Catálogo de publicaciones - revistas

<jats:p>London—The British government has just completed a massive peer review of the country's university departments and research institutes, grading them on the quality of their faculty members. Some universities tried to improve their ratings by withholding some faculty members from the review. At stake: $1.1 billion in infrastructure funding that will be distributed in part on the results of the reviews.</jats:p>

<jats:p>Paris—CERN, the European particle physics center near Geneva, got a mixed message from its governing council last month. The council voted unanimously to put CERN's next grand project, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), on a “fast track.” It should now be completed in a single stage by 2005—3 years ahead of the original schedule. But the council also agreed to a series of cuts in the rest of CERN's budget that could badly squeeze other experiments.</jats:p>

<jats:p>Late last month, Secretary of the Air Force Sheila Widnall announced the completion of a new guidebook to help military base managers develop comprehensive land-management plans to protect plant and animal species on military installations. The manual is the latest signal from DOD that it wants to be viewed as a good steward of its thousands of square kilometers of real estate. But some veterans of biodiversity battles remain skeptical.</jats:p>

<jats:p>When a federal judge in Oregon ruled last month that evidence linking silicone breast implants to autoimmune disorders in about 70 women is too weak to be presented to a jury, he sent a shock through the legal profession. If the ruling holds up, legal experts say it will strike a blow to billions of dollars worth of implant lawsuits nationwide. Some scientists and lawyers also believe that the procedure the judge used to exclude the evidence may provide a model for other high-profile cases where scientific evidence is in dispute.</jats:p>

<jats:p>Tokyo—Science is set to grow faster in 1997 than most other government activities, as a draft budget shows an 8% increase for basic science programs. That's in line with a 5-year plan adopted last summer to use science and technology as an economic driver.</jats:p>

<jats:p>A report completed last month recommends that a high-level policy board be created in the office of the Secretary of Health and Human Services to help develop policies on such sensitive issues as genetic privacy, anti-discrimination legislation, public education on genetic risks, and the regulation of genetic testing.</jats:p>

<jats:p>Moscow—Russian science is scheduled for a big increase as legislators debate the country's 1997 budget. But the bad news is that it's not as much as government officials have promised, and it won't be nearly enough to repair the damage of the past several years.</jats:p>

<jats:p>Ottawa—Canadian drug companies won over academic researchers in their successful campaign 3 years ago to extend patent protection for brand-name drugs by promising to spend $200 million on university research. The industry hasn't kept its promise, however, and there's plenty of finger-pointing as the government prepares to look at what has happened.</jats:p>

<jats:p>Ethnic politics won out over experience in the energy field as President Bill Clinton late last month picked Transportation Secretary Federico Peña to lead the Department of Energy, completing his roster of science and technology appointments.</jats:p>

<jats:p>Melbourne—As biologists Down Under prepared last month to head off for a Christmas of sun and surf, they had an extra reason for holiday cheer: two government decisions that will add meat to the country's innovative but meagerly funded foray into the world of genome research.</jats:p>