Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
Defence research increases set the pace for a 13% growth in the R&D budget which President Carter is asking from Congress in 1981. David Dickson reports from Washington
Following wide debate on the hazards of TCDD, US scientists are now expressing concern about the possible health hazards of low-level exposure to other dioxins, particularly those in the widely-used wood preservative pentachlorophenol (PCP). David Dickson reports
Vera Rich reports on the reactions of the scientific community in the West to the arrest of Dr Andrei Sakharov (right) in Moscow last week and his subsequent internal exile
Competition for the prize of the intermediate vector boson is leading to doubts about the future of CERN, the European centre for subnuclear physics. But the real competition may be trans-Atlantic. Robert Walgate reports
Although scientists in China are being forced into a new role by rapid changes in Chinese life and closer contacts with the West, they are still guided by Marxist philosophy and the principle of social relevance. In the first of three articles on developments in Chinese science policy over the past year, Tong B. Tang, describes the organisation of research. In future articles, he will discuss higher education and the popularisation of science.
Model-based predictions of energy demand and supply are unreliable, since the behaviour of individual producers and consumers cannot be guaranteed. Alvin M. Weinberg (right) of the Institute for Energy Analysis at the Oak Ridge Associated Universities, Tennessee, argues that technical fixes involving increased supply offer the most reliable way of averting an energy crisis
