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The paper airplanes rained down as usual. The cluster of authentic Nobel laureates sat in their usual spots on the stage of Harvard University's Sanders Theater. The traditional mini-opera had cloning as its subject. What could the occasion be but the awards ceremony for the 1999 Ig Nobel prizes? This year's event, sponsored by the scientific humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research, recognized some pieces of research that may have actual, if so far unproven, redeeming scientific or social

Researchers hoping to test a novel nonviral gene therapy system in people next year are unsure of approval prospects, following the recent death of a young man who was treated with an experimental viral vector.1 The man's health deteriorated rapidly a day after he was treated with an adenovirus carrying a therapeutic gene to treat ornithine transcarbamylase (OTC) deficiency. R. Michael Blaese Instead of taking the conventional gene therapy approach of delivering missing genes, the novel approa

Editor's Note: This year's winners of the Albert Lasker Medical Research Awards were honored for their achievements at an Oct. 1 luncheon at the Hotel Pierre in New York. Three researchers were recognized for their work on ion channels, two for their development of a novel hypertension medication, and one for a lifetime of contributions to neuroscience. Following are three stories on the winners. More information is available on the Web at www.laskerfoundation.org. Basic Award Recognizes Ion Ch

It was like falling off a cliff," Mark L. Batshaw, George Washington University pediatrics chairman, says of the adverse effect Jesse Gelsinger experienced following gene therapy. On Sept. 14, 18 Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania patients received escalating doses of an adenovirus carrying a gene to restore ornithine transcarbamylase (OTC)--an enzyme that, when missing, renders people unable to break down dietary protein. Gelsinger was in the highest-dose group, which nonetheless receiv

It was the first weekend in September, and all was not right at the Washington County fairgrounds, 35 miles north of Albany, N.Y. Usually the site of a well-attended arts and crafts show, the fairgrounds was a ghost town. The previous weekend, a convergence of unusual events at the annual county fair created a health nightmare that would take the lives of a 3-year-old and a 79-year-old and sicken more than 1,000. But painful lessons learned may help prevent future outbreaks of infection by Esche

Neuroscientists from the United States and Cuba gathered at the Hotel Nacional in Havana Oct. 19-23 and took a significant step toward enhancing scientific dialogue between the two countries. Their meeting featured 25 American speakers and a similar number of Cuban presenters, as well as representatives of U.S. pharmaceutical companies, Cuban students, and politicians from both nations. The purpose of the Havana gathering, organized as a satellite conference to the Society for Neuroscience

After six years and nearly $5 billion in budgetary increases, Harold Varmus announced Oct. 7 that he is leaving the National Institutes of Health to head the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. When Varmus took on the NIH directorship in 1993, the agency posted a budget of $11 billion. The budget for fiscal year 1999 soared to $15.6 billion. Scientists on the NIH campus also have praised Varmus for reinvigorating what was once a flagging institution.1 "Harold Varmus has done ever

Contents Id and angio Testosterone boost to favored offspring More dopamine To B or not to B Mice that know when to say when Viral conquest Unraveling helicase Done in by a sucker ID AND ANGIO When Robert Benezra of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, and colleagues knocked out two proteins that inhibit transcription factors in mice, they expected to see premature neural differentiation. In addition, however, they noticed that the absence of those two proteins, Id1 and Id3, di

The "EcoSphere" (top) is a small-scale model of the self-sustaining living environment of Earth; in the sealed, airtight globe, materials are used and reused in an endless cycle. Karen Nelson (bottom), a microbiologist from Jamaica, is filmed in her own environment for the series. Historically, an uneasy alliance has existed between science and television. The uneasiness is partially due to an age-old belief that communicating science to the lay public is not necessary, to some degree impossible

Graphic: Cathleen Heard Researchers are used to stepping out of their labs to collaborate with colleagues across the hall. But with the advent of Internet technology, researchers are crisscrossing states--even oceans--to collaborate without leaving their labs.1 Nicolas Bazan, director of the Louisiana State University Neuroscience Center, New Orleans, started such an endeavor with Julio Alvarez-Builla, professor of organic chemistry at the Universidad de Alcala in Spain, six years ago. Bazan de

For a successful technologyReality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled. --Richard Feynman Nobel physicist Richard Feynman was talking about the role NASA and its industrial partners played in the 1986 Challenger disaster, but his words could easily apply to the debate over genetically modified (GM) crops. When grain processor Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) of Decatur, Ill., asked suppliers on Sept. 2 to segregate GM corn from traditional varieties, some U.S. b

In 1977, Steven Lindow, a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, discovered that a mutant strain of the bacterium Pseudomonas syringae altered ice nucleation on leaves in a way that enabled plants to resist frost. He continued the work at the University of California, Berkeley, and a decade later, with the blessing of the appropriate federal agencies and the townfolk of Tulelake, Calif., Lindow planted 3,000 potato seedlings coated with "ice-minus" bacteria. By the next mor