Image: Courtesy of Matthew Wilson, ©2002 Cell Press NOT A CREATURE WAS STIRRING, NOT EVEN A ... RAT that sleeps while the activity of hippocampal neurons, measured before its nap when the animal ran in a maze are behind it. Red depicts maze locations where the neuron was highly active; blue indicates where the neuron was not. Most people require sleep to face tomorrow with a clear head. But clarity of mind may be just one reason why slumber is needed; a growing body of research sugg

Frontlines Photo: University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston Opportunities in Allison's wake Since Hurricane Allison struck last June, researchers at the University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, have been rebuilding and improving their facilities. "We said, 'Let's not just build back what we had, let's aim to do it better,'" says George Stencel, interim vice president for research. He estimates the project's cost in the "several hundred million dollar" range (H. Black,

American Institute for Biological Sciences protests unequal distribution of budget increase

Image: Courtesy of NASA/Marshall Space Flight CenterImage: Courtesy of John Reeve FROZEN FLUFF: Using electron beams to drill holes, scientists recovered these extremophiles from Antarctic ice. Brent Christner (above, middle), a graduate student in John Reeve's lab at Ohio State University, collecting ice core samples in Antarctica. They thrive, not just survive. The microbes live in places such as the Antarctic, where temperatures reach -45°C in the summer; on the ocean floor, in c

Female researchers in the United States lead an international movement to improve the status of women in science careers, according to scientists and sociologists in the United States and Europe. Recent reports on the pay and working conditions of female professors in four Massachusetts Institute of Technology departments—inspired by an earlier report in that institution's School of Science—show that women receive lower pay than do men in comparable positions and miss out on importan

When transatlantic steamers traversed the oceans, one line touted itself with ads saying: "Getting there is half the fun." Not so with space travel: Here, an unhealthy situation exists because the travelers' bones lose mass and weaken. Severe bone loss leads to fractures. A recent Institute of Medicine (IOM) report labeled bone loss as one of the most serious problems facing those who would make long-duration space voyages, such as traveling to Mars.1 Until now, space scientists had information

Director oversaw experiment that led to death of 18-year-old patient in 1999.

Nobel laureate grew $20 million-a-year NASA Astrobiology Institute from the ground up since becoming first-ever director in 1999.

Managing blood vessel development by preventing its growth from tumors in cancer patients or stimulating its development in cardiac disease patients is apparently an idea whose time has come. William Li, president and medical director of the non-profit Angiogenesis Foundation in Boston, notes that using such control as a way to fight disease interpenetrates highly varied fields of medicine. "Angiogenesis is a common denominator in many of society's most significant medical conditions," says Li.

Efforts to keep Russian scientists fully employed, thus away from countries seeking their expertise in making weapons of mass destruction, seem to be bearing fruit, according to Victor Alessi, president and CEO of the Arlington, Va.-based US Industry Coalition (USIC). Of 120 scientific projects in development, 27 are biology related. One such effort is the development of a high-speed needleless injector. The US Food and Drug Administration has approved the Russian design, and the injector should

Call it disease-of-the-month research funding. The US and European practice of earmarking government money to satisfy public demands for new therapies or direct funds to research institutes in parliamentarians' home regions exasperates some scientists working on basic research projects that rarely attract headlines. These scientists complain that earmarking substitutes political decisions for scientific judgments and narrows scientific inquiry. Because politicians, not peers, approve the funding

For people who have suffered a massive traumatic injury--from a car crash, building collapse, or other life-threatening event--modern health care is paradoxical in nature. While the emergency room is successful in prolonging lives, it is the body's system failures that eventually kill trauma patients. "If you look at the successes that medicine has had in our ability to capture individuals immediately after trauma, to resuscitate them, get them to the emergency room, we've been remarkably succes