April 1991

New legislation designed to reward outstanding scientists might help to keep them in the Public Health Service ranks Attracting senior-level scientists to Public Health Service jobs in the Department of Health and Human Services and keeping them there has been tough over the past 10 years. Congressmen, policymakers, and other government officials contend that scientists have been leaving government service for better opportunities and agencies have had difficulty replacing them because thei

While Dingell panel moves to curb misuse of grant money, some observers worry that overall federal support will be reduced WASHINGTON--As Stanford University stands accused of misusing millions of dollars in federal funds meant to reimburse the school for the cost of supporting faculty research, the issue is not simply one of $7,000 bedsheets and $1,200 antique fruitwood commodes. The more important question for scientists is whether some of that money has been diverted from research. Many

Job opportunities expand as scientists from many disciplines join forces to preserve a multitude of plant and animal species WASHINGTON--New programs, reports, legislation, and other activities are focusing attention on the study and preservation of the world's diverse species and habitats. "There's a rising tide," says Robert Jenkins, vice president for science at the Nature Conservancy. "Biodiversity has come to be the thing that we're all concerned with." It's hard to imagine how a pie

NIH's new director isn't shy about stating her agency's needs, while NSF's new leader likes things the way they are WASHINGTON--Bernadine Healy, the new director of the National Institutes of Health, wants to shake things up. Walter Massey, the new director of the National Science Foundation, hopes to stay the course. If both wishes are fulfilled, scientists may see NIH becoming more active on a variety of issues, such as managing research dollars and promoting women, and NSF continuing to p

p.21 The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases and the National Center for Nursing Research are offering Research Planning Grants to support the development of plans for research projects on the etiology, pathogenesis, diagnosis, treatment, cure, and prevention of diabetes mellitus and its complications in minority populations, with the exception of Native Americans and Alaskan natives. (These populations are covered under a separate program.) The research may involv

Philadelphia's Franklin Institute AUTHOR: Barbara Spector, p.23 AUTHOR:Rebecca Andrews, P.23 Philadelphia's Franklin Institute Geochemist James Lawrence Powell, who has been president of Reed College in Portland, Oreg., since 1988, will be leaving higher education administration to become president and chief executive officer of the Franklin Institute Science Museum in Philadelphia. His appointment at the museum, which is heavily visited by schoolchildren, becomes effective in August. Po

(The Scientist, Vol:5, #8, pg. 11 and 13, April 15, 1991) (Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.) ---------- Nobody disputes the importance of Antarctic research to understanding the earth's global cycles and systems. But increasing public concern about strengthening Antarctica's environmental protection has raised fear among scientists that overregulation will impede their investigations. They point out that any adverse impacts from scientific research carried out in Antarctica are at worst quite l

When the Robert E. Ginna Nuclear Power Plant near Rochester, N.Y., released radioactive steam into the atmosphere in 1982, utility representatives and government officials were quick to call it a "problem" or an "occurrence," rather than an "accident," which--in nuclear power-generation terms--is far more serious. Nor did they frame the situation as a "risk" story. Author: LEE A. KIMBALL, p. 11 Nobody disputes the importance of Antarctic research to understanding the earth's global cycles a

Researchers Work To Give Biodiversity A Scientific Identity Author: ELIZABETH PENNISI, p.14 Ask biologists about biodiversity and they're likely to agree that the subject commands an increasing amount of their attention. But they may be at a loss to cite the key research in the field. Although biodiversity--the study of the planet's varied species, genes, and habitats, and the effort to preserve them--is building as a scientific endeavor and an environmental buzz-word, there is no consensus on

Author: SIMON SILVER Department of Microbiology & Immunology University of Illinois Chicago, p.19 Why do trypanosomes have mitochondrial genes that are only partial and need the insertion of dozens of uridine residues (copied from small guide RNAs)? Now a slime mold has a gene for the major ATP synthase a subunit that needs 54 insertions of cytidine to correct frame shifts from the missing bases. The mitochondrial genes of eucaryotic microbes are strange. R. Mahendran, M.R. Spottswood, D.L.

Retinal ganglion cells project to the thalamus and superior colliculus, where their axonal terminals form orderly topographic maps. There is converging evidence that, during development, correlated impulse activity and competition between axonal inputs for postsynaptic targets are essential for establishing orderly sets of connections. In simultaneous recordings from 100 ganglion cells in the neonatal cat retina, slow waves of correlated impulses are found even before photoreceptors are present

C2-symmetric tetrahydrobis(oxazoles) are related to a class of chiral semicorrin ligands and show great promise as ligands for formation of chiral catalysts. Copper complexes of methylene-bridged bis(oxazoles) are highly efficient catalysts for enantioselective cyclopropanations, iridium complexes of directly linked bis(oxazoles) are enantioselective catalysts for transfer hydrogenations, and palladium complexes of the directly linked ligands catalyze asymmetric allylic alkylations. D. Muller,

Multi-arm robotic systems are more difficult to control than single-arm systems. An example is the coordination of two arms picking up a long beam from a conveyor and carrying it to another location. The kinematics of this task are discussed. A. Hemami, F. Ranjbaran, R.M.H. Cheng, "A case study of two-robot-arm workcell material handling," Journal of Robotic Systems, 8, 21-37, February 1991. (Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec) Computing for the next generation will involve writing and dr

Self-assembled films represent a method of preparing two-dimensionally ordered structures. Synthetic methods have advanced to provide reactions suitable for film formation on metals such as gold and platinum, as well as oxidized silicon and glass. A. Ulman, "Self-assembled monolayers of alkyltrichlorosilanes: building blocks for future organic materials," Advanced Materials, 2, 573-82, December 1990. (Eastman Kodak Co., Rochester, N.Y.) The discovery of large, discrete molecules containing on

AUTHOR: SCOTT HULER, p.20 First-place winner ($40,000 college scholarship): Ashley Reiter, 17, of Charlotte, N.C., a senior at the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics in Durham. For her project, she determined the dimensions of fractals generated by Pascal's Triangle and its higher-dimensional analogs. Second-place winner ($30,000): Denis Lazarev, 17, of Fair Lawn, N.J. Lazarev, who came to the U.S. from the Soviet Union in 1989, attends Elmwood Park Memorial High School. He c

Author: BARBARA SPECTOR, p.21 Many of the best-known scientists in the field of conservation biology receive funding from the Sustainable Society program of the W. Alton Jones Foundation, headquartered in Charlottesville, Va. Such highly respected environmental researchers as Thomas Lovejoy, assistant secretary for external affairs at the Smithsonian Institution; Paul Ehrlich, Bing Professor of Population Studies at Stanford University's biological sciences department; and Peter Raven, direct