If geneticists become obsessed with making bigger pigs for private industry, he said, they will not be doing the fundamental research that could promise further breakthroughs in genetic engineering.

Although the ultra-thin films are being created by a decades-old technology, they are being viewed by Dr. Rickert and other chemical engineers in very new ways that promise important breakthroughs in computer and other technologies.

Yet with ubiquitous computing still in its infancy, PARC and Dr. Brown are already poking around for new projects that promise big breakthroughs.

Now, as then, the religion promises miraculous breakthroughs, wonder cures, and sometimes even eternal life.

That leaves health, which the media prefer to hype with false hope: they find it easy to promise remarkable breakthroughs, cures and prolongations of life.

The faculty, he said, has been developing five-year plans for fields that promise significant breakthroughs with wide social and economic effects - such as housing for low- and middle-income groups, the role of new materials, improvements in manufacturing and developments in artificial intelligence.

The Republican consensus that the F.D.A. laws must be revised is shaped by several factors: the development of products that promise medical breakthroughs, the growth of the biotechnology industry and the emergence of patient-advocacy groups as an influential force in the debate over health policy.