For many Americans, the confluence of a recession and a growing realization that the nation needs to end its reliance on fossil fuels seems like a double dose of bad news. But for the nation's research universities, it may be an opportunity. A Brookings Institution, a policy-study group with ties to the Democratic leaders now controlling the White…

As the General Motors Corporation shuts assembly plants and veers toward bankruptcy, the lonely remnants of one of its top technological achievements--the first modern mass-produced electric car--lie scattered across a few dozen American college campuses. GM produced and leased to customers more than 1,000 "EV1" automobiles beginning in 1996. In…

After a month of celebrating the largest boost in federal spending on scientific research that most of them have ever seen, university presidents are increasingly tuned to the possibility of a downside. The new money--primarily from a $21.5-billion jump in research-and-development spending in the economic-stimulus law--is certainly welcome,…