Labour party politicians can vote with their conscience on three "ethical" parts of the linkurl:proposed legislation;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/54413/ on embryo research, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced today (March 25). The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, which has been mired in linkurl:controversy,;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/54198/ proposes to legalize new areas of research, including the creation of hybrid animal-human embryos, and to refo

Mammals lost their egg yolk genes after acquiring genes for milk proteins, according to a linkurl:study;http://biology.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pbio.0060063/ published yesterday in PLoS Biology. The results pinpoint an important step in how mammals evolved, the authors say. Lactation is "what makes us mammals, basically," said linkurl:Henrik Kaessmann,;http://www.unil.ch/cig/page7858_en.html/ who led the study. "Using egg yolk genes as markers, we foun

Tomáš Grim, an ornithologist at Palacky University in the notoriously linkurl:beer;http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/25122/ besotted Czech Republic, came down with a bad case of mononucleosis in 1999. His illness prohibited him from drinking for about a year. Soon after he recovered, he began publishing papers in more high profile scientific journals, such as Proceedings of the Royal Society B and Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology. Grim's new-found prolificacy on the heels

A federal judge in Chicago last Friday denied Pfizer's efforts to obtain confidential linkurl:peer review;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/23061/ documents related to two of its drugs from the New England Journal of Medicine, stating that any benefits of disclosing the subpoenaed documents would be "outweighed by the burden and harm that would result" to the journal. In January, Pfizer filed a linkurl:motion;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/54368/ to force the NEJM to hand

The oblong shape of some tomatoes arose from a gene duplication caused by a selfish genetic element, according to a linkurl:study;http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/319/5869/1527 published today in Science. Before tomatoes were linkurl:cultivated;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/54040/ and grown around the world, wild tomatoes were a little-known, small, round South American fruit. But go down to the market today and you'll find juicy, ripe tomatoes of all shapes and si

Though linkurl:bacteria;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/14283/ usually reproduce asexually, they do occasionally yield to baser desires and have sex; or at least they linkurl:exchange DNA;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/14361/ through a sex-like process known as conjugation, or linkurl:horizontal transfer.;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/22780/ For the first time, scientists have filmed Escherichia coli in the act. The videos — linkurl:published;http:

The "shabby and dilapidated" animal disease research laboratory in Pilbright, UK — the site of last summer's linkurl:foot-and-mouth disease;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/53579/ leak — must be replaced by a new, expanded research center for infectious human and animal diseases, an official report said yesterday. The independent inquiry into last summer's outbreak in southeast England said that a "creeping degradation of standards" at the government-funded linkurl:Institut

The British government said yesterday it is considering lifting a ban that prevents babies from being conceived using sperm and eggs derived from stem cells. Currently, gametes derived from stem cells are used for medical research, but British law imposes a blanket ban on their use in assisted reproduction. Following pressure from MPs to relax the ban, the Department of Health has agreed it will "look further into this matter," according to the linkurl:Associated Press.;http://www.iht.com/arti

A comparison of transfer RNAs has revealed the roots of the tree of life, indicating ancient origins for Archaea and viruses, according to research published yesterday in linkurl:PLoS Computational Biology.;http://www.ploscompbiol.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pcbi.1000018 Since the discovery that ribosomal RNA can reveal evolutionary relationships between organisms, researchers have split the universal tree of life into three main branches: the superkingdoms Archaea, Bacteria, an

Members of the British government will be able to abstain from voting on the controversial linkurl:Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill,;http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/40757/ senior Labour MP, Geoff Hoon, announced today. The bill aims to update the regulation of embryo research and assisted reproduction in light of new attitudes and technological developments. The legislation will allow research using human-animal hybrid embryos, created by inserting animal cells or DNA into earl

The co-lead author of an olfactory paper retracted yesterday from Nature by Nobel laureate Linda Buck says he stands behind the conclusions and does not admit any wrongdoing.

Brazil's Supreme Court will rule today (March 5) on the linkurl:legal status;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/15348/ of scientists using human embryos, following an appeal that embryonic stem cell research is "unconstitutional." In March 2005, the Brazilian parliament passed legislation allowing scientists to work with stem cells derived from human embryos. That law approved research with embryos produced by in vitro fertilization and frozen for at least three years. But only months