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Who's up for top WHO job?

By Stephen Pincock | September 7, 2006

The field candidates for the top job at the World Health Organization is dominated by a list of current and former WHO insiders, it emerged on Wednesday. Of the 13 nominees to fill the post of director general that was linkurl:left vacant;http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/23475/ earlier this year by the death of Lee Jong-Wook, four currently hold senior WHO posts and three have former connections to the agency. Lee?s unexpected passing in May forced the WHO to put in place an accelera

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A scientist hits the streets

By Brendan Maher | September 5, 2006

The photo shoot for this month?s linkurl:feature on the postdoc glut;http://www.the-scientist.com/2006/9/1/42/1/ was obviously a spoof. At least that?s what we thought. Standing on the median of Broad street with a sign that says ?Have PhD, Will Work For Food,? Kevin Duffy expected to garner a few stares, but not much else. ?Some guy gave me his business card,? he told me. Someone walking on the set of the shoot asked what they were doing. Even though Kevin told them they were working on an

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Nature press on errors

By Brendan Maher | August 30, 2006

After issuing linkurl:two post-press corrections;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/24413/ to the release notes for a headline grabbing linkurl:news story about human embryonic stem cells;http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/24363/ last week, Ruth Francis, __Nature__?s senior press officer said she got a lot of calls and emails from editors and journalists. They issued the second correction Friday night about 9pm Francis? time, just before a three day weekend which was bound to rais

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The Embryo Corrections

By Brendan Maher | August 25, 2006

When Robert Lanza?s group at Advanced Cell Technology reported linkurl:this week;http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/24363/ creating so-called ethically clean ES cell lines (establishing colonies from an early human embryo without destroying it) they didn?t make clear whether they had actually accomplished this feat. This work might have potential, but the numbers speak to a logical smoke and mirror show. Using 16 blastomeres (embryos in the 8-to-10-cell stage), Lanza?s group extracted 9

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Decoding the code code

By Brendan Maher | August 21, 2006

A few weeks ago linkurl:I chided Nick Wade;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/24083/ (lovingly! I?m a huge fan, after all) for invoking the ?code? word when describing a study on nucleosome positioning. It surprised me when my post spurred some comments on the nature of the __Nature__ press office, and their proclivity for hyping, but ?not overhyping,? the research papers within. Wade can be forgiven. I didn?t realize how pervasive the word code had been in __Nature__ until I saw the di

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Government lab unites science journalists

By Ivan Oransky | August 16, 2006

Earlier this week, I and several other editorial staffers here at __The Scientist__ started receiving Emails titled ?User Quarantine Release Notification? from an ?inel.gov? address, presumably from the Idaho National Laboratory. Nothing terribly unusual about such spam, which requested that we click on a link to view a list of all of our quarantined messages. Someone had been attacked by a virus. What happened after that, however, was more unusual: __The New York Times?__ George Johnson respo

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Cloning in Iran

By Stephen Pincock | August 11, 2006

Iranian biosciences aren?t exactly top of the news agenda these days, so I was interested to linkurl:read;http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/research/story/0,,1839217,00.html this week that researchers at Tehran?s linkurl:Royan Institute;http://www.royaninstitute.org/ have "succeeded" in producing what is apparently the Middle East's first cloned sheep. The sheep died minutes after it was delivered at the institute, which specializes in fertility issues (Royan meaning Embryo in

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Stem cell reprogramming clues revealed

By Alison McCook | August 11, 2006

During one of the most linkurl:memorable;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/23254/ conference sessions I attended, a researcher from Japan wowed an entire Keystone meeting on stem cells by announcing he had found a way to reprogram adult stem cells into embryonic stem cells using only a few factors. What those factors were, however, Shinya Yamanaka from Kyoto University wouldn?t say -- even after numerous probing questions from the audience. Now, Yamanaka is revealing his secrets in the

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Another sad anniversary

By Brendan Maher | August 9, 2006

It?s been a summer of depressing anniversaries, but not until now have I had the occasion to remember, vividly, the actual events. I was too young to remember the first reports of linkurl:AIDS, 25 years ago.;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/23586/ Legionnaire?s disease, happened (just a few blocks from where I now work) linkurl:five years earlier;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/88/ than that. But I still remember quite vividly watching President Bush give his linkurl:firs

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Consumer genetic tests on trial

By Brendan Maher | August 2, 2006

I was glad to see that someone?s taking direct-to-consumer genetic testing to trial. Nutrigenetics and nutrigenomics is a burgeoning experimental science as we?ll be writing about in September, but the common refrain among many experts -- ?It?s not ready for prime-time? -- hasn?t stopped several companies from marketing store bought genetic tests which are used with a lifestyle inventory to provide customized nutritional guidance. I?ve been linkurl:skeptical, to say the least,;http://www.the-s

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