And Future Ambitions Editor's Note: For the past four years, former National Institutes of Health researcher J. Craig Venter has been a major figure in the turbulent debates and scientific discoveries surrounding the study of genes and genomes. Events heated up in 1991, when NIH attempted to patent gene fragments, which were isolated using Venter's expressed sequence tag (EST)/complementary DNA (cDNA) approach for discovering human genes (M.A. Adams et al., Science, 252:1651-6, 1991). NIH's mo
Scientists are using video games to tap the collective intelligence of people around the world, while doctors and educators are turning to games to treat and teach.
Editor's Note: On May 2, the National Academy of Sciences announced the election of 60 new members and 15 foreign associates from nine countries in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. Nearly half of the new members are life scientists. In this article, The Scientist presents photographs of some of the new members and comments from a few of them on their careers and on past and current research. A full directory of NAS members can be found online a
When Art Ashkin, Steve Chu, and their colleagues at Bell Labs in Holmdel, NJ, first invented optical tweezers, they spent their days pushing around tiny, glass spheres.
Date: September 27, 1999Table of Specialty Microplates The story of the microplate is one of those tales of history that either has been forgotten or was never clearly understood. According to Barry Lazar of Dynex Technologies, formerly Dynatech Laboratories, the origin of what is now commonly referred to by Dynex's registered trademark of Microtiter plates began with Gyola Takatsy, a Hungarian-born scientist who was trying to scale down serology tests. His first prototype became available in 1