Opinion in 1991

There is little merit in US demands that Japan should contribute to the new accelerator in Texas.

Alive, Robert Maxwell embarrassed many, but the aftermath of his death is peripherally embarrassing for Nature.

Last week's resignation of Dr David Baltimore is a sad business. His obstinate defence of a research paper may have been the chief cause, but others must shoulder some of the responsibility.

Soviet science is on the verge of collapse. That is the message from Moscow in the past few days. The gloomy news is plausible. The rest of the world must do what it can to help, but with discrimination.

A proposal in Washington state to legalize euthanasia has begun an important debate even though it did not become law.

The turmoil in what used to be the Soviet Union has distracted attention from projects for arms control, but the opposite should be the case.

Overhead charges on research grants subsidize new buildings. The practice needs to be examined.

British and US institutions have separately challenged the notion that the nucleotide sequences of the human genome should be an open book; have they also signalled the end of the age of innocence for the new biology?

Is too much being made of the most recent milestone in fusion development?

How will the world cope with the rash of new nations? Israel's tentative scheme for the West Bank, which proposes separate governments and separate taxes in the same land, will not often work.

Robert Maxwell's death last week will engender mixed passions in the scientific community, as elsewhere.

Next month's meeting of European governments at Maastricht is billed as being the gateway to a more coherent European community, but it will be only if governments can suppress their ill temper.

A scientific panel of the US National Research Council has shown that too little of what passes for environmental clean-up meets the test of scientific rigor, while a US court overturns a ban on asbestos.

US should convert emphasis on military technology to include commercial technology.

The British government has found a clever way of making sure the Channel Tunnel will make no difference.

The Soviet Academy of Sciences has opted for allegiance to the Russian Republic rather than to what is left of the central government, but that by itself will not put things to rights.

The New England Aquarium, acused by animal rights groups of violating regulations, is countersuing for defamation.

The only certainty about Britain's next general election campaign (postponed until next year) is that the argument will hinge on how the public health service is run and paid for. But the real issues are likely to be hidden in noise.

The Soviet Union (if that name is still meaningful) has replied positively to President George Bush's promise of substantial arms reduction, but that does not mean that the threat of nuclear war has disappeared.

The European Commission is planning to give homeopathy an easy ride. It should think again.