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Mosquitoes infected with the West Nile virus fly through American air; green crabs and other foreign crustaceans feed on indigenous sea life in San Francisco Bay; the Formosan termite is feasting on historic New Orleans; and the next boat or plane arriving in the United States from anywhere could be hauling who-knows-what in its ballast waters or cargo hold. Collectively called invasive species, these uninvited animals, insects, flora, and pathogens continue to exacerbate eradication efforts of

The National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) will become fully functional by Oct. 31, burying a two-decade struggle between powerful foes. That fight reached crisis point on the last working day of 2000, when former President Bill Clinton was faced with deciding whether to sign a federal law sanctioning the 19th institute at the National Institutes of Health. To approve NIBIB, he would have to override the opposition of numerous scientific groups and of his Health and

Histones, the proteins around which DNA coils to form chromatin, are moving toward the forefront of epigenetic research (see also, "The Meaning of Epigenetics"). A recently floated hypothesis states that the highly modifiable amino termini, or tails, of these proteins could carry their own combinatorial codes or signatures to help control phenotype, and that parts of this code may be heritable. Histones are perhaps more intimately linked with DNA than any other protein. Transcriptional regulati

Bad news for oak forests of the Northwest; sudden oak death was detected in Oregon last month. Though it's unclear how it arrived, it's feared that this killer spread from the central California coast, where it has destroyed thousands of oak trees since 1994. A recent discovery of the infectious agent, the fungus Phytophthora ramorum, in rhododendrons has provided the first clue in what up until now has been the mysterious appearance of this deadly pathogen. Although Phytophthora's European rela

Federal funding for research involving human embryonic stem cells (ESCs) is moving closer to reality as the Bush administration rushes to finalize a public registry of approved cell line providers. In late August, the National Institutes of Health announced 10 organizations that it said had developed 64 stem cell lines that meet all the criteria for federal funding (see table). Nevertheless, some licensing and patent issues need to be resolved and new and potentially complicating questions are e

Within months, scientists will be able to compete for about $100 million in federal grants for research involving human embryonic stem cells (ESCs). Following President George W. Bush's decision last month to provide limited federal funding for human ES cell research, based on existing stem cell lines only, officials at the National Institutes of Health are rushing to finalize grant procedures, which will include a public registry database of 60-70 government-certified lines and their suppliers.

To watch the X-Files' Dana Scully probe corpses, you'd think that every physician and scientist is expert in reading clues in maggot patterns. Not so. The American Board of Forensic Entomology (ABFE) lists just eight members; a total of 63 professionals practice this science worldwide. Forensic entomology is the study of arthropods, used to solve matters of legal interest, most often of a criminal nature. "It's mostly a repeated tale of human tragedy combined with some remarkable insect ecology,

This is wisdom, listen up. Don't raid the fridge when you break into somebody's home. The cops will find your DNA on unfinished food and then CODIS will find you. Next thing you know, you're rotting in prison, just like the "honey bun bandit." You'll never hear fatherly advice like this from Paul Ferrara--too bad for B&E men (that's breaking and entering, to you). The conviction carried by his warm baritone and clear and sober eyes might make a young punk listen. But instead, the director o

For the first time, researchers at Johns Hopkins University have shown that human embryonic stem cell transplants have enabled mice with paralyzed hind limbs to get up and walk, offering hope that stem cell therapy could be a panacea for victims of lower motor diseases such as Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, or Lou Gehrig's Disease) and spinal motor atrophy. John Gearhart, professor and director of the division of pediatric urology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, explained the resea

Boosted by revenue from lotteries and tobacco company settlements, state-financed basic research in the life sciences is soaring. The goal of such funding is usually to create wealth by attracting federal and private money. But this strategy raises difficult questions about how best to measure research outcomes, policy specialists say. At least 17 states have directed tobacco settlement money into research and all but three of them are focusing on fundamental studies rather than direct commerc

Biopharmaceutical researchers fear how pending federal legislation outlawing the cloning of human cells will restrict their abilities to find cures for major degenerative diseases.1,2 Some also see lawmakers impinging on established nonhuman cloning techniques essential for the discovery of new drugs and therapies. The source of all this worry? The US House of Representatives passed July 31 by a wide margin a bill (H.R. 2505) sponsored by Reps. David Weldon (R-Fla.) and Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) th

Late last year, while watching a news report that examined the challenges of annotating the human genome sequence, Bill Long had an epiphany. A programmer at Seattle-based Cray Inc., Long realized that many bioinformatics complexities are basically problems of pattern matching--a Cray specialty. So, Long phoned the National Cancer Institute's (NCI) Advanced Biomedical Computing Center (ABCC) and suggested a collaboration. He was well received. Says ABCC director Stan Burt, facility researchers "