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When the Scripps Institution of Oceanography threw itself a 100th birthday bash last September, everyone from the Queen of England to Hollywood legend Paul Newman sent best wishes to one [...]

Twenty years ago, Congress slipped into a budget bill a small sum of money for research buildings at Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., and Columbia University in New [...]

Why won't a $2.8 billion increase buy any more individual grants next year? The answer is keeping researchers and NIH officials up at night For years the U.S. biomedical community [...]

The Bush Administration's first budget request to Congress may leave many scientists feeling a little flat. White House officials will release a preliminary spending proposal next week for the 2002 [...]

Bill Clinton came to the White House with a scant track record in science. But after taking some early swipes at research projects, he's going out to applause For some [...]

In the end, the wine proved stronger than the whining. Last week, the U.S. Congress approved a 14.2% increase for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to a record $20.3 [...]

Moore's Law now applies to philanthropy as well as computing power. Last week, computer industry titan Gordon Moore and his wife, Betty, announced that they are creating a $5-billion-plus foundation [...]

Science has emerged a winner in this year's struggle over the Department of Energy's (DOE's) budget, erasing fears earlier this summer of severe cuts in several high-profile programs. Congress this [...]

The desert tortoise that plods across California's rugged drylands may be slow, but it will keep some fast company in next year's defense budget. The $289 billion measure, which President [...]

The National Ignition Facility is supposed to allow weapons makers to preserve the nuclear arsenal--and do nifty fusion science, too. But a new report that examines its troubled past also [...]

Scientists around the world take on a grand challenge to dramatize the need for more marine research J. Frederick Grassle believes in the power of numbers. A marine biologist at [...]

The world's largest laser project will end up costing almost twice as much as originally estimated. Last week, Department of Energy (DOE) officials publicly outlined several options for rescuing the [...]

Challenged by a White House committee to change its ways, the National Science Foundation is looking for far-out ideas in computer science 'Excellent,' raved one reviewer about a preproposal from [...]

Shoot for the Stars Canadian astronomers will unveil an ambitious plan later this month for keeping their country at the forefront of exploration. But observers predict they face an uphill [...]

After raising some hackles early on, Congress wound up delivering a hefty increase in federal R&D spending. But some worry that NIH's increases are skewing the balance Like a television [...]

In an encore performance that is drawing rave reviews from biomedical researchers, Congress handed the National Institutes of Health (NIH) another record budget increase. The $17.9 billion budget passed by [...]

If you don't like the way an institution is run, go after its budget. Congress has just applied that logic to a special fund controlled by the directors of the [...]

Sometimes it pays to be patient. After months of delays that had made science lobbyists anxious, House and Senate spending committees this week were expected to approve hefty increases in [...]

The managers of a giant laser project have proposed drastically shrinking the National Ignition Facility (NIF) to curb rising costs, a step that could reduce its chances of achieving an [...]

A full-court press by Administration officials and scientific groups to fend off attacks on science funding was no match for congressional budget realities last week. The House of Representatives passed [...]

An already uncertain year for science funding got even more complicated last week. In a last-minute flurry of votes before their summer recess, House and Senate lawmakers passed spending and [...]

Funding for defense-related research has languished since the Cold War, even as some civilian research budgets have spurted ahead. Now Congress is moving to slow the trend, proposing to erase [...]

Neutron scientists are breathing a bit easier after their flagship U.S. construction project, the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS), walked a political tightrope last week in Congress--and survived. The key vote [...]

ANAHEIM, CALIFORNIA--The field of computing is chock-full of acronyms, from RAM to Y2K. Last weekend the Clinton Administration coined another one: [IT.sup.2], to describe its plan to boost basic research [...]

Harvard University has embarked on a science spending spree intended to keep it at the forefront of several hot areas of academic research. Officials today announced plans to spend up [...]

Take shelter, a political nuclear war is about to resume. An increasingly fiery debate over proposed new funding for U.S. nuclear weapons research and testing is expected to heat up [...]

Like the mythical phoenix, a once-dead fusion energy project this week rose from the ashes to become the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) highest scientific priority. The $5 billion International [...]

The biodefense bandwagon is rolling. The U.S. government last week awarded eight lead institutions grants totaling $350 million over the next 5 years to establish collaborative research centers that will [...]

On their recent dash to Baghdad, U.S. military forces were aided by some of the Pentagon's most advanced gear, including powerful explosives and sophisticated sensors developed by scientists and engineers [...]

Let the spending begin. After a nearly 5-month delay, the U.S. Congress last week finished work on the 2003 federal budget. The $397 billion package holds some good news for [...]

Can science make us more secure? The Bush Administration is counting on it. The $2.23 trillion 2004 budget request that President George W. Bush sent Congress this week includes hefty [...]

The U.S. economics lump has hit the lab bench. After enjoying years of soaring research spending fueled in part by an economic boom, some life scientists are being told to [...]

All's well that ends well. This year's bumpy budget-making journey ended in a relatively smooth landing late last month with a record raise for U.S. biomedical science and increases for [...]

Immunologist Pam Baker is getting the backup she needs. As a professor at Bates College, a small undergraduate institution in Lewiston, Maine, Baker doesn't have easy access to the advanced [...]

It could have been worse. The new science budget for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) isn't flat, as the Bush Administration had requested. But Congress has spent much of [...]

Two years ago, Stanford University postdoctoral researcher Michael Vagell asked the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for a grant to study how hormones affect the brain. Like about 70% of [...]

Congress last week sent a mostly upbeat message to researchers that it is ready to give basic science a fresh infusion of cash for the 1999 fiscal year, which officially [...]

The 21st Century Nanotech Research and Development Act (S. 189) authorizes the government to spend $3.7 billion over the next 4 years on the science of the very small. Universities [...]

A $27 billion annual spending bill will give the Department of Energy's science programs a 5.8% boost to $3.5 billion. Earmarks absorb much of the increase, however, leaving many research [...]

The United States should take the lead in launching a new era of global ocean exploration, argues a report * from a National Academy of Sciences committee. But with a [...]

Science advocates are hoping that a controversial federal energy bill will give research a jolt. When Congress returns from its summer recess next week, it will face two versions of [...]

The U.S. government's newest research funding agency is getting up to speed. Last week the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) formally welcomed its new science chief, former defense industry executive [...]

Not all that glitters is, indeed, gold. Just ask Marvin Marshak of the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. The physicist, a central player in a controversial bid to convert the [...]

U.S. science advocates face a new political landscape in Congress. When voters handed Republicans control of the Senate last week, ending a brief era of divided government, they put President [...]

Researchers in the physical sciences sorely need a significant budget boost to close a ballooning gap with biomedical research, a high-profile White House advisory panel said last week. But in [...]

NASA may be best known for sending a man to the moon. Now it wants to show that it's no slouch when it comes to fighting terrorists. The U.S. space [...]

An initiative to boost computing research is expected to be the science highlight of an otherwise lackluster fiscal year 2000 budget proposal that President Bill Clinton is preparing to send [...]

It wasn't elegant, but the grand budgetary finale of the 105th Congress last week was generous to many constituents--particularly biomedical scientists. In addition to bestowing billion-dollar subsidies on electric utilities [...]

Focuses on the International Space Station (ISS). Debate over the scientific value of the station; Its first science segment, the United States-built laboratory Destiny to be bolted on the spring of 2000; Researchers in various fields to extend experimental time aboard the station; Technical challenges; Human subjects for research; Financial problems at the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA); International peer review as the norm for selecting station research.