The Scientist - Home

Prominent European scientists echo concerns from the UK Royal Society

At Senate hearing, top officials deny wrongdoing; Zerhouni appoints review panel cochairs

Report urges multiple containment systems for engineered animals and plants

30 volunteers to receive inactivated virus in Phase I equivalent

Outlook for NIH in FY 2005: 'another really tough year,' say advocates

Professors protest funding cuts in the 2004 budget

Convicted Texas Tech plague researcher faces state hearing tomorrow

Science Source Researcher/Photo Researchers IncSome readers' comments:"...Few human accomplishments have gone farther than vaccination programs in their ability to reduce human suffering and death.""As a global question, I believe that the benefits of vaccines IN GENERAL far outweigh the risks. But there are specific vaccines that may have high risks for certain people with only marginal benefit."This issue's Opinion (p. 8) and a recent Editorial (17 [22]:6, Nov 17) discuss vaccine development a

Courtesy of Walter GehringOn our chromosomal walk to clone the Antennapedia gene, Richard Garber and Atsushi Kuroiwa also cloned the segmentation gene fushi tarazu (ftz). Ernst Hafen and Michael Levine had concurrently developed an in situ hybridization method to tissue sections. Garber joined forces with Hafen to hybridize ftz recombinant DNA to wild-type embryos in order to localize the ftz+ transcripts. A few weeks later, I was seated at my desk when Hafen and Kuroiwa burst into my office and

Investigators are learning about structures and rethinking old theories

Indifferent to textbook dogma, some researchers have long suspected that bacteria really do have sex. They merge their genomes, research suggests, possibly by whole-cell fusion. Investigators liken the phenomenon to egg fertilization and distinguish it from conjugation, in which bacteria pass along bits of genetic material. A decade ago, Jean-Pierre Gratia, now at the Pasteur Institute of Brussels, Belgium, reported that mixing two nonconjugating Escherichia coli strains produced cells with both

Not only that, he controls our DNA