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A geneticist at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia suggests that the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) should be more like the National Institutes of Health (NIH), funding the best research, rather than research on economically useful plants. Support for research and development at the USDA has fallen to $1.2 billion, and support for basic research has also fallen.

Some economists, including those at the Energy Information Administration (EIA) doubt that the proposed research and tax incentive package will have much impact on total US emissions of carbon dioxide. The tax incentives include credits for businesses and consumers, and the research and development proposals have some basis in recommendations made by a panel of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.

Scientists who receive funding from the US based Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) have met in Argentina to present work undertaken in the first year of the international scholarships. Argentina has the opportunity to develop a strong domestic science base, according to David Sabatini, a cell biologist and advisor to HHMI. Real spending on research is increasing as low inflation allows grants to hold their value. Brazil is the largest research and development performer in the region, and support for science in Mexico has seen steady growth over the past 10 years.

Lobby group Natural Resources Defense Council has expressed concern about links between US universities and nuclear weapons laboratories under the 'strategic alliances' programme. The group believes that work carried out under this programme will assist the US in developing new nuclear weapons in the future. Those who support the programme claim that research at the five major centres created under the programme is not actually nuclear weapons research.

The 1997 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Kyoto, Japan, will hopefully reach agreement on world greenhouse gas emission targets. Inevitably, many third world countries will resist the low emission targets requested by developed countries. However, European countries are agreeable to waive the demands on developing countries until wealthier nations have demonstrated committment to the emission targets. World regional carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel combustion are given.

The dinoflagellates blamed for killing thousands of fish and poisoning fisherman in Chesapeake Bay on America's mid-Atlantic coast are related to Pfiesteria piscida, a versatile single-cell organism that can take twenty distinct forms during its life-cycle. Pfiesteria piscicida was first identified by JoAnn Burkholder of North Carolina State University in 1992 and she attributes neurological symptoms she has experienced to contact with the organism in the laboratory. Congress is expected to give a $7 million emergency fund to the Centers for Disease Control for Pfiesteria research.

The Santa Fe Institute scientific research establishment in New Mexico is struggling to retain its identity and reputation for innovation. It was established in 1984 to launch an imaginative, exciting scientific research programme without the usual restrictions of funding, politics and regulations. However, its funding is limited and morale is low. Long term research appointments are being considered. However, interdepartmental relations at the establishment are good.

The Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute of Troy, New York, no longer intends to pursue its bid to manage Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, New York. The State University of New York is the only other bidder for the contract. The Brookhaven laboratories began to experience serious difficulties when it found a radiation leak in Jan 1997. The Department of Energy was required to set up a competitive bid situation in Jul 1997. With one remaining bidder, this is unlikely to happen.

Scientists believe that the current shortage of neutron beam lines in the US will be made worse by the fact that the High Flux Beam Reactor at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York State will probably not reopen until Oct 1999 at the earliest. US scientists seeking to study the structure of matter will be forced to rely on photons, which are easier to obtain than neutrons. The US is battling to maintain its existing neutron facilities, while Europe is going ahead with plans for a number of upgraded and new facilities.

President Bill Clinton is unlikely to promise specific action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by the US at a special United Nations General Assembly meeting in June 1997 commemorating the Rio Earth Summit. Despite pressure from other industrial nations to announce his intentions, the president is likely to wait until the United Nations climate change conference in Kyoto, Japan in December 1997, for fear of domestic criticism.

Some nuclear weapons research being undertaken in Russian and US laboratories could lead to dangerous new weapons being developed, such as pure fusion weapons, according to several US weapons scientists. Lawrence Livermore laboratory in California and Los Alamos laboratory in New Mexico have denied they are developing new types of nuclear weapons, and experts at Livermore are sceptical about the potential of pure fusion weapons.

The US House of Representatives' Science Committee has a number of concerns about plans to allocate funding of $500,000 to the planned Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN). It is vital that US scientists will retain free access to CERN, according to James Sensenbrenner, the committee's chairman, and that European governments promise to help fund a large accelerator if such a facility is constructed in the US. Furthermore, contingencies must be made for any unexpected costs in the building of the LHC.

The closure of the High Flux Beam Reactor at the Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, NY, has left researchers scrambling for access to other neutron sources worldwide. The closure follows the discovery of major leaks of tritium in ground water near the reactor. Officials at Brookhaven are optimistic that the leak will be plugged and the facility reopened soon. Other officials, however, feel that the erosion of public confidence over the laboratory's safety may delay the reopening.

The National Academy of Sciences and its associated bodies, as well as panels of experts ensure that the voice of science is heard in the corridors of power. However, over the past year this voice had trouble getting itself heard. Technical objectivity is being supplanted by the tendency for interested parties in political disputes over technical issues to ask not 'what do the scientist say?' but 'who are they' and not 'what do they want?' but 'who pays their salaries?'. Consequently, the public are demanding for openness in government risk assessment processes.

The worsening economic situation in the Russian nuclear weapon research laboratories has led to their funding by the Western countries to prevent nuclear proliferation. This policy of aiding only the nuclear weapon scientists has led to suicide by the other Russian scientists because their salaries have been delayed by several months. The funding purports to prevent leakage of valuable Russian knowledge in the fields such as nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, and the missiles that deliver them.

Francis Collins, the director of the National Center for Human Genome Research, feels that the impatient ambitions of a graduate student, Amitov Hajra, are the reason for the fraud conducted by him. Collins has to wholly or partially withdraw five research papers due to the fraud. Kenneth Ryan, chair of a national commission that recommended tighter regulation, criticizes the type of supervisions students get. According to him, such incidents results in loss of public trust and formal quality control should be implemented in the laboratories.

Scientific risk assessment has become a controversial topic for environmental debates since the rise of disasters involving unfounded regulations by the US government agency. Environmentalists at first were wary of the risk evaluation due to a possibly biased implementation but the EPA has continued on using risk evaluation in accordance with public health welfare. The Republicans, despite earlier rejections, are bent on legislating that environmental regulations should be based on the overall result of the risk assessment.

Many see Vannevar Bush's proposal for science as the foundation of the funding growth for research since 1945. However, that funding is now being curtailed, despite Bush's belief in an endless frontier, due to budget constraints and other focuses for funding. Scientists must cull the disciplines that have inappropriately grown under government support to retain funding for some science and technology areas. It is important to remember that Bush's proposal was not uncontroversial and even his plan was never completely implemented.

The US is planning to build a particle accelerator designed to produce tritium for its nuclear weapons and may be used for nuclear experiments. Hazel O'Leary, the energy secretary, could face opposition from certain quarters, proposing alternative programs, such as using a currently existing commercial nuclear reactor. Some rejected the proposal on technical and financial grounds but it has strong political backing. The project is to cost about $3 billion and does not need a nuclear reactor to be built.

The budget cuts proposed by the Republicans in the US Congress will adversely affect the Cooperative Research and Development Agreements (CRADAs) between laboratories and industry. The Los Alamos National Laboratory and the New Mexico Sandia weapons laboratory spent $150 million on CRADAs in 1995 and an equal amount was spent by the industry. However if the cuts are approved and CRADAs cannot be merged with the main laboratory programs, CRADAs will have to stop. According to the Republicans, these cuts in the funding of technology transfer will increase the money available for basic research.

A proposal to merge the US Department of Energy (DoE) with other science agencies is an alternative toward the dissolving plan given by a panel of Republicans in the US House of Representatives. Disbandment, retention on a curtailed scale or absorption of its research works into the new Department of Science are the DoE's future possibilities. To restore the DoE, its laboratory directors are trying to develop fruitful relations with the energy secretary, Hazel O'Leary.

A budget cut of up to 1/3rd at the State University of New York (SUNY) has raised fears about the university's states as a major research institution. Anticipated cuts will hit research by raising the cost of taking on graduate students, preventing good staff from obtaining tenure and encouraging departure of existing staff. The budget has been cut from $ 970 million to 670 million next year, causing 60% increase in tuition fees. SUNY's $340 million research program makes it one of the largest research universities in the U.S.

Members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, participating in the 161st annual meeting of the Association in Atlanta, express distress at the limited prospects for minorities in science in the US. Blacks receive a very limited percent of doctorates in life and physical sciences, and both blacks and Hispanics are underrepresented in the outflow of science PhDs. Members also express concern at the lack of diversity in the administration sector of science institutes.

A high-level task force urges comprehensive reforms for the management of the 10 national laboratories controlled by the US Department of Energy (DoE). The task force suggests that corporatization of the national labs will permit them to function like industrial corporations and remove the control of DoE over these labs. It recommends repealing of the legislation that restricts lab operations.

The victory of the Republican Party in the 1994 US congressional elections will have an impact on science policies of the Clinton government, with more emphasis on weapons and military systems research and less importance given to the technology policy. The new majority party will freeze funds for several research and energy programs, National Science Foundation and university research overhead payments. There is also concern that the new Congress will affect the National Institutes of Health's research on reproduction.

Scientific interest groups believe that the shift of power in the Congress from Democrats to Republicans after the 1994 congressional elections will not have any major influence on funding for research though the new Congress will replace the chairs of congressional committees which are in charge of the funding of science and technology policies. The chair of Appropriations committee will be taken over by Mark Hartfield, a liberal Republican. There are uncertainties regarding the appointment of chair persons in House authorization committees.

The Coffey report and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) report criticize NASA for its failure in the Mars Observer mission. The Coffey report states that the failure of the mission results from accidental mixing of a small quantity of fuel on the fuel-pressurization system that led to a rupture in tubing and activated the craft into a slow spin. The JPL report identifies a lack of top-down system engineering design approach to fault protection.

The administration of Pres Bill Clinton gives out conflicting signals to the scientific community by reducing the funds for the Superconducting Super Collider while simultaneously appointing respected members of the community to federal government posts. The recent appointments to the Natural Institutes of Health and Natural Science Foundation have reassured the supporters of basic research. Scientists have suggested the need for scientists to interact with the public and gain appreciation to ensure public confidence.

NASA's future budgetary allocation depends on the success of the seven-man, space shuttle mission to repair the Hubble space telescope. The modular repair program involves cross-trained crew personnel conducting a five-day schedule of repairs outside the shuttle. Mission failure will reduce NASA's five-year operating budget from $78 billion to $71 billion due to media and Congress pressures. The NASA chief states that NASA's budget allocations change very often and desired a more stable allocation from Congress to enable proper planning.

Some people feel that the US Congress's decision to stop the construction of the SSC due to economic constraints, ended its liaison with its scientists. Clinton's administration is accused of being disinterested in the project and allowing detraction to win. Scientists involved in the project plan to join the Large Hadron Collider developed at CERN in Europe. However, they will have to pay $500-700 million for a detector, and some are skeptical about the government's agreeing to it.

Burt Richter, the Nobel laureate and physicist who used to run the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center in California, once had to entertain Dana Rohrabacher, a prickly Republican congressman inexplicably charged [...]

The economic crisis is a setback to the European Research Area, warns Colin Macilwain -- and the research community is ill-placed to respond., Author(s): Colin Macilwain Author Affiliations: The European Research Area (ERA) -- the concept of Europe as a unified entity in which people can collaborate on science -- is a grand [...]

It has become fashionable, in some quarters, to decry orchestrated 'dialogues' between scientists and the public as excuses for much talk and little in the way of practical outcomes. But [...]

The economist Paul Krugman suggested in his New York Times column earlier this month that the BP oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico could provide the flagging environmental movement [...]

Science issues are set to receive a wider airing than usual in the British general election campaign, which, after running on slow-burn all winter, officially kicked off last week. With [...]

The research component of the European Union (EU) budget--known as the framework programme, now in its seventh iteration (FP7)--has experienced only incremental change each time the union has set its [...]

As you read this I will be in San Diego for the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). For policy wonks like me, it's [...]

Is your work any good? Academic researchers will be asked this question with increasing frequency in this new age of austerity. Next month, the Higher Education Funding Council for England [...]

The trappings of our civilization, from flushing the toilet to posting flip comments on Twitter, rely on a set of critical infrastructures. Many of these--water systems, transport links, electricity grids [...]