The Scientist - Home

Scientific insight sometimes comes from the unanticipated convergence of ideas and findings. This is certainly the case for nitric oxide (NO), a molecule whose simplicity belies its profound impact on organisms as diverse as humans and Arabidopsis. On December 10, the Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine will be awarded to three men who, working independently, characterized NO's effect on the cardiovascular system¬ Robert Furchgott, distinguished professor of pharmacology at the State U

Photo: Steve Waldhauser SCIENCE IN PUBLIC: Almost 6,000 people attended the Nobel Conference, showing a high degree of public interest in science. When a group of leading virus researchers and scholars presented their reports on "Virus: The Human Connection" at the annual Nobel Conference in St. Peter, Minn., last month, the story that emerged was one of war and peace. The primary themes emanating from these talks--which were open to the public--outlined a heavy viral volume of battles won and

Photo: © Science VARIOUS STAGES: Human embryonic stem cell colonies, shown here in different states of development, sometimes include a core of undifferentiated cells surrounded by a margin of differentiated cells, such as the small colony at right in figure B. Gene therapy researchers call them the "ultimate target." Tissue transplant specialists refer to them as the "Holy Grail." Stem cells, perhaps because they play such a fundamental role in the developmental chain, tend to draw hyper

Contents Human cells grow in rat brains Tumor-busting bugs Mice carrying elephants? Transgenic Arabidopsis In utero gene therapy advances John Critser HUMAN CELLS GROW IN RAT BRAINS A new in vivo model promises to shed light on how neural precursor cells migrate and take up residence in certain brain areas, with a little help from rats (O. Brustle et al., Nature Biotechnology, 16:1040-4, November 1998). Ronald McKay's group at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke and

John A. Pople Sharing the 1998 Nobel Prize in chemistry are a physicist and a developer of computational codes that made the physicist's concepts more easily applicable to the study of large molecular systems. Walter Kohn, 75, of the University of California at Santa Barbara, and John A. Pople, 72, of Northwestern University, have made pioneering contributions in developing quantum chemistry methods that can be used for theoretical studies of the properties of molecules and the chemical proces

This year's winners of the Nobel Prize for physics collectively discovered and described a phenomenon that appears to defy common sense. Fewer notions could be so intuitively valid as the following: smaller things are generated by breaking bigger things apart. The world of physics usually bears this out: An atom, for example, divides into electrons, protons, and neutrons; a proton splits into quarks. But in 1982, Daniel Tsui, a professor of physics at Princeton University, and Horst Stormer, a

Stockholm may be the home of the genuine Nobel Prizes, but Cambridge, Mass., has its own answer to the creme de la creme of the scientific world. Every fall since 1991, the Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony has blown a figurative raspberry at those members of the profession who take themselves too seriously. Produced by Annals of Improbable Research (AIR), a publication occasionally described as the MAD magazine of science, the event marks achievements that, in the words of Marc Abrahams --editor of AIR

IMPROVEMENT ON THE WAY: NAWHO President Mary Chung says that better education within the Asian American community will incease participation of Asian American women in clinical trials. Asian Americans comprise approximately 4 percent of the U.S. population, and they now account for 4 percent of the women enrolled in U.S. National Institutes of Health-sponsored clinical trials. This satisfies the spirit of the NIH Guidelines on the Inclusion of Women and Minorities as Subjects in Clinical Resea

SERENDIPITY: Carol Yoon, a freelance writer in Bellingham, Wash., was convinced she would hate science journalism until she landed a fellowship that placed her at the Portland Oregonian for a summer. Carol Yoon, a freelance writer in Bellingham, Wash., was convinced she would hate science journalism until she landed a fellowship that placed her at the Portland Oregonian for a summer. "I did it on a lark," she says. Discovering that she enjoyed writing about science, Yoon remarks, was "a t

Although this year's research and development budget may be the biggest ever, it may also be the hardest to decipher. About half of the FY1999 spending bills reside in a 40-pound, 4,000-page document that has sent legislative staffers and departmental budget staff members scrambling to make sense of the hundreds of what some call earmarks and others call pork. Normally, the federal budget coalesces from 13 separate bills. But this year, election-year political wrangling between President Bill

Courtesy of Shands HealthCare Marketing and Public Affairs SIMULATED PATIENT Facilities at the University of Florida's new $60 million brain institute include a computer-driven patient simulator. One of the simulator's inventors, Michael Good (center), UF associate professor of anesthesiology, directs a team of nurses and paramedics in an emergency room drill using the simulator. BRAIN TRUST A new $60-million facility makes the University of Florida in Gainesville a national nerve center for

Introductory general biology courses and textbooks cover a vast amount of material. They tend to stress the similarities of life at the molecular and cellular levels, with Homo sapiens considered but one of many species. For students wishing to learn specifically about the female body, or about differences between the sexes, these courses aren't usually appropriate. ANALOGY: Like women's absence in past medical tests and clinical trials, many problems have not been addressed in biology, anat