Articles by Bernard Dixon

Truly innovative science is often— perhaps usually—accompanied by skepticism, dismissal, and/or disdane from the ranks of established expertise. That proposition receives surprisingly strong support from a study of the top-ranking papers from Britain’s premier medical journals. Data from the Institute for Scientific Information’s Science Citation Index (SCI) show that no less than four of the six papers most cited from The Lance: and the British Medical Journal during

The U.S. Food and Drug Adminstration’s recent approval of interferon—a 30-year-old drug—to treat certain patients with AIDS-related Kaposi’s sarcoma—a disease first recognized some 10 years ago—no doubt surprised many, scientists and nonscientists alike. What’s new about interferon? And why have clinicians returned to it with such enthusiasm? Interferon did indeed hit the headlines 20 to 30 years ago. But then it proved a considerable disappointment

LIFE SCIENCES >BY BERNARD DIXON European Editorial Office The Scientist Uxbridge, U.K> "By depositing calf thymus DNA onto graphite, to serve as the conductive surface for electron tunneling, a Lawrence Livermore/Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory team has produced some astonishing pictures of the topography of this key macromolecule. Major and minor grooves can be distinguished, and some of the double-stranded DNA molecules appear as twisted ladders T.P. Beebe, T.E. Wilson, D.F. Ogletree, et al

LIFE SCIENCES BY BERNARD DIXON European Editorial Offices The Scientist Uxbrldge, U.K. " Positron emission tomography studies in 20 Swedish army officer cadets have revealed metabolic changes in the same regions of the brain during both tactile learning and tactile recognition. This exciting glimpse of brain metabolism accompanying conscious activity appears in a new journal launched by the European Neurosciences Association and designed to interest the entire universe of neuroscientists, fro

LIFE SCIENCES BY BERNARD DIXON European Editorial Office The Scientist Uxbridge, U.K. " Of the three types of interferon, the most potent as a modulator of the human immune system is interferon-gamma. Thus, the expression of its specific cellular receptor gene in mouse cells will facilitate research into its mode of action and could bring progress in the control of immunological disorders, too. M. Aquet, Z. Dembic, G. Merlin, “Molecular cloning and expression of the human interferon-ga

On the other hand, Dawkins’ forays into the popularization of evolutionary processes also made the zoologist the target of creationists and even a few biologists. In particular, his critics argue that if the gene is indeed “selfish”—that is, more important than the individual or the group in determining patterns of evolution—then what happens to such cherished driving forces as “the good of the species”? In addition, Dawkins’s insistence on the

LIFE SCIENCES BY BERNARD DIXON European Editorial Offices The Scientist Uxbridge, U.K. "Are the malignancies in AIDS patients secondary consequences of their immunodeficient state? Or are they caused by the virus itself? New evidence suggests that the principal type of tumor is induced by a single viral gene. But why, then, is that tumor almost unknown in hemophiliacs with AIDS? J. Vogel, S.H. Hinricha, R.K. Reynolds, P.A. Luciw, G. Jay, “The HIV tat gene induces dermal lesions resemb

As an assist to his students back in 1960, microbiologist Donald Nicholson sketched out a big chart of metabolic pathways; he thought it would help them to have it pinned up on a wall for ready reference. Nicholson didn’t realize it at the time, but he was creating the first draft of what would eventually become an international best-seller— the most popular published work ever in biochemistry. The casually contrived wall chart—later whipped into formal presentability and g

LIFE SCIENCES BY BERNARD DIXON European Editorial Offices The Scientist Uxbridge, U.K. " After mearly a century of speculation by embryologists, elegant genetic trickery in Tubigen has produced a stunning example of morphogenetic gradients at work. A protein coded by the bed gene in fruit flies behaves as a morphogen that directs the position of cells in the embryo’s anterior. W. Driever, C. Nusslein-Volhard, “A gradient of the bicoid protein in Drosophiia embryos,” Cell, 54

Criticism Builds Over Nature Investigation AUTHOR:BERNARD DIXON Date: September 05, 1988 There may be no solution that can’t be diluted, but this is one controversy that won’t die out; Maddox vs. Benveniste LONDON--La'affaire Benveniste has been this summer’s, best soap opera—another thrilling episode in “As the World of Science Thins.” Who could have imagined that Jacques Benveniste, a scientist at a prestigious French government laboratory would claim to

Benveniste’s “high-dilution” experiments are not the first to raise concern about science journals’ proper response to unconventional results. Twice before, Nature published papers dubious enough to warrant accompanying editorials questioning the results. And in one eerily parallel precursor incident, Nature’s then editor actually swooped down on a yet another Paris lab with “The Amazing” Randi and a third party to debunk unorthodox results—and

In 1955, a puckish, 30-year-old Weishman resigned as lecturer in theoretical physics at the University of Manchester to become science correspondent of the Manchester Guardian. Unwittingly, the energetically eclectic John Maddox thus took his first step toward the editorial chair of Nature, which he has occupied with distinction on two occasions—between 1966 and 1973, and from 1980 until the present. A robust defender of what he calls “the scientific enterprise,” Maddox has

CARDIFF, WALES--Scientists at the First International Conference on the Release of Genetically Engineered Microorganisms here have called for international guidelines on dissemination of new organisms. But they stopped short of formal recommendations on international regulation of genetic engineering. Deciding against a final communique, they deputized a member of the UK government’s watchdog committee over recombinant DNA, John Beringer, to carry their concerns to the Organization for

It’s not easy, at first sight, to discern signs of ideological harmony between biologists who are working toward the environmental dissemination of genetically altered organisms and “activists” who are deeply apprehensive about the idea. Look more closely, however, and one argument appears as a possible basis for unity: the need for far greater investment in the ecological research necessary for prudent development of this novel range of technologies. As reflected in the ag

COPENHAGEN—Government cut-backs have jeopardized the survival of one of Europe’s oldest and most prestigious research centers. The Niels Bohr Institute, named in honor of the Danish pioneer of quantum theory, “will die out totally if we continue to lose permanent positions at the present rate,” said its director, Knud Hansen. “We simply cannot finance research posts for new, young scientists to replace those who are leaving through retirement and to take jobs ov