Last month, a linkurl:judge ruled;http://www.westernwatersheds.org/legal/07/pygmy/pygmysjorder.pdf that the US Fish and Wildlife Service had to revisit a 2004 decision denying pygmy rabbits outside of the Columbia River basin protection under the Endangered Species Act. I wrote about linkurl: efforts to save the Columbia basin rabbits;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/53232/ in our June issue; such rabbits have been listed as endangered since 2003. The ruling was in response to a sui

Earlier this month, the US Fish and Wildlife Service denied protection under the Endangered Species Act to the giant Palouse earthworm. I can't describe the linkurl:Driloleirus americanus;http://www.ag.uidaho.edu/news/Photos/giantPalouseearthworm/smoot%20p%205%20sp%202%20ventral.jpg any better than "worm defender" Steve Paulson did in the High Country News linkurl:last year: ;http://www.hcn.org/servlets/hcn.Article?article_id=16643 ''What kid wouldn't want to play with a 3-foot-long, lily-smelli

In a linkurl:statement;http://www.cshl.edu/public/releases/07_statement2.html issued tonight, the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Board of Trustees said that they had "decided to suspend the administrative responsibilities of Chancellor James D. Watson, Ph.D., pending further deliberation by the Board." This follows their harsh response to his comments in the Sunday Times that he believed people of African descent are less intelligent, as Alison McCook linkurl:wrote;http://www.the-scientist.com/b

New York Democratic senator and presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton linkurl:told;http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2007/10/04/clinton_vows_to_end_assault_on.html a Carnegie Institution audience on Thursday that a fictional TV show like CSI would inspire more students to pursue science, according to the __Washington Post__. "Make up a character," she said. The comments were part of a speech in which Clinton promised to end the Bush administration's ''war on science,'' which we covered l

The New York Times linkurl:reports today;http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/10/business/media/10journal.html?ref=business that scientific and medical publisher Reed-Elsevier, which publishes 400 journals, has introduced ''a Web portal, linkurl:www.OncologySTAT.com, ;www.oncologystat.com that gives doctors free access to the latest articles from 100 of its own pricey medical journals and that plans to sell advertisements against the content.'' In exchange for personal information, oncologists can rec

The US Fish and Wildlife Service has released a draft recovery plan for the endangered Columbia Basin pygmy rabbit, a subject I linkurl:wrote about;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/53232/ in our June issue. The tiny rabbits -- on average, adults weigh just 400 grams and are only 25 centimeters long -- have been on the Federal endangered species list since 2001. That year, officials were only able to scoop up 30 of them when they searched throughout their native habitat of the Great B

As Federal agencies and farmers call for removing the linkurl:gray wolf;http://www.fws.gov/mountain-prairie/species/mammals/wolf/ from the US endangered species list, a member of a species appears to have killed a calf in rural linkurl:Stevens County, Washington.;http://www.co.stevens.wa.us/Misc/about.htm; According to a US Fish and Wildlife Service press release, the kill ''appears to be the first confirmed wolf depredation on livestock in Washington State.'' The kill, which happened sometime

In May, we brought you a linkurl:story;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/53115/ by Jerry Guo, who traveled to China to report on efforts to boost that country's population of pandas. (See a slideshow about the panda facility linkurl:here;http://www.the-scientist.com/2007/5/1/19/100/ .) One of the people Guo interviewed was Lu Zhi, director of Conservation International's China office. Zhi questioned some of China's efforts, especially those at Wolong Nature Reserve, which is planning

In a reminder that members of Congress -- oh, and bloggers, too -- need fact-checkers as much as journalists do, Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.) felt the need to put out a press release Friday apologizing to three prominent health care reporters. Here's what happened: On July 23, Daily Kos linkurl:reported;http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/7/23/7140/03171 that ABC's Nancy Snyderman, NBC's Robert Bazell, and PBS' Susan Dentzer were members of the Speakers Network at America's Health Insurance Plans

In this week's Lancet, several Norwegian cardiologists linkurl:urge caution;http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673607609921/fulltext before testing stem cell therapies in patients following heart attacks. Three of the clinical trials so far haven't shown any positive effects, and the one that did was questionable, they write. At least one patient in Michigan didn't like being subjected to one such experiment in 2003; he's linkurl:suing;www.the-scientist.com/article/display/

Finally, after years of dwindling populations and a deadly outbreak in February and March, there may be some good news for Columbia Basin pygmy rabbits. I traveled out to Washington and Oregon to linkurl:report on efforts to save the species;http://www.the-scientist.com/2007/6/1/40/1/ for our June issue. The Associated Press linkurl:reported last week;http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/06/14/ap3822788.html that doctoral student Len Zeoli had found a ''female digging a burrow and lining it wit

An FDA advisory panel has ''unanimously rejected Acomplia, a weight-loss drug from Sanofi-Aventis, on concerns the drug increases the number of psychiatric events like depression and suicidal thinking among users,'' Dow Jones Newswires linkurl:reported;http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118174200915533871.html yesterday. That means it's at least the second time in under a year that Steven Nissen has been wrong about the promise of new drugs. Nissen, of course, is the well-known Cleveland Clinic ca