Legislators get creative with new crop of earmarks.

Focuses on how a United States budget surplus in 1998 has effected the way government grants are allocated to universities and the controversial practice of earmarking; Comments of Jim Bose, an engineer at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, who was himself the recipient of a grant to develop a self-heating bridge; Survey by the `Chronical of Higher Education,' which found government grants had increased from the 1995 level; Congress' stipulations over funding for university-based centers under peer review. INSET: Big bucks for big sky country, by Andrew Lawler.