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In the human tragedy of HIV infection, dendritic cells play a vicious double role analogous to an international cocaine trafficker who morphs into a street-level crack peddler. These antigen-presenting immune-system cells transport HIV from the mucosal membranes near which it enters the body to secondary lymphoid organs. There, the cells pass the virus over to the T lymphocytes that it will ultimately destroy. Exactly how dendritic cells serve these functions is unknown, but two new studie

Officials at the National Institutes of Health are anticipating that problems will arise with implementation of the Shelby amendment. Passed by Congress last year, the amendment mandates that scientists make data from federally funded projects publicly available under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). "FOIA is too crude an instrument for this; it was never designed for scientific data sharing," commented Wendy Baldwin, NIH deputy director for extramural research, at a session of the America

When inventors apply for a patent, they must set forth the utility of their invention and describe it. Which utilities and description meet the grade, and which don't? The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) recently proposed new guidelines for its examiners. These guidelines were discussed in an article titled "Biotech Faces Evolving Patent System" in the last issue of The Scientist.1 PTO had not at that time published specific examples of how the guidelines would be interpreted. The office

Music's Role in ... Life Are there universal principles of musical sounds and musical construction that apply to human music and that of other species? Yes, according to Roger Payne, the renowned humpback whale expert and founder-president of the Whale Conservation Institute. More than that, he contends, music just may have been central to the creation of life. Payne, who is perhaps best known for his codiscovery with Scott McVay that the long and complex vocalizations of humpback whales are in

Courtesy of National Heart, Lung, and Blood InstituteMRI scans of the heart: upper left, torso with heart; upper right, cross section at aortic valve; lower left, lateral view of heart, pulmonic valve, and descending aorta; lower right, four-chamber view In the not too distant future, emergency rooms may well take on the aura of Star Trek's hospital bay. New, state-of-the-art magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines offer fast, efficient, and highly detailed data, allowing physicians to make im

Once a favorite of Chinese emperors, tofu is now big time. From supermarkets to health food boutiques, diet-conscious Americans are buying soybeans, not just as tofu but in infant formula, soy milk, and soy burgers. Soy even has the Food and Drug Administration's seal of approval. Last October the FDA responded to a petition by Protein Technologies International, a St. Louis-based DuPont company specializing in soy products, by authorizing claims that soy protein is good for the heart. Acc

Food allergies affect up to 6 percent of children under the age of 3 and around 1.5 percent of adults.1,2 That may seem like peanuts compared to the huge number of people who suffer from allergic rhinitis. But food allergies--especially peanut and tree nut allergies--pack a potentially serious punch. There is absolutely no safe way to treat or prevent them, and about 100 people die in the United States every year from food-induced anaphylaxis. The best those with severe allergies can do is carry

Photo: E.D. Laywell, UT MemphisMultipotent clones of cells derived from the adult human brain With the promises and challenges of stem cell research in the headlines, visions of artificial livers dance in the public's eye. Bioethicists, politicians, and citizens alike continue to debate whether public funds should be used to obtain cells from human embryos and fetuses. On the scientific front, however, the implications of stem cell research are even more profound than offering replacement parts.

Your data's solid. Your results are impressive. Your methodology's near foolproof. It's time to submit your research for publication. So, of course, you place a call to--the New York Times? The practice isn't new: For a variety of reasons, companies sometimes choose to pitch their research results straight to the popular press--or, in recent years, to anyone who happens upon their Web press release--rather than first submitting their findings to a peer-reviewed journal. Sometimes they don't even

Young boy drinking from a tube well Researchers estimate that as many as half of the four million tube wells in Bangladesh are pumping out groundwater contaminated with naturally occurring arsenic. In many contaminated wells, arsenic levels exceed 500 parts per billion (ppb), a level 50 times higher than the safety recommendation from the World Health Organization (WHO). With foreign aid, the Bangladeshi government is finally tackling the problem years after its discovery in 1992. It has a tough

Courtesy of USIOL Inc.Intraocular lenses are among the implantable devices gaining popularity. From intraocular lenses to heart pacemakers, artificial joints, and even dental fillings, an estimated 8-10 percent of Americans walk around with permanent medical implants. These devices--which penetrate living tissue, have a physiological interaction and a minimum lifespan of three months, and are retrievable--have been widely used since the 1960s. But there has never been any systematic effort for r

A change in the Food and Drug Administration's "philosophy toward review of applications" is responsible for a "remarkable" acceleration in the time required for new drug approvals, according to Kenneth I. Kaitin, director of Tufts University's Center for the Study of Drug Development. The result has been an upsurge of novel medications on the market in recent years. Kaitin adds that the agency and industry now are turning their joint efforts toward shortening drug development times, particularl