Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site pur-phy.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!cbdkc1!desoto!packard!ihnp1!ihnp4!inuxc!pur-ee!CS-Mordred!Pucc-H:pur-phy!piner From: piner@pur-phy.UUCP (Richard Piner) Newsgroups: net.physics Subject: APS "What's New" Message-ID: <1823@pur-phy.UUCP> Date: Wed, 31-Jul-85 06:54:41 EDT Article-I.D.: pur-phy.1823 Posted: Wed Jul 31 06:54:41 1985 Date-Received: Fri, 2-Aug-85 05:55:47 EDT Distribution: net Organization: Purdue Univ. Physics Dept., IN Lines: 62 Posted: Thu Jul 11, 1985 1:48 PM EDT Msg: UGIF-2031-7612 From: RPARK To: WHATSNEW CC: RPark Subj: What's New WHAT'S NEW, Friday, July 12, 1985 Washington, D.C. 1. WHEN DOES CONGRESS'S PORK MEAN FAT FOR ACADEME? The answer: When the "spoils system," part of the nation's political heritage that goes back to Andrew Jackson's presidency, works wonders, unimpeded by hearings, debates and markups. This year, despite demands for fiscal restraints, Congress is dipping into the pork barrel for some good ol' (and some not so ol') universities. So, during a reading of the $13 billion supplemental spending bill for fiscal 1985, senators inserted amendments for an energy research center at the University of Utah ($2 million) and additions to the Dartmouth engineering school ($15 million). More handouts appeared in the House Appropriations Committee's report on the energy and water development bill for fiscal 1986. Among these: a science and technology center for Atlanta University ($6 million), Florida State's supercomputer institute (another $8.5 million), Columbia U's chemistry building (another $12 million), an energy and mineral research center at the University of Alabama ($8 million) and a Demonstration Center for Information Technologies at Brown University ($5 million)--all to come from the Energy Department's Basic Energy Sciences program. If the bill passes unchanged, DoE also will provide $6 million for proposals for a 6-GeV synchrotron light source (highest priority of last year's Seitz-Eastman report on materials sciences), restore $10 million to the proposed $25.5 million cut in high-energy physics and add $4 million to Argonne's 1986 budget for materials sciences and energy chemistry. But DoE also suffers large reductions: $8 million from the requested $17.4 million for Lawrence Berkeley's Center for Advanced Materials and another $5 million whack from magnetic fusion projects. 2. EUREKA, FRANCE'S RESPONSE TO "STAR WARS," got an important boost on 26 June when four leading Western European electronics companies agreed to collaborate. The four--GEC (Britain), Philips (Nether- lands), Siemens (West Germany) and Thomson (France)--will work on advanced microprocessors and gallium arsenide integrated circuits. The agreement, announced on the eve of the EEC summit in Milan, was cheered by France's President Mitterrand, who launched Eureka in April in reaction to Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative. Mitterrand argues that SDI provides a pretext for the US government to throw $26 billion at US firms for high-tech R&D over the next five years, thereby lessening chances for European companies in such fields as optics, advanced materials, micro-electronics, computers, lasers and artificial intelligence. The reaction to SDI is not surprising, considering that France developed nuclear weapons on its own, after being shut out of postwar work by the US and Britain. With Eureka, Mitterrand believes Europe will advance in high-tech manufacturing on its own, without any spinoffs of SDI. But the lure of Pentagon funds is attractive. One French company, REOSC, has a $900,000 contract from SDI for a 1.85-meter mirror to reflect laser beams in space. Other firms--Messerschmitt in West Germany, Selenia in Italy, and British Aerospace--are negotiating with SDI. Robert L. Park American Physical Society THAT'S ALL 7/12/85