Friday, 20 April 1990 Washington, DC
1. SCIENTISTS MUST LEARN TO MAKE THEIR CONCERNS KNOWN TO CONGRESS,
according to the President's Science Advisor, Allan Bromley, who
gave an upbeat opening address to the annual AAAS R&D Colloquium
last week. He urged scientists to contact their representatives to
ask their support for the President's science budget request.
Although Congress is aware of the importance of science, he said,
trouble comes in the appropriations subcommittees where NSF and
NASA compete with various social programs. Bromley, who has
acknowledged the sad plight of individual investigators, commented
that he discussed these problems with Sen. Mikulski (D-MD), chair
of the HUD, VA, Independent Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee.
"If it is as bad as you say," she asked, "why is it that I never
hear from these people, whereas every day I hear from veterans."
2. NSF COULD DO A BETTER JOB OF SPENDING THE MONEY IT GETS,
in the
opinion of many scientists. Although a debate rages over the exact
figures, an increasing fraction of the Research section of NSF's
budget is being shifted from individual investigators to activities
such as Science and Technology Centers. The original concept of
interdisciplinary labs with strong industry ties, which industry
never seemed to think much of anyway, has since evolved into more
conventional group funding. But by now, the Centers have become
symbols of the individual investigator crisis, and as such are
perhaps the most unpopular funding program ever devised. At the
AAAS Colloquium, the NSF Controller, Sandra Toye, acknowledged a
decline in awards from 39% to only 30% and said the number of
awards could be doubled without sacrificing quality. The average
award has remained stuck at $60,000. This, she said in her best
bureaucratese, seriously "suboptimizes" some investigations.
3. THE WHITE HOUSE CONFERENCE ON GLOBAL WARMING,
held this week,
turned out to be a stage-managed promotion of the President's go-
slow approach. European delegates were angry that there was no
place on the program for their view that precautionary measures
should be taken now. The Administration position is that we should
wait for better data, but NASA's Earth Observing System, based on
two huge satellites, won't be ready before the end of the decade
(WN 6 Apr 90).
Critics argue it would be better to employ a number
of smaller satellites, but they may not be ready for "Brilliant
Eyes." Edward Teller proposes deploying an earth-friendly version
of Brilliant Pebbles consisting of 1,000 tiny satellites. And when
the "Brilliant Eyes" aren't busy monitoring the environment, Teller
suggests, they could always be used to do a little spying.
4. THOSE WHO DOUBT THE VALUE OF COLD FUSION ARE NOT LAWYERS.
Mike
Salamon, whose paper in Nature described a negative search for
fusion emissions from Pon's cells
(WN 30 Mar 90), has reportedly
gotten a letter from Pon's lawyer demanding he retract his paper.
According to Pons, Salamon left out positive data. In fact, it is
Pons who has yet to reveal the helium content of his cathodes.
|
