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It may be humbling to think that humans have much in common with pufferfish, but at the genome level, the two are practically kissing cousins. "In terms of gene complement, we are at least 90% similar—probably higher. There are big differences in gene expression levels and alternate transcripts, but if you're talking about diversity, number and types of proteins, then it's pretty difficult to tell us apart," says Greg Elgar, group leader of the Fugu genome project at the Medical Research C

One more genomewide linkage map, this for a fish called the three-spined stickleback, was announced late last year to not much fanfare.1 But rather than just another stride in the march of genomics, the accomplishment heralded a new way to approach a question that has stumped evolutionary biologists for decades: What is the architecture of genetic change? The model organisms for which linkage maps have been created are often bred in the laboratory to express certain phenotypes, and they can reve

For the US government's fiscal year 2003, which begins Oct. 1 this year, President George W. Bush has requested a budget of $27.3 billion for the National Institutes of Health, a 15.7% increase of $3.7 billion, the largest single-year boost in history. With a supportive Congress, this will complete the goal of doubling the NIH budget over the five-year period beginning in 1998. About $1.5 billion, or 40%, of next year's increase is focused on bioterrorism-related research and infrastructure, bri

The US National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), the repository for protein and gene sequences at the National Library of Medicine, now offers links to Internet sites for users interested in more than just nucleotides, amino acids, and protein structure. The system, called LinkOut, expands the biological relevance of NCBI's molecular information by allowing scientists to tap into ancillary subjects such as taxonomy, medicinal applications, and crop cultivation. It also pulls in off-s

Researchers have practically finished sequencing the most deadly form of the malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum. The project, started in 1996, will publish on its current standing late this summer, says Malcolm Gardner, associate investigator, parasite genomics group, at The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) in Rockville, Md. "I would say we have over 99% of the genome in the database," says Gardner. He made his comments at the annual meeting in February of the American Association for

The discoverer of prions, the pathogens implicated in the fatal, brain-wasting mad cow disease (bovine spongiform encephalopathy, BSE) and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), announced recently that a therapy against them would likely be available within the next five to 10 years, but he added that scientists are still mystified by exactly what circumstances cause the pathogens to produce infections in animals and humans. "We thought that the number of cases of the disease would increase two to th

Matthew S. Meselson waited quietly in the car while female associates handled the delicate work of questioning families of people who had died of anthrax. The scientist had charmed, wrangled, and nagged politicians on two continents from 1979 to 1992 for permission to probe a strange outbreak of the disease in the Soviet city of Sverdlovsk 1979. But just days before Meselson boarded a plane for Moscow to conduct the interviews, former President Boris Yeltsin, a Sverdlovsk official during the out

Efforts to keep Russian scientists fully employed, thus away from countries seeking their expertise in making weapons of mass destruction, seem to be bearing fruit, according to Victor Alessi, president and CEO of the Arlington, Va.-based US Industry Coalition (USIC). Of 120 scientific projects in development, 27 are biology related. One such effort is the development of a high-speed needleless injector. The US Food and Drug Administration has approved the Russian design, and the injector should

The departure for Singapore of 'Dolly scientist' Alan Colman has raised questions about the viability of British biotechnology.

L'Oreal and UNESCO have honored 16 women for their outstanding contributions to science.

US Senate debates bill aimed at banning both therapeutic and reproductive cloning.

The first UK licenses for human embryonic stem cell research have been granted.