WASHINGTON—A proposal to use the commercial fruits of federally funded research to finance new projects may get a hearing this fall in Congress. Although its passage is unlikely, the idea is seen as an innovative approach to funding R&D at a time when there is little room in the federal budget for new research programs. A bill (S. 1302) introduced May 29 by Sen. James Exon (D-Neb.) would create a technology trust fund with royalties from the sale of products that originated in federally

WASHINGTON—The status of research funding bills for 1988, as Congress returns from its month-long summer break, reflects the difference between word and deed in politics. In January President Reagan proposed a federal budget that called for a healthy increase for NSF, selective increases for R&D at NASA, and a sharp reduction in funding for NIH. Eight months later, as Congress approaches its October 1 deadline to appropriate money for the 1988 fiscal year, the opposite appears more like

WASHINGTON—One of the most frequent complaints about Congress is how long it takes to get something done. Last month Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) found out that trying to move too fast may be an even bigger problem. On July 10 Domenici introduced a bill (S. 1480) to create a federal advisory board and governmentuniversity-industry consortium to map and sequence the human genome. The bill, which would have set up cooperative research efforts on semiconductors and superconducting materials

WASHINGTON—Nearly two years after it was convened, a National Academy of Sciences panel is searching desperately for the middle ground in a bitter debate about the use and treatment of laboratory animals. A minority report, rare in an NAS study, seems likely to emerge from the 15-member panel, which has heard scientific discussion give way to personal attacks in the course of its nine meetings. The latest spark stems from a Wall Street Journal editorial relating an account of an alleged co

WASHINGTON—NSF's proposed science and technology centers should not be required to obtain industry support nor to encompass more than one discipline, according to a new report by the National Academy of Sciences. Funding should be ended after nine years, the report suggested, and the pro gram should not be supported at the expense of grants to individual investigators if NSF's budget fails to grow as quickly as the administration has proposed. The 11-member panel, chaired by chemist Richa

WASHINGTON—National Science Foundation officials are hoping that an arranged marriage between Duke University and the National Institutes of Health will extend NSF's engineering research centers into the life sciences and provide a model for other joint ventures by federal research agencies. But progress has been slow because, as with most such marriages, the couple was the last to know. This spring the National Science Board agreed to spend up to $32 million over the next five years to cr

WASHINGTON—In eight months as presidential science adviser, William Graham has built a staff that has extensive defense and technical experience but few ties to the mainstream academic community. His latest appointment is the Department of Energy's Beverly Berger, who took over April 1 as assistant director for life sciences in the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). She replaces Robert Rabin, who returned to the National Science Foundation after 18 months at OSTP to coordinate

WASHINGTON—In the midst of a growing chorus lamenting the physical condition of the nation's research facilities, the National Science Foundation has been singing a different—and somewhat dissonant—tune. The battle, not surprisingly, concerns money: in particular, whether the federal government should undertake a multibillion dollar program to upgrade laboratories in hundreds of colleges and universities. A host of educational organizations think it should, and are backing a bi

WASHINGTON—The Chinese government will not allow astrophysicist Fang Lizhi to come to the United States this year because of the potential "destabilizing" influence of such a visit on Chinese students in this country. Word of that decision came in a recent letter to scientists and administrators at the University of California at Santa Cruz, who had invited Fang for a month-long visit of lectures and joint research at the university's Lick Observatory. Last winter Fang was stripped of his

WASHINGTON—The recent controversy over the rejection of Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington for membership in the National Academy of Sciences, which spilled over into a rare public debate, has focused attention on the academy's election process. It's an elaborate procedure, deliberately shrouded in secrecy, that repeatedly screens out candidates until a consensus emerges on those most worthy of NAS membership. it is built around a system that divides all of science into five cl

WASHINGTON—The Superconducting Supercollider will have international partners in its construction, promises the new acting director of the Office of Energy Research within the Department of Energy. On April 27 James Decker took over as head of the $1.8 billion research program when Alvin Trivelpiece became executive director of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The 46-year-old Decker, who was hired by Trivelpiece in 1973 after working as a plasma physicist at AT&T B

Igor Suskov is a cytogeneticist who wants to learn a new technique to analyze the extent of mutation in human cells resulting from radiation. But the Soviet scientist may never get the chance, because the people who have developed the assay are at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the site of classified research on U.S. nuclear weapons. Suskov's request is caught in the political and scientific fallout that continues one year after the accident inside reactor unit #4 at the Chernobyl nucle