NewsBlog: [Entry posted at 28th April 2008 09:04 PM GMT] Nearly half the voting members of a Department of Health and Human Services stem cell advisory council have financial conflicts of interest despite the committee's pledge to limit these types of conflicts, according to a survey conducted by a science watchdog group.
The Center for Science in the Public Interest polled the 25 voting members of HHS's ... Click to continue
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NewsBlog: [Entry posted at 28th April 2008 05:07 PM GMT] Ever seen a colossal squid dissected? Me neither. In fact, few biologists have glimpsed an intact specimen of the rare and elusive squid species, much less observed one being probed and prodded on the dissection table. That's the reason a webcast beaming from the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa recently caught my attention.
Scientists there are defrosting a colossal squid that fishermen pulled from the icy waters of the Ross... Click to continue
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NewsBlog: [Entry posted at 24th April 2008 10:15 PM GMT] The US House of Representatives passed a bill yesterday (Apr 23) that extends two programs providing federal grants to early-stage biotechs and other startups with promising ideas.
The bill reauthorizes both the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and the Small Business Technology Transfer Research (STTR) programs, which were due to sunset this year. The programs aim... Click to continue
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NewsBlog: [Entry posted at 24th April 2008 08:27 PM GMT] HIV/AIDS researchers are despondent over the waning prospects of ever creating an effective vaccine against the virus, according to a survey conducted by British newspaper The Independent. But can it really be all that bad?
"Most scientists involved in Aids research believe that a vaccine against HIV is further away than ever and some have admitted that effective immunisation... Click to continue
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NewsBlog: [Entry posted at 21st April 2008 10:47 PM GMT] The ongoing legal battle between a fertility researcher who published a controversial 2001 study linking in vitro fertilization success to prayer and University of California, Irvine professor Bruce Flamm, who has been openly critical of that study, appears to be over for now.
Los Angeles Superior Court judge James Dunn dismissed... Click to continue
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NewsBlog: [Entry posted at 21st April 2008 04:23 PM GMT] University scientists in California who use animals in their research may get some legal protection from animal rights groups, which have attacked and harassed researchers there in recent months.
On Thursday (Apr 17) the California Assembly Judiciary Committee unanimously passed the Animal Enterprise Protection Act, a bill sponsored by the University of California system that aims... Click to continue
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NewsBlog: [Entry posted at 17th April 2008 09:08 PM GMT] Researchers at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences are saying the recent NIH report on mismanagement at the agency fails to pinpoint some root causes of the problems.
The report pointed out several problems at NIEHS, including a failure to consider conflicts of interest among NIEHS employees, a lack of documented justifications for out-of-rank-order... Click to continue
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NewsBlog: [Entry posted at 17th April 2008 05:06 PM GMT] For the first time, scientists have identified in mammals an essential mechanism used by amphibians to adjust to low-oxygen environments.
According to a study published today (Apr 17) in the journal Cell, the skin of mice can sense oxygen levels in the air and helps the rodents cope with oxygen-poor conditions.
While science has long-known that epidermal gas... Click to continue
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NewsBlog: [Entry posted at 16th April 2008 09:21 PM GMT] Last week, the US Food and Drug Administration named cancer biologist Frank Torti as the agency's first ever Chief Scientist. Torti, who is also the director of Wake Forest's Comprehensive Cancer Center, will leave North Carolina and begin work early next month at the FDA. The researcher and clinician took time to talk with me and share... Click to continue
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NewsBlog: [Entry posted at 16th April 2008 04:29 PM GMT] A report from the National Institutes of Health has detailed a suite of management and ethics problems at the agency's National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
The report, which was sent to Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) yesterday (Apr 15), unearthed apparent grant funding irregularities at NIEHS. The agency awarded grants to 45 applications that had scored beyond the payline between FY 2005 and FY 2007, without... Click to continue
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NewsBlog: [Entry posted at 15th April 2008 11:08 PM GMT] The Haitian HIV/AIDS clinic that I visited earlier this year and wrote about in the March issue of The Scientist has resumed normal operations after rioting over rising food prices rocked the capital, Port-au-Prince, last week.
When I heard of the turmoil in Haiti, I e-mailed Jean Pape, the director... Click to continue
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NewsBlog: [Entry posted at 11th April 2008 10:39 PM GMT] We here at The Scientist do our best to keep an eye out for instances of scientific misconduct and publishing irregularities. In the past we've not only reported on Woo-suk Hwang's fraudulent human cloning research, but we've brought you news of other misconduct, such as the Egyptian paleontologist who allegedly plagiarized previously published photos.
We may have a lot less... Click to continue
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NewsBlog: [Entry posted at 11th April 2008 08:35 PM GMT] Earlier this week I posted a blog on the digital security problems at NIH, which revealed the agency cannot encrypt sensitive data, such as the personal information (including social security numbers) of clinical trial patients, on Macintosh laptops used by NIH employees.
So how many Mac laptops do NIH employees use? I had a hard time uncovering that number, until I got a call today from NIH spokesperson, Don Ralbovsky, who gave me a... Click to continue
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NewsBlog: [Entry posted at 10th April 2008 11:08 PM GMT] Giuseppe Attardi, the California Institute of Technology researcher who identified all the genes in human mtDNA and uncovered the mitochondrial genome's role in degenerative diseases and aging, died Saturday (Apr 5), according to the university. He was 84 years old.
Caltech said that Attardi died at his Altadena, CA home but... Click to continue
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NewsBlog: [Entry posted at 10th April 2008 07:05 PM GMT] Plant biologists have withdrawn a study on Arabidopsis thaliana evolution published in a 2004 issue of Science, saying one of its conclusions was marred by contamination, according to a retraction appearing today (Apr. 10) in the journal.
The original paper, authored by then North Carolina State University genomicist ... Click to continue
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NewsBlog: [Entry posted at 10th April 2008 06:11 PM GMT] The National Institutes of Health this week warned its employees that Apple Macintosh laptops cannot be encrypted using the agency's software, leaving unprotected sensitive data such as personal information (including social security numbers) from thousands of clinical trial participants.
In February, a laptop containing the unencrypted personal information from more than 3,000 patients participating... Click to continue
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NewsBlog: [Entry posted at 9th April 2008 10:21 PM GMT] A significant portion of American high schoolers have seriously flawed ideas about genetics, according to a study conducted by the country's largest society for genetics professionals.
The study, which was published in this month's issue of Genetics, contained some fallacy-ridden quotations from the student essays. Here are some of the notable examples:
"When people who cannot have children and want their own from their own... Click to continue
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NewsBlog: [Entry posted at 4th April 2008 09:23 PM GMT] Though Australian scientists are working to engineer a virus to control the invasive pests, an Aussie politician has suggested a less subtle solution: kill 'em all.
Shane Knuth, a legislator in the northeastern state of Queensland (where cane toads thrive), has proposed and official day for residents to hunt down and kill the exotic invaders.
Cane toads have plagued the land down under for decades, and their increasing numbers and... Click to continue
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NewsBlog: [Entry posted at 3rd April 2008 04:36 PM GMT] A signaling molecule commonly found in cancerous tissue primes some breast tumor cells to metastasize to lung but not bone tissue, according to a study to be published in Cell tomorrow (Apr. 4).
"This work basically provides a deeper understanding of how breast cancer spreads throughout the body," said ... Click to continue
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NewsBlog: [Entry posted at 1st April 2008 10:16 PM GMT] Thomas Cech, a Nobel laureate who studied the catalytic properties of RNA, has announced plans to step down from the top spot at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, according to the organization's website.
Cech, who has been HHMI president since 2000, said in a communication to institute staff that the time had come for a change. In the spring of 2009, Cech will return to his... Click to continue
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NewsBlog: [Entry posted at 1st April 2008 03:45 PM GMT] Ever had trouble transporting DNA across international borders?
I was in Taiwan last year covering a conference on DNA barcoding, which was attended by scientists from all over the world. Most of them were studying cryptic flora or fauna endemic to far-flung countries; usually not their own.
A few researchers told me... Click to continue
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Bob Grant
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