Heat, humidity, and a protester/police scuffle in the streets of Philadelphia may have proved a lethal combination for Paris Williams, 52, today (June 21). The 17-year veteran of the Philadelphia Police Department collapsed shortly before 1 p.m. during a confrontation that snaked up Arch Street through the crowd of protesters outside of BIO 2005 (for video, see: http://www.nbc10.com/news/4632819/detail.html). From our office window at 400 Market Street, which peers up Market up to the entra

Whitehead biologist Rudolf Jaenisch spoke at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia this Friday sharing with an audience of about 300 his thoughts on nuclear reprogramming (http://www.the-scientist.com/2005/4/25/13/1), and the promise of therapeutic cloning. Consistent with his former arguments and testimony before congress in 2001, he argued that human reproductive cloning is dangerous to the extent that it could be considered impossible. From this, he reasoned that critics worried about

Protein aggregates generated in a test tube were found to infect wild-type hamsters with a disease much like scrapie.

In vitro infectivity study in Cell stirs tempest in a test tube

Pain is indelibly interwoven into the fabric of human experience.

Fly people have a notoriously off-putting way about naming genes.

It's the beginning of a new television season, which must mean it's time for the next in a line of television series glorifying the fast-paced, glamorous lives of scientists. NBC has brought us Medical Investigation, in which public-health specialists take to the streets (and the skies) to sleuth out the source of unexplained illnesses. In the series premiere aired earlier this month, the crack team of MDs and PhDs descend upon New York City to figure out why a dozen people have fallen ill and a

Yeast research as we know it will end with the solving of the organism on April 1, 2007, give or take 8.37 days. So said Mark Johnston, president of the Genetics Society of America, presenting on the future of the model organism at the biannual Yeast Genetics and Molecular Biology meeting this past month in Seattle. In combing through the Yeast Proteome Database, he found that so-called known yeast genes have followed a remarkably linear upward trajectory, reaching 4,679 as of the end of July of

Climate-change predictions are fraught with uncertainty. To build meaningful models of temperature and sea-level changes throughout the 21st century, researchers contributing to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) Third Assessment Report produced a set of four storylines that qualitatively assess social, economic, cultural, and political climes throughout the 21st century. These are developed into quantitative greenhouse-gas emission models called the Special Report on Emissio

FINE LINESThom Graves MediaThe ethical dimension of assisted reproduction cannot be divorced from the science, as was illustrated by two seemingly contradictory decisions by the United Kingdom's Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority. The HFEA approved an application for use of preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) for a couple that had an existing child with Fanconi anemia. They wished to conceive a second child, both free of the disease and HLA compatible with the first. Stem cells tak

This past May, non-profit organizations and hospitals promoted AIDS Vaccine Awareness Day, in some places displaying the traditional AIDS awareness symbol, a red ribbon, upside down – forming a V for vaccine. But it is hardly a V for victory. Even though 19 countries are testing upwards of 30 vaccine candidates, only 2 have advanced to clinical Phase III efficacy trials, according to the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI). Candidates in Phase I/II, II, and III include viral vecto

© Dr. Tony Brain/Photo Researchers, Inc.Plasmodium parasites have ravaged humanity for centuries, decimating young people, and fixing alleles like that for sickle cell in populations at risk. Today, listed in a trinity with tuberculosis and AIDS as the most significant of the world's health problems, malaria infects 300 million to 500 million people each year and kills more than one million. Efforts to understand the malaria parasite and the mosquitoes that spread it are aided in part by ge