Rodney M. Donlan stands next to the model system in which his lab is growing Legionella. If variety helps to spice up your life, if you enjoy seeing the practical impact of your work in the not-too-distant future, and if you like to collaborate with scientists in other disciplines, you could fit right in at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The government agency, headquartered in Atlanta but with labs and offices in a number of locations, employs research scientists in a wide

Publishing E-Books Making its books available on the Internet for free has helped to increase hard-copy sales for the National Academies Press, according to NAP director Barbara Kline Pope. Speaking Feb. 21 at a session called "How Can Scientists Thrive with Paperless Publishing?" at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Pope said, "We publish all of our books in paper format and electronic format simultaneously. The text is up online for free for anyone

Sometimes a little interruption is a good thing. For instance, during production of this issue of The Scientist, we thought we had the content completely planned and mostly prepared by Thursday, Jan. 20. Then President Bill Clinton made a speech in California on Friday, Jan. 21, and we gladly shuffled some pages around and arranged to include the news from his speech. It was too important to delay, much less ignore. As contributing editor Steve Bunk reports in "President's Budget Pushes Re

Benefits and Impact Results from a survey released Dec. 2 by the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM) indicate that federally sponsored research really does pay off, even if it takes years to do so. For the fiscal year ending June 30, 1998, the AUTM survey credits $33.5 billion of U.S. economic activity to technology transfer. That activity included support for 280,000 jobs, issuance of 3,668 new licenses and options, and granting of 3,224 new U.S. patents (see chart). AUTM def

The Clinton administration has proposed a new governmentwide definition of research misconduct within a federal policy that establishes basic guidelines for fair and timely investigations of alleged or suspected infractions. The policy, which was published in the Oct. 14 Federal Register, will apply to all federally funded research regardless of who conducts the research or whether it is conducted in federal, university, or private labs. "This policy provides needed consistency and clear guidan

Saying they were not asking for a lot of money compared to what is being spent in just a few days in the war in Kosovo, officials of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) called on Congress this month to double the National Cancer Institute's budget to $5 billion for fiscal year 2000 and increase it 20 percent per year for the succeeding four years. Such a boost would increase the federal government's annual investment in cancer research to $10 billion in five years. The plea cam

Author: Larry Hand Date: March 29, 1999  They're common complaints among scientists: News reports oversimplify scientific data, and movies and television stereotype scientists. Although these complaints may be well founded, the remedy may be more in the hands of scientists than the media. The essence of the adage, "If you want the job done right, do it yourself," keeps popping up wherever science and the media are discussed. Increasingly, scientists are being urged to do more communicating