Some of the most influential papers in 1992, according to data provided by the Philadelphia-based Institute for Scientific Information, were in immunology. This is not surprising, given the field's applications in stemming AIDS, cancer, and other pressing diseases. The most cited paper published within the last two years is from the Max Planck Institute for Biology in Tbingen, Germany (K. Falk, et al., Nature, 351:290, 1991). This paper, which by the end of February 1993 had been referred to i

Plant researchers appear to be catching up with the efforts of those scientists in the better-funded and more visible Human Genome Project. With a critical mass of information forming on the genome of a model plant, Arabidopsis thaliana, including libraries of gene sequences and a number of important chromosome maps, molecular biologists working with plants are at the threshold of important breakthroughs on previously intractable problems. They are on the brink of understanding the mechanisms o

As his radical ecology experiment meets with criticism, even ridicule, he shows more interest in mainstream science Texas billionaire Edward Bass, best known for his bankrolling of Biosphere 2, now appears to be focusing his largess a bit closer to the scientific mainstream. The Biosphere 2 project, an experiment set up near Tucson, Ariz., attempting to establish a sealed, self-sustaining, three-acre module with eight humans inside, has taken a beating from the press and scientists over its la

Chemical engineers and biologists say that collaborations between their disparate disciplines are beginning to bear some valuable fruit, not just in the applied field of biotechnology, but also in understanding basic cellular mechanisms. Yet those who are currently working at this cross-disciplinary interface say the challenge today is to get these two scientific cultures to interact. One way to bridge such a gulf is to have a meeting and invite interested members from each discipline to atten

The mind is a difficult thing to understand. And to get a handle on how it works requires not just a biological, but also a psychological and philosophical approach, say those in the field of cognitive science, a 30-year-old discipline that now seems to be making headway in its quest to understand thought and the mind's function. "The bottom line is, we're a bunch of blind men searching for a black cat in a dark room. You grab at anything you can get," says Jonathan D. Cohen, a cognitive neuro

Influence On Lab Research Date: December 7, 1992 For the scientists who won this year's Nobel prizes in chemistry and in physiology or medicine, a commanding citation record, as determined by the Philadelphia-based Institute for Scientific Information, was a clear indication that they were in the running for this most coveted award. The prize in physics, however, went to a French physicist at CERN whose citation history, although impressive, has not been nearly as meteoric as the other recipi

U.S. Remains Murky Date: December 7, 1992 It's the worst of times, but in some ways it's also the best of times for fusion researchers. On the upside is a complex, four- party agreement that was signed in July, commiting the world fusion community to a collaborative effort to design the next- generation fusion experiment. The United States is joining Japan, Europe, and Russia to design the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER). The bad news is that the agreement is only to

Date: November 23, 1992 In the first major move toward translating into research the National Institutes of Health's "largest coordinated study of women's health ever undertaken," a coordinating center has been named. Seattle's Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center will be overseeing research efforts and analyzing the data from up to 45 clinical centers, the first 15 of which will be identified by NIH in March. Each center will employ about nine researchers. During the course of the Women's

Bolstered by new scientific evidence, research into how self- replicating organisms emerged from basic organic molecules present on the early Earth is moving away from the scientific fringe and into the mainstream. Although there are only a handful of people who would call themselves origins-of-life researchers, the field is undergoing a renaissance, with a wide array of disciplines, such as radio astronomy, planetary science, molecular biology, and biochemistry, converging to make advances.

The decision on whether the National Institutes of Health should continue its quest for patents on partial human cDNA sequences now rests with Health and Human Services secretary Louis Sullivan. In September, NIH director Bernadine Healy revealed that the agency had received an initial rejection from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) for the approximately 2,700 partial gene sequences generated by former NIH researcher Craig Venter and others. Then, on October 5, an HHS spok

Denis Burkitt, who first established the link between a virus and a cancer and later helped demonstrate the importance of adding more fiber to the Western diet, has received the Bower Award and Prize in Science. The three-year-old award carries a cash prize of $373,000, and will be formally presented in January by Philadelphia's Franklin Institute to honor outstanding work in the life or physical sciences. Members of the international committee that chose the 81-year-old Burkitt to receive t

Although funding has been restored for the superconducting supercollider, the skies have not cleared over the Dallas-based project, as well-founded fears of another budget wrangle next year persist, say SSC officials. The Senate voted on August 3 in favor of continued SSC funding after the House voted the project down on June 17, but physicists associated with the SSC say they are still wary. They are concerned over a Congress that will have as many as 130 new members after this fall's election