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Texas Tech professor found not guilty of smuggling plague samples, but guilty of fraud and improper shipping

Of the 393 readers of The Scientist who answered our recent survey, 95% spend one-half hour or more visiting Web sites every day, and 63% browse for more than an hour. Some 70% use more than half of their Web-cruising time visiting sites relating to their work. Echoing many of our respondents, one reader comments, "The Web has revolutionized how I get scientific information. I hardly ever go to the library any more!" Another warns, "I have come to realize that visiting Web sites is becoming

Foundations | The Boron Connection Click for larger version of measurements (35K) In 1999 we discovered LuxS, an enzyme needed for making a signal molecule (AI-2) that bacteria use for interspecies communication.1 X-ray crystallography allowed us to see that AI-2 is composed of two, five-membered rings. The challenge was to determine which atoms composed the rings. Our initial guess, a mixture of carbons and oxygens, appalled our chemist friends: we had drawn a carbon atom covalently

Eye of Science / Photo Researchers, Inc. "The general character and structure of the rod-like individuals, together with their vegetative multiplication by fission, renders their schizomycetous nature as individuals a matter hardly to be doubted: but, on the other hand, the question may fairly be asked whether the remarkable phenomena may not indicate a possible relationship in other directions." --Roland Thaxter, 1892 While walking through the New England woods one day in the late 19th c

Research Briefs Cancer Cook-Off; Faculty of 1000 | Interdisciplinary Research; Sir2, In Flagrante Delicto Cancer Cook-Off © 2003 National Academy of Sciences, USA In a departure from traditional Texas barbecue, researchers at Rice University and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, both in Houston, recently showed that they could literally cook cancer cells to death, using nanotechnology. Rice bioengineer Jennifer West and colleagues demonstrated that an injection of so

The English language, with its rich vocabulary and means of expression, has emerged as the lingua franca of scientific communication, prompting the thought that perhaps the term should be replaced with lingua anglica. Yet, that wouldn't be quite accurate, because many scientists claim that the true language of scientific meetings and manuscripts is "broken English." Latin, which provides considerable insight into scientific terminology, was a compulsory requirement for university studies in

Despite conference agreement, 2004 budgets for NIH and NSF face prolonged scrutiny

VaxGen's AIDSVAX vaccine, based on a recombinant gp120 coat protein, failed to prevent HIV infection or even slow the development of disease in its second phase III clinical trial, conducted in Thailand and reported this month.The results were even worse than those from the first trial in the United States and elsewhere, reported in February. Nevertheless, many important lessons for future HIV vaccines can be learned from the two studies, said José Esparza, coordinator of the World Health O

Leading scientists want to direct research toward the benefit of the Iraqi people

Agency's report recommends national security guidelines for select agents

As the EU decision on stem cells looms, Ireland is a microcosm of the debate

US NSB report warns that nation's labs shouldn't count on foreign-born researchers