WASHINGTON—A new federal agricultural research program, funded at $75 million annually over the next 20 years, has been proposed to "develop and produce marketable products other than traditional food and fiber products." The research program would be administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture with assistance from an independent New Products Research Board to be created. The law would require USDA to fund at least 15 research projects within two years of the act's passage; each pro

WASHINGTON—The growing popularity and continued financial health of Science News offers hope to readers saddened by the recent demise of two mass-circulation science magazines sacrificed in an attempt to bail out a third. Published here continuously since 1922 by the nonprofit Science Service, Science News reached its highest circulation level ever in 1986, going from 179,000 subscribers in June to more than 215,000 by the end of December. The magazine does not know how many of its new rea

WASHINGTON-Officials at the National Science Foundation are considering major changes in a five-year-old program that provides federal science agencies with information on research topics that are ripe for additional funding. The program was begun in 1982 at the request of George Keyworth II, former presidential science adviser and director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. It enlisted researchers in an annual effort to identify a handful of fields where additional fund