June 1997

A recent legal flap that may force the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to open the proceedings of its advisory committees to public scrutiny has focused the attention of researchers and government officials on how advisory panels produce reports. NAS-through its operating arm, the National Research Council (NRC)-is frequently called on to give status reports on various scientific and medical issues and policies, as are advisory panels convened by other agencies. The resulting reports frequen

EVOLVING PARADIGM: Allison Rosenberg of the Government-University-Industry Roundtable feels the insider-trading case reflects changes in drug research funding. The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has sent waves of concern through the scientific community by bringing what it calls its first insider-trading case against drug researchers. It is illegal to trade stocks while in possession of information not available to the general public or to inform other traders of such i

ALL-CONSUMING: Exonerated researcher Herbert Needleman reports having had "no original ideas" while his case was pending. Those eventually cleared of misconduct charges say the system is too eager to presume them guilty. Approximately 70 percent of cases of alleged scientific misconduct that come to the attention of the Office of Research Integrity (ORI), an arm of the Department of Health and Human Services, end up with the accused being cleared. But what happens to these re- spondents-as OR

Sidebar: NAS's New Foreign Associates Sidebar: New NAS Members, 1997 This year's group of 60 newly elected members to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) includes five people from industry, the first time in several years that so many scientists and engineers from corporate America became new inductees. Even so, the actual percentage of members from United States corporations is still minuscule-less than 5 percent. The academy accepted only one or two people from companies in each of the pas

By Eric Albert Email: ealbert@world.std.com ACROSS 1 Substance necessary to a biochemical process. 4 Biochemist who noted regularities in nucleotide bases 9 Less than 90 degrees. 10 Carnivore found in ponds and streams. 11 Hormone responsible for breast nipple pigmentation. 12 Apoplexy 14 Fossil discovered in 1974. 15 Having the same osmotic pressure. 19 Conveying to an organ. 20 Radical adjective 23 Foot apiece. 25 Convert into gas. 27 It develops to fill the spinal column and cranium. 28 Bug

Joining the 60 new National Academy of Sciences (NAS) members are 15 newly elected foreign associates. These nonvoting members with citizenship outside the United States hail from 11 different countries. Their induction brings the total number of NAS foreign associates to 309. The foreign associates, along with their affiliations at the time of election and their country of citizenship, are: Grigory I. Barenblatt, visiting professor, department of mathematics, University of California, Berkele

Michael Aizenman, professor of mathematics and physics, Princeton University James P. Allison, professor of immunology and director, Cancer Research Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley Neil W. Ashcroft, associate director, Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source; Horace B. White Professor of Physics, Cornell University Charles H. Bennett, IBM Fellow, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, N.Y. Webster K. Cavenee, director, Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research;

By Eric Albert Email: ealbert@world.std.com ACROSS 1 Substance necessary to a biochemical process. 4 Biochemist who noted regularities in nucleotide bases 9 Less than 90 degrees. 10 Carnivore found in ponds and streams. 11 Hormone responsible for breast nipple pigmentation. 12 Apoplexy 14 Fossil discovered in 1974. 15 Having the same osmotic pressure. 19 Conveying to an organ. 20 Radical adjective 23 Foot apiece. 25 Convert into gas. 27 It develops to fill the spinal column and cranium. 28 Bug

"To Effectively Discuss Evolution, First Define 'Theory'" (R. Lewis, The Scientist, May 12, 1997, page 13) is pretty good advice. Even better, however, is to first define "evolution." The article uses the word "evolution" equivocally to stand for three distinctly different concepts: (1) change over time, (2) common descent, and (3) the Darwinian mechanism. These three ideas require radically different kinds of evidence to support them. To conclusively prove change over time, one need only demon

I read Edward R. Silverman's piece on the National Science Foundation employment study [The Scientist, April 14, 1997, page 1] several times trying to grasp the significance of this study, which seems to have escaped everyone who was interviewed for this article. The data seemed to show that (1) some employers pay better than others; (2) employees with advanced training get paid more; (3) some fields pay better than others; (4) some types of work pay better; (5) people who work longer get paid

In their public statements, the spokespersons of both academic establishments that are now bitterly fighting the so-called science wars (science-practice and science-studies) either state explicitly or imply (incorrectly) that the conflict began less than five years ago. Examples: Science-practicer Paul R. Gross ("The So-Called Science Wars And Sociological Gravitas," The Scientist, April 28, 1997, page 8): "Only recently . . . within the last five years. . . has serious notice been taken, by

Researchers have been piecing together a more complex picture of the chemosensory experience of taste. Identifying new taste receptors on the surface of the tongue and elucidating the enzymatic steps in the signal-transduction pathways of taste are two areas in which biologists are engaged. Teasing apart the psychological and physical aspects of taste-an area of study called psychophysics-is yet another dimension to understanding how we taste food and drink. SCREENING MECHANISM: Andrew Spielma

Edited by: Thomas W. Durso SEEKING STATs: Anne-Marie O’Farrell, left, and Alice Mui of DNAX found STAT5, a protein that responds to the cytokine interleukin-3. A.L.-F. Mui, H. Wakao, A.-M. O'Farrell, N. Harada, A. Miyajima, "Interleukin-3, granulocyte-macrophage colony stimulating factor and interleukin-5 transduce signals through two STAT5 homologs," EMBO Journal, 14:1166-75, 1995. (Cited in more than 110 publications as of April 1997) Comments by Alice L.-F. Mui, DNAX Research Institu

Edited by: Thomas W. Durso D.J. Lenschow, S.C. Ho, H. Sattar, L. Rhee, G. Gray, N. Nabavi, K.C. Herold, J.A. Bluestone, "Differential effects of anti-B7-1 and anti-B7-2 monoclonal antibody treatment on the development of diabetes in the nonobese diabetic mouse," Journal of Experimental Medicine, 181:1145-55, 1995 (Cited in more than 100 papers as of April 1997) Comments by Jeffrey A. Bluestone, Ben May Institute, University of Chicago ONE OR THE OTHER: Jeffrey Bluestone of the University of C

Finding time to conduct research or learn new teaching techniques can be elusive for life scientists with heavy teaching loads and administrative commitments. Time "off" for a sabbatical leave can offer a welcome chance for a scientist to learn. TOO CLOSE TO HOME: Hamilton College biologist Ernest Williams notes that it can be difficult to focus on research during stay-at-home sabbaticals. "To some extent, a sabbatical is an escape from the usual pressures. It is a different pace, and gets aw

HIGH THROUGHPUT: PE Applied Biosystems’ ABI 394 DNA/RNA Synthesizer is controlled by a Macintosh computer. Polypeptides (proteins) and polynucleotides (DNA/RNA) are the two essentials of organic life. Just as detailed blueprints and clay bricks are essential to construction workers, shorter synthetic versions of these two molecular workhorses-peptides and oligonucleotides-are crucial to experimental biologists. Biologists put oligonucleotides to nearly as many uses as Mother Nature does

The DU Series 500 UV/Vis Spectrophotometers feature interchangeable sampling modules, enabling the user to reconfigure the system. Each system comes with a complete set of application programs. Two models are available. The DU 520 is suitable for single- and multiple-wavelength analysis, wavelength scanning, spectral manipulation, time-based kinetic/rate determination, and single-component analysis for concentration determination. The DU 530 offers all the features of the 520 model, plus applic

'BAD NEWS': APS’s Robert Park believes there is still time to salvage greater science funding from Congress. WORTH FIGHTING FOR: Mary Woolley of Research!America points to surveys indicating the popularity of biomedical research. Science observers were not cheered by the balanced-budget agreement forged by the White House and Congress last month, but they're preaching optimism nonetheless. As of press time, the House and Senate still needed to iron out some minor differences, but it app

In the article, "Collaborative Efforts Under Way To Combat Malaria" (A. Mack The Scientist, May 12, 1997, page 1), Lee Hall, host immunity program officer in the Microbiology and Infectious Disease division of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was incorrectly identified in a photo caption as Michael Gottlieb.

As scientists, what do we owe our colleagues and the science community at large? With a little thought, I suspect, each of us would come up with a respectable list. Here is a short one of my own: honesty in performing experiments and reporting results (I suspect this would appear at the top of many lists); communication of our results in a timely manner (even the most important discovery is useless unless other people know about it); objectivity in evaluating our colleagues' work (for example,

Ongoing discussions of funding priorities and mechanisms for the National Institutes of Health in the press and among investigators have focused on several critical issues, such as increasing or decreasing funding for established research areas, improving the peer-review process, introducing grant mechanisms to foster young investigators, and developing strategies to identify and support productive new research opportunities. Indeed, efforts to address these and other issues at NIH (the major s