A seminar for science news writers held last week at Harvard and M.I.T. was termed successful by Louis M. Lyons, curator of the Nieman Fellowships and head of the seminar. About 50 magazine and newspaper reporters attended the three-day meeting, designed to give them a background for modern science reporting.

The seminar was suggested by the New England Society of Newspaper Editors and sponsored by the two universities. The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard supported the venture.

After Julius A. Stratton, President of M.I.T., opened the seminar last Thursday, 19 prominent scientists from the faculties of both universities addressed the reporters on the scientific enterprise, man, matter, and the frontiers of Technology.

Last year the Nieman Foundation supported a similar science meeting, and the year before that held a seminar for news writers in education.