Your data's solid. Your results are impressive. Your methodology's near foolproof. It's time to submit your research for publication. So, of course, you place a call to--the New York Times? The practice isn't new: For a variety of reasons, companies sometimes choose to pitch their research results straight to the popular press--or, in recent years, to anyone who happens upon their Web press release--rather than first submitting their findings to a peer-reviewed journal. Sometimes they don't even

Neurogenesis Debate Continues Recent studies have all but confirmed the occurrence of neurogenesis in the primate hippocampus, an area involved in short-term memory. But occurrence of neurogenesis in the neocortex, an area thought to be involved in long-term memory, continues to be a point of contention. A group at Princeton University surprised many with an October 1999 report that suggested the neocortex was home to the birth of thousands of new neurons per day (E. Gould et al., "Neurogenesis

Known Cancer-Pathogen Associations Photo: Bill BransonJames J. Goedert In the 1960s and '70s, as part of a nationwide war on cancer, U.S. virologists took part in a massive effort to find virally caused human cancers. They didn't find much in the way of causative viral agents, but their research did lead to key, high-impact discoveries including the tumor suppressors p53, ras, and myc, not to mention HIV. A profusion of interest in the cancer-causing roles of tumor suppressors, signal transduct

For this article, Eugene Russo interviewed Steven A. Rosenberg, chief of surgery at the National Cancer Institute. Data from the Web of Science (ISI, Philadelphia) show that this paper has been cited significantly more often than the average paper of the same type and age. S.A. Rosenberg, J.C. Yang, D.J. Schwartzentruber, P. Hwu, F.M. Marincola, S.L. Topalian, N.P. Restifo, M.E. Dudley, S.L. Schwarz, P.J. Spiess, J.R. Wunderlich, M.R. Parkhurst, Y. Kawakami, C.A. Seipp, J.H. Einhorn, D.E. White

For this article, Eugene Russo interviewed Frank O. Nestle, a researcher in the department of dermatology at the University of Zurich Hospital. Data from the Web of Science (ISI, Philadelphia) show that this paper has been cited significantly more often than the average paper of the same type and age. F.O. Nestle, S. Alijagic, M. Gilliet, Y.S. Sun, S. Grabbe, R. Dummer, G. Burg, D. Schadendorf, "Vaccination of melanoma patients with peptide- or tumor lysate-pulsed dendritic cells," Nature Medic

Breast Cancer Consensus Conference The National Institutes of Health's Office of Medical Applications of Research (OMAR) will hold a consensus conference Nov. 1-3, 2000, on the NIH campus to discuss adjuvant therapies for breast cancer. The first NIH consensus conference on breast cancer therapy in 10 years, it will address the ins and outs of adjuvant radiation, chemotherapy, and hormonal therapy, as well as promising future directions for related research. As with all consensus conferences, he

Figure: Gaetano Montelione and Yuanpeng Huang of Rutgers UniversityX-ray crystal structure of human basic fibroblast growth factor. With a bit of luck and sometimes decades of dedication, scientists have in recent years revealed fascinating vistas of biological structures at the atomic level using X-ray crystallography and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. In 1997, Timothy Richmond, a professor of X-ray crystallography at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, complete

In 1990 Susumu Tonegawa, winner of the 1987 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine, decided that he'd like to make something of a career change. Tonegawa, who won for his findings on the mechanism of antibody diversity and antigen recognition, chose to move away from his vocation as an immunologist and pursue a longtime fascination with neuroscience. He sought, in effect, to shift the focus of his entire lab. Nine years later, the conversion is complete: Tonegawa recently sent out his last

Mouse Modelers' Marriage To unite the efforts of scientists working to develop mouse models of human cancers, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) recently formed a consortium of 19 top-tier groups of cancer investigators hailing from more than 30 institutions. Driven by NCI funds, $4.5 million for the first six months and a total commitment of $15 million, it's an experimental arrangement that could become a model for future programs. The consortium will establish a repository for mouse models,

AIBS Summit In a rare show of unity, the 57 presidents and other leaders affiliated with the 69 member societies of the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS) met in Warrenton, Va., for a first-ever Presidents' Summit. They hoped to begin to generate consensus among member societies on issues related to public policy, research funding, education, and careers. According to AIBS executive director Richard O'Grady, the nonbiomedical areas of biology that the 150,000-member, 52-year-old u

Academic health centers are increasingly willing to embrace, rather than rebuff, complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) therapies. Indeed, in the last few years, "integrative" and "complementary" centers or programs have sprung up at dozens of academic health centers, and the trend will likely continue. But the frequency with which these newfound coalitions have taken place by no means implies that the melding of "conventional" and "alternative" medicines will be effortless. At a mid-Novem

Today's scientists, it could be said, frequently explain observed phenomena by finding chemical, biological, or physical mechanisms of some form, shape, or size. In a panel session at the recent History of Science Society meeting in Pittsburgh, presenters traced the roots of this perceived tendency and provided high-profile examples of scientists' apparent captivation with mechanisms--defined broadly as entities and activities that produce regular changes from start or setup to finish or termina