Word: alarming
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...source of many of its troubles, is money -- or a lack of it. That view came into sharp focus in January when Nobel laureate physicist Leon Lederman, the newly elected president of the prestigious American Association for the Advancement of Science, issued what he called his "cry of alarm...
...alarm, and especially for his proposed cure, Lederman was not immediately overwhelmed by acclaim -- either from fellow scientists or from Congress. The Bush Administration had already requested a generous increase in the science budget, critics noted. Lederman's call for a doubling of financial support at a time of severe budgetary restraint, they charged, made scientists seem petty and self-serving and suggested that they are out of touch with the country's political realities. In fact, only last year congressional budgeteers agreed to limit spending growth for domestic discretionary funding, in effect making science a "zero-sum" category. This...
...science, as in life, simple questions rarely have simple answers. That principle of uncertainty is especially frustrating when researchers try to determine the hazards of various chemicals to humans. Ten years after sounding an alarm over the dioxin-contaminated roadways of Times Beach, Mo., federal scientists wonder whether they acted too hastily in ordering the community's permanent evacuation. Perhaps, they say, dioxin was not such a serious threat after all. This kind of waffling only reinforces public skepticism about the credibility of scientists, who seem to change their mind with bewildering regularity whether the subject is the danger...
...Colorado has always been a source of contention, but the current problems surrounding it are prompting more alarm than ever before. Plans are being made for an unprecedented summit conference in November of the Governors from the seven states served by the Colorado. And almost certain to come up, whether or not it is on the official agenda, is the 1922 Colorado River Compact, the agreement that divvied up the water among the Upper Basin states -- Utah, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico -- and those in the Lower Basin -- California, Nevada and Arizona...
When the Buck Center for Research in Aging proposed to conduct research on rats and other rodents at the $30 million facility it plans to build in suburban Marin County, some residents sounded the alarm. Animal-rights activists warned that studying the beasts would lead to unnecessary cruelty and that the laboratory could be a source of dangerous medical wastes. But another ominous potential threat, opponents argued, was that living near the center might make people feel bad about themselves...