Sometimes even your best isn't enough, as some British life science laboratories are finding out, the hard way. Many are scrambling to change priorities and seek other funding to compensate for cuts by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE). The council distributes money according to each university's quality rating on the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE), which is based on a seven-point scale (1, 2, 3b, 3a, 4, 5, 5*) with 5* being the highest rating. But even institutions aw

Researchers are homing in on genetics as a potential cause of obesity, but to date, few obesity-related genes have been discovered, and those tend to be very rare in the population (See " Genes Do Play a Role in Obesity,"). But a group including scientists from Myriad Genetics and University of Utah, both in Salt Lake City, and Bayer Corp., West Haven, Conn., has identified a locus that is significantly linked to high body mass index (BMI) in obese women; this locus will likely yield a gene that

A 2001 surge in proteomics investment has generated record revenues, seeding a burgeoning job market and a flowering of training courses and research resources. Proteomics revenues grew 41.9% from $963 million to $1.37 billion (US), in 2001, according to Frost & Sullivan, a San Antonio, Texas-based investment firm. Most of the revenues are from sales of laboratory instruments and supplies, now leaving these fully equipped labs needing to hire staff to use the tools. "We have all this wonderful e

For some children, science is as palatable as brussels sprouts. To elevate the topic in the minds of primary and secondary students, the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia and the Science Museum of London have collaborated to publish an online science gallery entitled "Pieces of Science," www.fi.edu/pieces. The 16 featured objects, from a beginner's guide to genetic engineering to the story of the mold Sir Alexander Fleming discovered and transformed into penicillin has its own its Web page, com

Deemed the delicious taste, umami is found naturally in foods such as aged cheeses, steak, seafood, and mushrooms, and as an additive, the sodium salt monosodium glutamate. The substance that subtly makes food taste better is one of the 20 common amino acids that make up proteins. Now, researchers have shown that taste cells bearing a combination of T1R1 and T1R3 (T1R1+3) G protein-coupled receptors are broadly tuned to respond to many amino acids, including umami's monosodium glutamate. Althoug

Groucho Marx, Cleopatra, and Thor. Such popular names from history and mythology often enter discussions in a gene lab, and usually not even during the coffee breaks. Though seemingly trivial, and unrelated to the business of genetics, these mythic monikers not only help postdoc trainees and their mentors weather long hours of workplace toil, but they also offer answers to a tall question: "So what do I name this gene?" Mountains, machines, and maneuvers typically take their discoverers' surname

The movie begins with three compartments, or vacuoles, docked like nanometer-sized flying saucers inside a yeast cell. The boundary membranes, which look like interior walls, are where the three vacuoles meet. Suddenly, they break loose, flapping inside the outer membrane in what has become a single organelle. This is membrane fusion—essential for transferring chemical information inside cells—and, until now, nobody knew how it happened. The previous model of a radially expanding por

New evidence points to brain trauma as an environmental risk factor for Alzheimer disease (AD). 

The proper diet for longevity may not be what is eaten, but what is not. University of California, Los Angeles, researchers have reported that the withdrawal of coenzyme Q (Q) from the diet of Caenorhabditis elegans extends the adult life span by almost 60% (P.L. Larsen, C.F. Clarke, "Extension of life-span in Caenorhabditis elegans by a diet lacking coenzyme Q," Science, 295:120-3, Jan. 4, 2002.) Q is found in the respiratory chains of mitochondria and can be obtained from eating anything that

In his most recent paper,1 Pasko Rakic, chairman of the neurobiology department at Yale University, has rekindled a debate over whether neurogenesis occurs in the neocortex of the normal adult primate. This 'he-said, she-said' battle began in 1985, when Rakic published a study of rhesus monkeys2 and stated unambiguously that neurons were not born in any animal's brain after infancy. Contradicting Rakic's findings in 1998 was neuroscientist Elizabeth Gould, Princeton University, who used a new la

The National Science Foundation recently provided California State University, Los Angeles, a three-year, $300,000 grant to boost adolescents' interest in science. "Science Technology Engineering Program (STEP) Up for Youth" uses fees earned from companies that import foreign specialists to engage students in year-round science, math, and technological activities. "We hope this will motivate students to pursue careers in these fields," says Sylvia James, director of the NSF elementary, secondary

Many life science graduate students surveyed recently by the National Association of Graduate-Professional Students (NAGPS) expressed either dissatisfaction with, or a lack of knowledge of the career guidance and placement services provided by their institutions. Of the 7,400 life science graduate and doctoral students surveyed, 41-76 percent rated their institutions less than satisfactory on each of four measures of professional development listed in the National Doctorate Survey or reported th