When two plants are grafted together, they share much more than water and minerals: They also swap genetic material, according to a linkurl:study;http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/324/5927/649 published in tomorrow's (May 1) issue of __Science__. These findings muddy the distinction between naturally-occurring gene transfer in plants and the human-mediated mechanisms we generally refer to as genetic engineering. Image: Science/AAASEver since Soviet and Western scientists in the 1960

Arachnophobes beware: Researchers have discovered a male spider in the Judean foothills of Israel with a sadistic sexual perversion. Males of the aptly named __Harpactea sadistica__ spider jab their spiked copulatory organs into the body walls of female spiders to inject their sperm and outcompete rival males -- an arachnid first, according to a study published online tomorrow (Apr. 29) in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Image: Milan ŘezáčStabbing sex, also known as traum

After a three-year moratorium on human stem cell research, South Korean officials gave the go-ahead to a new research project involving human eggs today (Apr. 29) provided that the research meets certain provisos. A national bioethics committee effectively banned research using human eggs in 2006 after Hwang Woo-Suk, a leading stem cell researcher formerly at Seoul National University who claimed to have created the first human stem cells from cloning, was shown to have manipulated and falsifie

The giant meteor that crashed off the coast of Mexico around 65 million years ago hit the Earth too early to explain the dinosaurs' demise and was too tame to even hurt a protist, according to a new study published today (Apr. 27) in the__ linkurl:Journal of the Geological Society.;http://intl-jgs.geoscienceworld.org/ __Some researchers, however, maintain that the study's authors are needlessly wishing away the shooting star. Image: NSF/Zina DeretskyThe linkurl:Chicxulub crater;http://en.wikipe

Researchers have attained the holy grail of cellular reprogramming: inducing pluripotency without using any DNA-based materials. Using only a cocktail of purified proteins and a chemical additive, investigators have generated induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells that don't carry the potential burden of unexpected genetic modifications, according to a new study published online today (Apr. 23) in__ linkurl:Cell Stem Cell.;http://www.cell.com/cell-stem-cell __iPS cellsImage: flickr/CIRM"This new

Following a final report from a prominent South Korean university, __Science__ formally retracted a paper today (Apr. 23) from Korean researcher Kim Tae-kook purportedly reporting a new technology to identify drug targets called magnetism-based interaction capture (MAGIC). Kim Tae-kookImage: AFP/KAISTIn linkurl:February 2008,;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/54398/ Kim was suspended from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), where he was a faculty member, afte

The British government is investing £750 million ($1.1 billion) to bolster the ailing biotech industry and other commercial science and technology sectors. Image: flickr/MjuboyThe new Strategic Investment Fund "will encourage exports, support inward investment, promote research and development and harness commercially our world-class science base," linkurl:Alistair Darling,;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alistair_Darling Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer, said today (Apr. 22) in his lin

Researchers have discovered a cellular mechanism that helps nocturnal mammals see in the dark. Mice, cats, deer, lemurs, and other mammals that are active at night remodel the DNA within their eyes to turn photoreceptor cells into light-collecting lenses, according to a linkurl:study;http://www.cell.com/abstract/S0092-8674(09)00137-8 published today (Apr. 16) in__ Cell__. Image: striatic and Animal Photos! In nearly all eukaryotic nuclei, chromatin -- the structural building block of chromosome

The University of Texas System linkurl:settled;http://blogs.chron.com/newswatch/2009/04/lawsuit_in_utmb_firings.html a linkurl:lawsuit;http://www.guidrynews.com/08December/33808Jaworski.pdf yesterday (Apr. 13) agreeing to give hiring priority to more than 2,400 University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) employees who were fired in the wake of Hurricane Ike, which decimated the island campus in Galveston. "There were concrete things gained here but it remains a horrible labor relations and employ

A former assistant professor at the Harvard Medical School (HMS) and the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston falsified and fabricated data in a study of sleep apnea, the Office of Research Integrity linkurl:reported;http://ori.dhhs.gov/misconduct/cases/Fogel.shtml last week. linkurl:Robert Fogel,;http://pulmonaryfellowship.hms.harvard.edu/NewFiles/Staff/FogelFrameset.html a pathophysiologist who worked in the Brigham's division of sleep medicine from 1998 to 2004, fiddled with approximately

Five leading British research universities were ordered yesterday (Apr. 8) by the government to reveal information about experiments involving primates after a three-year battle with an animal rights organization. Image: flickr/thebuffafamilyThe ruling applies to Oxford, Cambridge and Manchester universities, plus University College London and King's College London. All five must now release the numbers and species of primates used in current and previous research dating back to 2004. Universit

A senior-level tenured neuroscientist at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif., is teetering on the edge of closing his lab after Salk administrators pulled hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding that was tied to a dwindling endowment. linkurl:Stephen Heinemann;http://www.salk.edu/faculty/heinemann.html has seen tough financial times. As president of the linkurl:Society for Neuroscience;http://www.sfn.org/ in 2005-06, he had a front-row seat in Washington to watch t