Out that chemistry’s public image is suffering. The general public is very sensitive to the environmental impact of chemicals, including air and water pollution, toxic waste generation, ozone depletion, global warming, and acid rain. And as public anxiety over the environment grows, public confidence in chemistry seems to shrink. As a

Last May at the American Medical Association's International Congress on Peer Review in Biomedical Publication, I presented a report on the impact of fraud on scientific literature. Much of the current debate on this issue has focused on the small, but growing, number of papers reporting falsified research that escape the traditional quality control filter of peer review. But little attention has been paid to the question of whether and how these papers impact on research. This question is relev

As chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees the NIH, and its subcommittee on oversight and investigations, Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) has been investigating scientific fraud for over a year. No one questions the subcommittee's legitimate role of investigating fraud and ensuring that public funds are wisely spent. But many object to Dingell's unfair conduct and heavy-handed tactics. The subcommittee seems to have overstepped its mission as a watchdog of public funds. T

About two years ago, Mikhail Gorbachev introduced the words glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) into the world’s vocabulary. These words have become symbols of hope for a fundamental change in East-West relations. For scientists, glasnost is interpreted to mean improved communication, freer travel, and closer collaboration between researchers in the East and West. This message has been repeated by a wave of high-ranking delegations of Soviet; scientists in recent visit