The British government has finalized a contentious plan to build a new medical research center in the heart of London, according to a linkurl:statement;http://www.mrc.ac.uk/NewsViewsAndEvents/News/MRC004253 posted by the Medical Research Council (MRC) today (December 5). British Prime Minister Gordon Brown will sell a plot of land next to the British Library and the new Eurostar train station for the construction of the UK Centre for Medical Research and Innovation (UKCMRI) -- scheduled to be c

In late 2004, Michael Zimmerman, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and professor of biology at Butler University, was watching early media coverage of the Dover, Pa., intelligent design trial, which broadcast several fundamentalist ministers condemning evolution, and felt frustrated. What he saw was a war between science and religion, and science was losing. So Zimmerman decided to call for a truce. He asked a friend, a member of the clergy, to draft a letter to religious

A new lineage of T helper cells shakes up an old paradigm.

The tumor suppressor linkurl:p53;http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/43281/ is a crucial player in the successful impregnation of mice, and plays a surprising new role in reproduction, according to a study published today in Nature. Arnold Levine's group at the University of Medicine and Dentistry, NJ, showed that p53 linkurl:regulates;http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/50738/ a cytokine which is the most highly expressed at the onset of embryo implantation -- in fact, implantation

The Council of the European Union released linkurl:recommendations;http://www.consilium.europa.eu/ueDocs/cms_Data/docs/pressData/en/intm/97236.pdf on Friday (November 23) encouraging member states to study open access, but open access advocates are calling this a weak approach. The plan invites member states to support experiments in linkurl:various open access plans,;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/53781/ including a delayed open access plan; support research on how scientific inf

Two studies published today report that human somatic cells can be reprogrammed into a pluripotent state that resembles human embryonic stem cells. As reported in linkurl:Cell;http://images.cell.com/images/Edimages/Cell/IEPs/3661.pdf , Shinya Yamanaka's group from Kyoto University linkurl:reprogrammed;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/24307/ adult human skin cells with four transcription factors to make them display human embryonic stem cell pluripotency. linkurl:Last year;http://www.n

Laws intended to protect patient privacy are a hindrance to research, according to a linkurl:study;http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/short/298/18/2164 in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Nearly 70 percent of 1,527 epidemiologists surveyed by the study author said that the U.S. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) has made research more difficult since its enactment in 2003. Study author Roberta Ness, from the University of Pittsburgh, told linkurl:The

In July, we ran a story about John Collins, chair of the University of New Hampshire biochemistry department who had been arrested for disorderly conduct. His accuser -- Stacia Sower, dean of research -- subsequently filed for a restraining order against Collins, after he had been banned from campus by the university. You can read more of the details on the incident linkurl:here;http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/53383/ . Last month, I linkurl:reported;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog

Several news outlets keep misreporting the public access mandate of a congressional funding bill. As open access blogger Peter Suber linkurl:posted;http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2007/11/more-jam-about-nih-policy.html last week, Nature News, linkurl:The Washington Post;http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/31/AR2007103102668.html , the blog linkurl:Slashdot;http://science.slashdot.org/science/07/11/07/2318208.shtml, and several others all reported that a provision in

Initial analysis confirmed that an HIV vaccine from a linkurl:halted;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/53633/ trial does not prevent or quell infection, according to data presented today at the HIV Vaccine Trials Network meeting. According to the linkurl:press release;http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20071107005139&newsLang=en from Merck, the investigational vaccine (V520) was not shown to be effective at preventing infection or reduc

The state decides on $450 million for research

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