May 7, 1985

A TEAM of six scientists has charged that one of the world's most valuable fossils is a fake, touching off one of the bitterest rows in the history of the British Museum. At the center of the dispute is a priceless specimen that has long been considered the earliest known bird, Archaeopteryx. The fossil, kept under lock and key at the British Museum of Natural History, is now being put through a battery of tests by museum scientists to prove its authenticity. Irate researchers have also launched a fusillade of charges and countercharges. The controversy started when six scientists, including Sir Fred Hoyle, a British astronomer, asserted in a scholarly paper in March that the feather impressions of the museum's specimen had been fabricated in a 19th-century hoax.

Paul Thayer, former Deputy Secretary of Defense, and a Dallas stockbroker have offered to pay the Government more than $750,000 to settle civil charges of illegal insider stock trading, according to lawyers involved in the case. The Securities and Exchange Commission was expected to approve the offer under which Mr. Thayer and his friend Billy Bob Harris, a Dallas stockbroker, would cover some of the illegal stock profits that the agency says Mr. Harris and eight other individuals made as a result of the confidential corporate information that Mr. Thayer illegally provided them in 1982. The S.E.C. accused Mr. Thayer of giving Mr. Harris insider information relating to impending takeover offers by companies of which Mr. Thayer was a director. On Wednesday, Mr. Thayer and Mr. Harris are to appear for sentencing before a Federal judge here on criminal charges of obstructing justice in connection with the S.E.C.'s investigation of the $1.9 million insider trading case.

The United States Military Academy, which historically has been in the enviable position of choosing from among the top students in the country, now finds itself having to compete with private colleges to attract cadets in a shrinking market of 18-year-olds. It has revised its recruiting procedures to compete with the better colleges and universities as well as the other military service academies. Some of the new procedures resemble the marketing and head-hunter efforts of private industry. While the overall efforts are broad, special emphasis has been placed on getting blacks to enroll. Col. Manley E. Rogers, the director of admissions at West Point, said that in recruiting blacks, for example, ''It's often an executive search type of operation - telephone calls, letters and visits to the home - or the kind of thing you'd see for an athlete.''

These are frustrating days for victims of Alzheimer's disease, an incurable mental deterioration that robs some two million Americans of their memories and reasoning abilities. The volume of research on Alzheimer's has jumped sharply in recent years, and exciting discoveries are emerging from the nation's laboratories every week. But almost none of this vigorous scientific activity is yet having any impact on the victims and their hard-pressed families. 'Horror Stories' Recounted Even the best medical facilities can do little for Alzheimer's patients except provide good, conventional medical care to prevent additional illness that might complicate the underlying disease. Unfortunately, the vast majority of doctors and nursing homes fail to provide even this limited treatment, according to relatives who related their personal ''horror stories'' at an unusual conference for family members of Alzheimer victims held at the National Institutes of Health last week.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is conducting a broad investigation into possible insider trading involving virtually all of the takeover targets of T. Boone Pickens, chairman of the Mesa Petroleum Company, a recent court document discloses. The investigation is in addition to a narrower S.E.C. investigation of trading in shares of the Unocal Corporation, Mr. Pickens's current target. Mesa disclosed that investigation last week. The broader inquiry suggests that the agency is trying to determine whether someone who knew of Mr. Pickens's plans tipped off others before the plans were made public.