James Krieger

Gains in precollege science education found

Precollege teaching of science and mathematics in the U.S. has taken a strong step forward, according to a National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) trend report. In contrast, the report finds achievement in reading and writing to be stable, at best. The document updates with 1992 data previous NAEP reports on trends in science, math, reading, and writing. The 550-page report was prepared by the Educational Testing Service under contract to the Department of Educations National Center for Education Statistics. It is the seventh in the series of NAEP assessments, which began in 1969. The report compares average proficiency for representative samples of students in grades four, eight, and 11 for writing, and students aged nine, 13, and 17 for science, mathematics, and reading. The testing covered 31,000 students. Substantial gains have been made in math and science since about 1980, following declines during the 1970s. In 1992, ...

Microwaves clean up stack gas pollutants

Development work is proceeding on an electromagnetic technique for cleaning sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides from the stack gases resulting from coal combustion. The process makes use of high-frequency electromagnetic waves (microwaves). Work on the process is being led by Chang Y. Cha, president of Cha Corp., Laramie, Wyo., who is also a chemical engineering professor at the University of Wyoming, Laramie. It is one of the programs sponsored by the Department of Energys program for Small Business Innovation Research, DOE coal utilization division project manager Soung S. Kim told the Division of Petroleum Chemistry. Coal-fired utility plants, Kim points out, currently provide about 55% of all electricity generated in the U.S., and produce 65% of all sulfur dioxide emissions. In the new process, Kim says, sulfur dioxide is absorbed in an activated char bed and decomposed under the microwave energy field to sulfur, whereas the nitrogen oxides are decomposed directly under the microwaves to ...

MSI, Digital fashion molecular modeling plan

A strategic partnership in the area of scientific computing and molecular modeling will team Molecular Simulations Inc. with Digital Equipment Corp. Under the arrangement, the companies will work together to provide three-dimensional molecular modeling applications software for Digitals new Alpha workstations and servers, including massive parallel computers. They will jointly market the combined software and hardware to commercial and academic laboratories. The Alpha program is an effort being applied by Digital across all product areas to create a generation of systems based on the companys totally new, open, 64-bit RISC (reduced instruction set computer) computing architecture. Current workstations are based on 32-bit microprocessors. The first Alpha systems, including workstations, will likely be introduced this fall. Eventually, the plan is for the architecture to be applied across the board, from palmtop to supercomputers. According to Molecular Simulations, the new Alpha architecture provides ext...

Soviet science funds up despite widespread cuts

The Soviet Union is placing a high priority on science as perestroika, or restructuring, proceeds. In fact, according to Guriy I. Marchuk, president of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, science is the only area that has not suffered from government budget cuts. Marchuk made his remarks on science and perestroika in Washington, D.C., last week, when he and a delegation of Soviet scientists met with counterparts from the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. The meeting was held to review implementation of the Agreement on Scientific Cooperation, signed in January 1988, and to make plans for cooperation during 1990. According to Marchuk, the Soviet Union is now on an austerity course that will last for the next two years, following a decision by the Supreme Soviet to cut the U.S.S.R.s budget deficit of 120 billion rubles (nearly

New software weds molecular modeling, NMR

200 billion at the official exchange rate) by 50% in 1990 and another 50% in 1991. Science, however, received ...

JAPAN-U.S. COLLABORATION:: New merger involves two colleges

Product and corporate initiatives launched early this month by BioDesign Inc., a molecular simulation software firm, aim at bringing the combined power of molecular modeling techniques and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy data to bear on modeling threedimensional structures of biopolymers and other large molecules. At the recent Pittsburgh Conference & Exposition on Analytical Chemistry & Applied Spectroscopy in New York City, the Pasadena, Calif., company introduced new molecular modeling software called NMRgraf, and it announced a cooperative product development and marketing relationship with New Methods Research Inc., East Syracuse, N.Y., a developer of software products for NMR spectroscopy and magnetic resonance imaging. A fully integrated, stand-alone program, NMRgraf employs the empirical properties embodied in force fields—bond lengths and angles; dihedral, inversion, and nonbond interactions; electrostatic charges; and van der Waals interactions. It combines these with nuclear Overhauser ...

Increase of Foreign-Born Engineers in U.S. Studied

A big cultural transformation is about to occur on the 101-year-old campus of little Salem College in the Appalachian Mountains. The Japanese are coming. Salem College, threatened recently with closure, has become Salem-Teikyo University. Seldom has there been an odder educational couple. Salem College is a school with some 500 students in the down-at-the-heels town of Salem, W.Va. Teikyo University, on the other hand, is an ambitious 20,000-student-body institution in Japan. It is also rich. Terms of the merger included a reported

Cancer institute seeks proposals in two areas

20 million endowment by Teikyo. Transformation of the West Virginia liberal arts school will accelerate next year as Japanese students begin to arrive at the campus. Not only is the student body undergoing change, but almost the entire curriculum is slated for an overhaul. One of the departments feeling the effect is science. Wayne England, science department head, explains that recently students have been able to choose only a minor in chemistry, although ...

Plant Biotechnology Experts Assess Hopes for Long and Short Term: Target site modification for herbicide resistance and increased efficiency for nitrogen fixation may be early agronomic successes

The proportion of foreign-born engineers working and studying in the U.S. has been increasing gradually but substantially, according to a National Research Council committee formed to look into the issues raised by that increase. Many of those issues have implications for engineering education. More must be done to attract U.S.-born students to engineering fields, the committee says. For example, doctoral fellowships in engineering should pay adequate stipends to make graduate education an attractive, or at least a viable, alternative to engineering jobs in industry. Also, as have other groups studying American science education, the committee calls for improvements in science and mathematics education from kindergarten through college. The Committee on the International Exchange & Movement of Engineers was formed by the National Academy of Engineering to make a proper evaluation of the issues raised by the increasing prevalence of foreign-born engineers in the U.S. The committee compiled relevant data, c...

Immunoassay for organic analyses devel

The National Cancer Institute is seeking proposals for two contracts. One involves the preparation of radiolabeled materials; the other is for literature surveillance and selection of promising natural products that may be active against cancer. For the contract on radiolabeled materials, NCIs drug synthesis and chemistry branch in its division of cancer treatment is seeking organizations having capabilities, resources, and facilities to synthesize, store, and distribute radiolabeled materials. The objective, it says, is to obtain radiolabeled compounds of high purity through synthesis in 1 to 100 millicurie quantities. Major emphasis will be on procedures that use carbon-14 and tritium, and the project will involve a variety of compounds such as heterocyclics, alkaloids, peptides, and nucleosides. The literature surveillance contract is designated for a firm with 500 or fewer employees. NCIs natural products branch of the division of cancer treatment is seeking organizations having capabilities, resour...