Issue | July 1993 | July 1993 | The Scientist Magazine®

News

The Glass Ceiling: It Remains Firmly In Place

AUTHOR: RENEE TWOMBLY, p.1 Biochemist Mary Sue Coleman is a rarity--a woman who has shattered the glass ceiling, the invisible barrier that allows women to glimpse the peak of professional success but prevents them from attaining it. Coleman, who is leaving her position as vice chancellor for graduate studies and research at the University of North Carolina to become provost at the University of New Mexico, thinks she is lucky. She says she "sidestepped" her way past gender discrimination by

Large-Scale Mentoring Program Succeeds For Women Scientists

The AWIS project's organizers say their three-year effort toward attracting more women to science has paid off When women in science talk about the problems they have overcome, they frequently mention feelings of isolation and self-doubt-- both of which, they say, are exacerbated by the underrepresentation of women in scientific careers. "These are issues all of us have experienced," says Stephanie J. Bird, special assistant to the associate provost at the Massachusetts Institute of

NAS Research Funding Proposal Aims Toward Long-Term Stability

Report suggests that global `yardstick' be the key to framing funding policy questions that are more answerable in practice Despite some sharp critiques, scientists are giving serious audience to the proposals of a recent National Academy of Sciences report, Science, Technology, and the Federal Government: National Goals for a New Era (National Academy Press, Washington, 1993). The report lays out new guidelines for United States science research spending, including the recommendation t

Observers Have Mixed Views On Clinton's Green Policies

AUTHOR : RON KAUFMAN, p.3 As he launched his run for the presidency a year ago, Bill Clinton energized scientists, environmental activists, and concerned citizens throughout the United States with his promise of "a new covenant for environmental progress." While deriding the claim of his White House predecessor, George Bush, of being "the environmental president," Clinton vowed aggressively to combat or remedy the pollution and destruction of the nation's air, land, and water. Constantly at h

Notebook

Stewart and Feder Update Glasnost Comes To Los Alamos BIO Business Snapshots Raging Hormones Science Appeal Wellcome Awards Stewart And Feder Update Walter Stewart and Ned Feder, the two NIH scientific misconduct researchers whose work was effectively ended by an involuntary job reassignment, appear to be making headway in their fight to be reinstated. The pair are on paid administrative leave for now- -rather than working at their new assignments--while HHS general counsel

Opinion

How Do We Identify Science's Most Worthwhile Problems?

years, physicist Alvin M. Weinberg--former director of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and now Distinguished Fellow at Oak Ridge Associated Universities--has gained international acclaim not only for his scientific achievements, but also as a profound thinker, author, and social commentator. For his contributions to the development of nuclear energy, he has been the recipient of numerous honors, including the Enrico Fermi Award, the Harvey Prize, and the Atoms for Peace Award. From 1958 t

Letter

Molecular Evolution Journals

AUTHOR: EMILE ZUCKERKANDL, p.15 Over the last decades, there has been an inflation in the number of new scientific journals, and, from a general point of view, this can be considered as an untoward development. Not infrequently, however, given the rate of production of scientific findings and the growth and diversification of many fields, an increase in the number of journals surely can reflect a healthy expansion. In my view, this indeed applies to the field of molecular evolution, a position

Causes Of `Chemophobia'

AUTHOR: GEORGE BAGGETT, p.12 Ronald Breslow wishes to develop a cure for "chemophobia," a dread disease running rampant in college-educated Americans and often transferred to their offspring (The Scientist, March 22, 1993, page 12). As he notes, this phenomenon could have its roots in "well-publicized chemical pollution problems," but, as in the case of Pavlov's dog, continual reinforcement comes from not-so- well-publicized chemical pollution events. When rural Kansas communities received a

Commentary

To Gain Equality For Women In Science, Men As Well As Women Must Share In The Effort

Over the past three years, the Association for Women in Science (AWIS), through a generous grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, has conducted a mentoring program, the goal of which is to increase the number of women in science (see story on page 1). Whereas mentoring is traditionally viewed as a one-on-one relationship taking place in an academic setting, the Sloan mentoring grant supported development of a nationwide outreach program targeting women undergraduate and graduate students. T

Research

Study: Male Scientists Publish More, Women Cited More

Why do women scientists publish fewer papers than men? Sociologists of science have been pondering that question since the late 1970s, when they documented the fact that women scientists publish about half as many articles as men do. And a recent study has uncovered a surprising new piece of the "productivity puzzle." Women biochemists publish less than men do, the study acknowledges, but the average paper written by a woman is cited more often than the average paper written by a man, accordin

Hot Paper

Physics

U. Amaldi, W. de Boer, H. Furstenau, "Comparison of grand unified theories with electroweak and strong coupling constants measured at LEP," Physics Letters B, 260:447-55, 1991. Ugo Amaldi (CERN, Geneva): "Unifying all forces in nature into a single theory has been the dream of many physicists, including Einstein. "Since LEP--the powerful electron-positron collider at CERN, Europe's laboratory for particle physics--has begun operating, physicists have got some hint that, indeed, all forces

Cell Biology

A. Kashishian, A. Kazlauskas, J.A. Cooper, "Phosphorylation sites in the PDGF receptor with different specificities for binding GAP and PI3 kinase in vivo," The EMBO Journal, 11[4]:1373-82, 1992. Adam Kashishian (Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle): "The question of the specificity of Src homology 2 (SH2) domain/phosphotyrosine interactions has been an important one since the ability of the SH2 domains to bind phosphotyrosine- containing peptides was first shown. Different growth

Biological Chemistry

K.C. Cheng, D.S. Cahill, H. Kasai, et al., "8-Hydroxyguanine, an abundant form of oxidative DNA damage, causes G T and A C substitutions," Journal of Biological Chemistry, 267:166-72, 1992. Keith C. Cheng (Division of Experimental Pathology, Penn State College of Medicine, Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, Hershey, Pa.): "Cellular DNA is damaged by oxygen free radicals generated during normal cellular respiration and phagocytosis as well as cell injury and exposure to environmental oxidants.

Technology

Innovations Expand Lab Power, Uses Of PCR Technique

The gene amplification technique invented by genetics researcher Kary Mullis on a moonlit drive through the northern California hills a decade ago--the polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-- continues to revolutionize the life sciences. Uses in molecular biology research and in diagnostic tests are proliferating, and PCR is even bringing a new molecular approach to such fields as paleontology and epidemiology. The following companies are among those supplying PCR-related products for the resear

Profession

Survey: Biotech Executives' Salary Hikes Indicate Industry's Health

The average annual base salary paid to executives at United States biotechnology companies--both privately and publicly owned--rose between 4.7 percent and 7.4 percent between 1991 and 1992, according to a recently released survey by executive search firm J. Robert Scott and accounting and consulting firm Coopers & Lybrand's National High Tech Group, both of Boston. Top biotechnology officials say the findings portend the future health and expansion of the industry, which, they say, should m

People: American Institute Of Physics Appoints Retiring IBM Executive As Director And CEO, Former DOE Genome Project Director To Oversee Biotech Launch

Author: Ron Kaufman, p.21 Marc H. Brodsky says that when he takes over as the director and chief executive officer of the American Institute of Physics (AIP) on November 1, one important goal of his will be to establish a positive public perception of physics. "We must begin to give the public some understanding of what physics is and what physicists do," says Brodsky, 54, a researcher in amorphous semiconductors who has been working at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center since 196