NewsBlog: [Entry posted at 28th August 2008 07:21 PM GMT] When it comes to matters of science, Republican US presidential hopeful John McCain is with his party on some issues, not quite on others.
This week the Republican Party released a draft of its 2008 platform, one that will be debated in the days leading up to the GOP convention in St Paul, Minnesota, starting Monday (September 1). Some of the party's points regarding science differ from the campaign points McCain has... Click to continue
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NewsBlog: [Entry posted at 27th August 2008 06:00 PM GMT] For the first time, researchers have converted fully-differentiated cells in vivo into another type of cell without first reprogramming them to a pluripotent state. The conversion of pancreatic exocrine cells into fully functioning beta cells in living mice is described in a paper to be published tomorrow (August 28) in Nature.
"This paper is an important milestone on the road that hopefully leads to the generation of new beta... Click to continue
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NewsBlog: [Entry posted at 25th August 2008 06:26 PM GMT] Over the past several weeks editors at The Scientist have received announcements from Allerca, the controversial company selling purportedly hypoallergenic cats, stating that some of their felines will be doubling in price this fall.
According to a release sent out from the company last week, the price of the standard Allerca cat will go from $5,950 to $7,900 on September 1. But starting on November 1, the cost is skyrocketing to $15,000. The other cat breeds that Allerca sells are... Click to continue
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NewsBlog: [Entry posted at 21st August 2008 02:49 PM GMT] The University College of London will be the likely host to a new $261 million neuroscience institute, according to a statement sent to The Scientist from the Wellcome Trust, a co-developer of the new center.
Beating out Oxford and Cambridge Universities, UCL will host the new center devoted to researching neural circuits and behavior, and could be completed as soon as 2011, Nature reported yesterday.... Click to continue
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NewsBlog: [Entry posted at 20th August 2008 09:06 PM GMT] Will findings by Worcester, MA-based Advanced Cell Technologies (ACT) on large-scale blood production from stem cells help the company pull in some much-needed capital?
By now you've likely seen reports on a paper appearing today in Blood in which researchers differentiated human embryonic stem cells into oxygen-carrying blood cells, in large quantity. The results suggest it may be possible... Click to continue
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NewsBlog: [Entry posted at 15th August 2008 07:15 PM GMT] A science publisher that holds copyright supreme has a double standard, a science blogger is arguing.
This week, science blogger Mike Dunford of The Questionable Authority posted a blog saying that Reed Elsevier had copied some of the content from his blog without permission.
While checking out links to his blog, Dunford came across a page run by LexisNexis (a Reed... Click to continue
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NewsBlog: [Entry posted at 14th August 2008 03:22 PM GMT] Researchers have introduced the world to Gordon, the first robot that operates on real brain tissue, according to a news release from University of Reading in the UK yesterday (August 13).
The robot moves only under direction from his brain, which is a collection of 50,000-100,000 rat neurons. The researchers separated the neurons from rat fetuses, cultured them, and then spread them on a nutrient-rich array panel with... Click to continue
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NewsBlog: [Entry posted at 13th August 2008 08:08 PM GMT] Roche won't be acquiring Genentech in the near future. Roche's bid to purchase the remaining public shares of the biotech company undermines the value of the company, Genentech's board of directors announced today (August 13).
Last month, Roche put in a bid to buy up the remaining 44% of Genentech's shares it does not already own for $89 a share. A... Click to continue
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NewsBlog: [Entry posted at 12th August 2008 05:32 PM GMT] Five British hospitals and medical research centers are joining forces to link basic research and healthcare more closely, the University College London (UCL) announced last week.
The Guardian reported last Thursday that the four centers "disclosed plans for a 2 billion [pound] business partnership to create the largest biomedical research organization in Europe," suggesting that new... Click to continue
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NewsBlog: [Entry posted at 7th August 2008 05:00 PM GMT] Researchers have created 20 disease-specific pluripotent cell lines by reprogramming skin and bone marrow cells from patients with genetic disorders, they report in a paper to be published tomorrow in Cell.
"These cells will be an incredible resource for those interested in studying the root causes of these diseases," wrote Kevin Eggan, Harvard researcher who was not involved in the study, in an Email to The Scientist.
The... Click to continue
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NewsBlog: [Entry posted at 6th August 2008 06:00 PM GMT] Researchers have discovered the first virus to infect another virus, according to a study appearing tomorrow in Nature. The new virus was found living inside a new strain of the viral giant, mimivirus.
"This is one parasite living on another parasite, which is really fascinating," Michael Rossman, microbiologist at Purdue University, who was not involved in the study, told The Scientist.
... Click to continue
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NewsBlog: [Entry posted at 5th August 2008 02:45 PM GMT] The British High Court's rejection last week of a biotech company's patent on the genetic sequence coding for a therapeutically important protein may be a warning for other biotechs who hold patents on portions of the human genome.
The court ruled last week that a patent held by Human Genome Sciences since the mid 1990s was invalid because at the time the company applied for the patent they hadn't demonstrated a practical use. The patent... Click to continue
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NewsBlog: [Entry posted at 1st August 2008 08:33 PM GMT] Yesterday the British High Court overturned a UK genome patent owned by biotech Human Genome Sciences. The patent covered the inflammation-linked protein neutrokine-alpha which is part of the tumor necrosis factor family of cytokines.
The court overturned the patent, ruling that at the time its application was filed there was no practical application, the Financial Times reported.
Human Genome... Click to continue
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Andrea Gawrylewski
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