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A paneless window offers a view from an overhead walkway onto the artificial ocean of the Biosphere 2 Center, or B2C. It's a strange and fascinating sight, here under the Santa Catalina Mountains near dry little Oracle, Ariz., about 30 miles north of Tucson. Except for the walls and ceiling of glass triangles that enclose this million-gallon simulation of a Caribbean-type sea, the only obvious, unnatural object is a vacuum pump that provides a tidal pulse at the 25-foot deep end. Near the shallo

In theory, using cellulosic biomass makes a lot of sense. Take what would otherwise be waste or animal feed--agricultural and forestry residues, recycled paper, and other organic waste--treat them with acid and the right enzymes, and create relatively clean-burning ethanol and other byproducts. In doing so, there would be less landfill, pollution, and a reduced national dependence on oil, more than 55 percent of which comes from overseas. In reality, while the apparent energy crisis has made so

Thirty-five years after mammography screening demonstrated a 30 percent mortality reduction,1 researchers are still searching for an ideal breast cancer screening tool. At the recent American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting in San Francisco, members of an Institute of Medicine panel described their recommendations to spur development of such a test. Earlier this year, the panel issued a report titled Mammography and Beyond: Developing New Technologies for the Early Detection of Breas

Mae West once said, "Anything worth doing is worth doing slowly." Slow is certainly the word when it comes to plant sex, but that didn't stop a lot of people from taking a peek at a flowering Titan arum in the University of Wisconsin's botany greenhouse recently. When the department's prize arum decided to do its thing, the university on the shores of Lake Mendota in Madison let the whole world play voyeur every 30 seconds via a video camera connected to the Internet. Why the fuss? The Titan ar

President George W. Bush announced his intention to nominate physicist John H. Marburger director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, following concerns from members of the scientific community that the president had diluted the power of the position by waiting so long to fill it (M. Anderson, B. Maher, "White House help wanted list worries scientists," The Scientist, [15]13:34, June 25, 2001). Marburger directed the Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) since 1

Two years do not a trend make, but it does seem that with each passing summer, the number of human West Nile virus cases tends to decline. That said, there is no reason to relax. No one can predict reliably from year to year whether this, or any other mosquito-borne viral illness, might come back to infect humans, says Jim Miller, West Nile coordinator for New York City. "West Nile has been well documented since it was introduced here two years ago. It's a totally new virus in this part of the w

A new research centre is being established in Singapore that will use a multidisciplinary approach to study systems biology.

has called for an international moratorium on human reproductive cloning.

The Bcl-2 protein family members Bax and Bak play an important role in regulating apoptosis.1,2 But following their discovery in the 1990s, they did not take center stage because researchers didn't anticipate their role as "critical effectors of programmed cell death," says Craig Thompson, scientific director of the Abramson Family Cancer Research Institute at the University of Pennsylvania. But the limelight is now upon them as Thompson and his colleagues at the Abramson Institute, in collabora

Editor's Note: This is the second of two articles that looks at the progression of AIDS research over the 20 years since its identification. The first part: M.E. Watanabe, "AIDS, 20 years later," The Scientist, 15[12]:1, June 11, 2001. Despite billions of dollars spent in research funds and a brief reprieve in Western nations after the introduction of multidrug therapy, AIDS continues to win its battle against humankind. First diagnosed 20 years ago, there are still no cures and no vaccines. Pre

Click here for additional photos of life scientists elected to the National Academy of Sciences This past May, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) elected its new members and with the election came another round of criticisms that the NAS is elitist and gender biased, that the election process is outmoded, and that truly great scientists go unrecognized.1 Allegations aside, however, this year's election was the biggest ever--the first in which 72 members were chosen--and it signals the recog

"In the case of the Controlled Substances Act, the statute reflects a determination that marijuana has no medical benefits worthy of an exception (outside the confines of a government-approved research project)." -Justice Clarence Thomas1 The Supreme Court's recent ruling against manufacturing and distributing medicinal cannabis does not appear to have had any immediate impact on either basic or clinical research studies under way. Some investigators, however, remain leery about the potential f