What was going on when I was born?

SCIENTISTS in California and Australia have eliminated diabetes in some laboratory animals by giving them pancreas glands transplanted from fetuses of the same species. The research represents one of several dramatically new modes of attack on human diabetes, a widespread disease that still, despite decades of research, can be neither prevented nor cured but only alleviated, and even with the best medical management continues to cause blindness, loss of limbs and premature death in some patients. If applied to humans, however, the new technique of transplanting the fetal pancreas might raise a highly emotional issue. The only source for such transplants would be aborted human fetuses. In the United States, a Federal commission studied the propriety of using human fetal tissues for medical research, in the mid-1970's and found it ethically acceptable. That determination was written into regulations of what is now the Department of Health and Human Services. But in Australia, the pancreas transplant research has evoked recent protests from antiabortion activists even though the first use of the technique in humans may still be several years away.

The publisher of Stern, the West German magazine that bought bogus Hitler diaries for $3.3 million, filed fraud charges today against the reporter who said he had discovered them. The publisher also suggested that the reporter, who apparently has disappeared, kept some of the money. Henri Nannen, the Stern publisher, took the action in a Hamburg court against Gerd Heidemann, 51 years old, a journalist whom the magazine lauded two weeks ago as a ''bloodhound'' responsible for the biggest scoop in postwar history. Stern has already published some of the bogus material.

Like most village boards, the one here usually deals with issues such as zoning variances and road repaving that keep suburban governments yawning along for hours. But now the five-member board finds itself balancing the Constitution's separation of government and religion with the Old Testament's prohibition against Sabbath-day labor. At issue is something called an eruv, a line that delineates an area in which Orthodox Jews on Saturdays can do a form of labor - carrying - that would normally be forbidden to them on the Sabbath except in their homes. The eruv here - a continuous nylon cord strung along utility poles, parallel to power lines - cuts across several villages and encompasses 15 square miles. Orthodox residents of Lawrence, on the South Shore of Long Island, have asked village officials to extend the area by 10 percent. The extension involves only Lawrence.

''I always was of the conviction that Heidemann believed in the diaries.

When the Soviet Union built a headquarters for Comecon, the trading bloc that links Moscow and its Communist allies, officials selected a prime site by the Moscow River and erected one of the capital's tallest buildings, a 31-story steel-andglass structure that looks out on an unlimited horizon. More than a decade later, the view is about the most heartening thing left for the organization, whose bleak economic prospects and internal strains have developed to the point where it has had to repeatedly postpone a long-planned summit meeting. The meeting, which would be the first since 1971, has been in preparation since at least early 1981, when it was mentioned by the then Soviet leader, Leonid I. Brezhnev, at the Soviet party's 26th Congress. But four high-level meetings in Moscow this year, including one that ended last week, have been unable to agree on an agenda. Since such gatherings in the Communist world are held only to ratify agreements already made, this is tantamount to acknowledging that the disputes remain too wide for accommodation.

Alarmed by a rise in injuries of pedestrians and motorists, New York City officials announced plans yesterday for a fourfold increase in the number of police officers assigned to enforce traffic laws at hazardous intersections. They also announced the start of a radio campaign designed to help curtail traffic violations. Commissioner Robert J. McGuire said 70 police officers would be assigned full time to special duty in the campaign. Each day, 55 to 60 officers -based in radio cars out of view of traffic - will be enforcing regulations. They will join a force of 20 officers a day who are rotated into the job on overtime at a cost to the city of $22,400 a week.

The House Banking Committee, on a voice vote, today approved an $8.4 billion increase in the United States contribution to the International Monetary Fund. Attached to it was a ban on American support for loans to South Africa. In nearly three and a half hours of debate, the committee also voted tighter controls on bank lending abroad while rejecting a proposal to push for eased I.M.F. lending terms. Many of the Congressmen who had sought the adjustment of lending terms also wanted more restrictions on the banks. The way the bill was approved could split this group.

THE growing problem of mentally ill people living in despair on the nation's streets has prompted psychiatrists to re-analyze the current practice of releasing many such patients from mental institutions. The American Psychiatric Association reordered its agenda at its annual meeting here last week to put a greater emphasis on helping homeless people who are mentally ill. These include people put out on the streets by ''deinstitutionalization,'' a process that in recent years has greatly reduced the population of the nation's state mental hospitals. ''The problem of the homeless is a high priority for the A.P.A.,'' said Dr. George Tarjan, a psychiatry professor at the University of California at Los Angeles who is the association's new president. ''Psychiatrists are much more sympathetic to institutional care today,'' said Dr. John A. Talbott, the A.P.A.'s president-elect, who will take office next year. ''There is a growing realization that there are such vulnerable people that they need protection.'' Dr. Talbott, a psychiatry professor at Cornell University Medical College, is an authority on people with chronic mental illness, who are a large part of the homeless.

Sun Banks of Florida, an Orlando-based banking group that is the state's third biggest, said yesterday that it had offered to acquire the Miami-based Flagship Banks group in a cash and stock offer valued at up to $331 million. Top officials of the two banks met yesterday to discuss the possible merger and said they might announce an agreement in principle today. If the two banks complete a merger, their combined assets of $8.5 billion would make the new bank group the state's biggest.

International Britons will vote June 9 in a general election, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher announced. The date is 11 months before the end of her five-year term. Mrs. Thatcher's Conservatives are widely expected to win a substantial majority in the new House of Commons. (Page A1, Column 6.) The world's monetary system needs revamping, according to President Francois Mitterrand. The French leader called for a top-level conference to try to reorganize the monetary system and warned that, otherwise, ''there will be no salvation.'' (A1:4.)

Several members of Congress responded angrily today to word that the Chrysler Corporation wants the Government to forgo some or all of the large profit it could make by exercising its right to buy Chrysler common stock. The Government obtained 14.4 million stock-purchase warrants as part of the rescue package it fashioned three years ago when Chrysler was forced to request Federal help to prevent it from failing. Each warrant entitles the Government to buy, for $13, a Chrysler share that closed today at $28.25. That represents a potential gain of $219.6 million.

President Franc,ois Mitterrand of France called for a ''new Bretton Woods'' conference to reorganize the world monetary system. He told O.E.C.D ministers meeting in Paris that such a conference would reinforce and stabilize links between the dollar, the yen and European currencies. (Page A1.) Treasury Secretary Donald T. Regan warned new debt reschedulings might be needed by third world countries heavily in debt to Western banks and governments. (D5.) The U.S. has four main goals for the Williamsburg, Va., summit meeting, according to a Government memorandum. (D5.) The House Banking Committee approved an $8.4 billion increase in the U.S. contribution to the I.M.F. The measure includes a ban on American support for loans to South Africa. The committee, in nearly three and a half hours of debate, also voted tighter curbs on international lending, rejecting a proposal to push for eased lending terms. The final version of the bill is likely to touch off opposition from legislators on both sides of the I.M.F. quota issue. (D1.)