A University of New Hampshire biochemistry professor who has been embroiled in a dispute with another faculty member was cleared of criminal charges on Tuesday (October 23).

The district court of Durham, N.H., cleared John Collins of criminal charges of disorderly conduct and stalking, Collins told The Scientist. The charges, which were filed on June 29, came after Collins, then chair of the biochemistry department at UNH, was... Click to continue

Yesterday the U.S. Senate passed the 2008 appropriations bill that -- if not vetoed by the President -- will be a big step forward for open access.

By a voting margin of 75 to 19 the Senate passed the 2008 appropriations bill that includes $150 billion in funding for the Departments of Health and Human Services, and Education. The bill also includes a public access mandate for all research funded by the National Institutes of... Click to continue

A congressional committee is investigating whether researchers have a conflict of interest in their work on tobacco effects.

The Chronicle of Higher Education reported today that Congressmen John Dingell and Bart Stupak sent a letter to the directors of the National Institutes of Health and the... Click to continue

The open access movement will take a hit if two amendments are voted into a bill currently on the Senate floor.

The two amendments were filed in the Senate on Friday to either strike or modify language from a Senate appropriations bill that would require NIH-funded research to be made publicly available. The provisions are part of the Senate appropriations bill for 2008, which totals about $150 billion in funding for the departments of Health and Human Services and Education. This bill, if... Click to continue

The University of California finally made the decision to allow researchers to accept funding from tobacco companies last month, the Sacramento Bee reported .

As I wrote in January, the issue had been brewing since 2004, when several UC campuses voted not to accept funding from tobacco companies, falling in line with several other prominent research institutions. The university has... Click to continue

The US Senate dropped language from a bill yesterday that would have directed federal money to research on stem cell lines derived before June 15, 2007, the Chronicle of Higher Education reported.

The move was made in hopes to avert a presidential veto over the stem cell provision. The language was part of a Senate Appropriations Committee budget measure for 2008, proposed in... Click to continue

Another university press has disassociated itself from PRISM -- the Partnership for Integrity in Science and Medicine -- an anti-open access advocacy group established by the Association of American Publishers (AAP). MIT Press director Ellen Faran resigned from AAP's Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division, The Chronicle of Higher Education... Click to continue