Group examines professional pitfalls created by participating in large interdisciplinary projects

Reprinted with permission from Nature LEPROSY REDUCED: Circular genome map showing the position and orientation of known genes, pseudogenes and repetitive sequences. The scale in Mb is indicated by the numbers on the outside ring. Leprosy remains an epidemiological mystery, even 130 years after the leprosy bacillus was discovered.1 Despite the many helpful antibiotics now available to treat this mutilating disease, leprosy's transmission and mechanism of cell and tissue destruction remain

Courtesy of Anders Krogh  The Transmembrane Hidden Markov Model prediction of the topology of one photosynthetic reaction center chain. The five red bars are the predicted membrane helices and the histogram below represents the certainty with which they can be predicted. Membrane proteins do not reveal their structures easily. Because they are particularly hard to crystallize, such proteins make X-ray crystallography expensive and time-consuming. So, many investigators turn to theoretica

Legal stalemate keeps small window of opportunity open in the United States

Atlas dramatizes microbiology society's work and his own in entertaining address

D.F. Dowd Nearly one hundred years ago, two German scientists introduced the concept of autoimmune disease;1 it didn't catch on. Indeed, even the investigators themselves were skeptical. To most immunologists, the notion that people might develop immune reactions to their own bodies seemed counterintuitive, even preposterous. "People were very, very reluctant to accept the idea," says Noel Rose, director of the Johns Hopkins University Center for Autoimmune Disease Research and a long-time ex

Bear Bones Research Courtesy of Nova Scientists interested in fending off bone degradation have looked to one of the animal kingdom's most naturally gifted bone preservationists: the black bear. Researchers at the Pennsylvania State University recently investigated the ability of Ursus americanus to maintain bone integrity despite extended activity-free hibernation (S.W. Donahue et al., "Serum markers of bone metabolism show bone loss in hibernating bears," Clin Orthop, 408:295-301, March 20

In the complicated, occasionally counter-intuitive world of signal transduction pathways, sometimes events turn out to be much simpler than first supposed.

AAAS colloquium explores problems and priorities for US science and technology.

Frontlines | Thespians and Bioterror Courtesy of University of Louisville Healthcare workers face a reality problem in the face of bioterror: How do they prepare for possible epidemics, the signs and symptoms of which few have witnessed? The realistic answer: With a little touch of makeup magic. In its patient program, the University of Louisville employs a cosmetics specialist who simulates injury and converts actors into victims. They stage bioterrorism-related afflictions as real as fake

NAS president fears outspoken views of chairman Leon Kass are tainting its credibility

New proposal offers stronger arguments, more detail on proposed ecological study network.