Opinion in 1982

The US administration plans a generous science budget. It must not look for quick returns.

The US Congress has slapped the Administration in the face by denying funds for MX construction: the problem now, for all concerned, is to find a more manageable missile defence.

The impending inquiry on nuclear power in Britain promises frustration.

Several countries have not signed the Law of the Sea. A compromise must eventually be found.

The British Medical Research Council is to carry out a five-year, controlled trial of vitamin supplements in the prevention of neural tube defects. But it should still adopt more open discussion of the trial.

A recently published book provides an intriguing glimpse of peer-review in action.

Quantum mechanics is less than a century old; Max Born belongs to an earlier period.

Next year will be a bad year for European governments, perplexed by strategic problems and bothered by elections. The United States should help them out.

Britain has changed from having too little to having too much television.

The President of the Royal Society has made a brave speech on Soviet illiberality.

This week's meeting on international trade could have been disastrous but should have been better.

The Reagan-Weinberger solution to the MX-siting problem is ingenious, probably unworkable and certain to confuse the generals. It points only towards the need for strategic arms control.

The UK Medical Research Council seems to be irrationally sensitive about a planned clinical trial.

British universities have weathered enforced economy better than many feared. The return to normalcy may be more testing.

The new West German government seems ill prepared to tackle the problems of its universities.

Mr Leonid Brezhnev's death, and Mr Yuri Andropov 's succession as the fifth holder of his party post since the Revolution, is also an opportunity for reforming the framework of Soviet science.

Last week's meeting of the European Science Foundation was a needless disappointment.

The European Commission's futures research project has not seen the future; but nobody can.

A relaxation of austerity has benefited the British scientific enterprise; but strings are attached.

The United States and Western European governments are trying to settle their quarrel about the Siberian pipeline. Their most important task is to find a way of rewriting the strategic embargo.