Reprinted with permission from Nature  PROTEIN SILENCING: Silencing of nuclear envelope proteins lamin A/C siRNA duplex (a,d) with GL2 luciferase siRNA duplex (nonspecific siRNA control) (b), and with buffer only (c). Staining with lamin A/C specific antibody (a,c); staining with NuMA-specific antibody (d). Data derived from the Science Watch/Hot Papers database and the Web of Science (ISI, Philadelphia) show that Hot Papers are cited 50 to 100 times more often than the average paper of t

Courtesy of Molecular Staging  UNRAVELING MDA: Molecular Staging's MDA technology relies on a highly processive, strand-displacing DNA polymerase. As high-throughput genomics and its postgenomics successor, proteomics, are the technologies of choice for rapid screening of new pharmaceuticals, a company that establishes itself as a technology leader in both fields could be ahead of the pack: New Haven, Conn.-based Molecular Staging (MSI). In November 2002, MSI announced in rapid successi

Frontlines Photo: Courtesy of Jokn Tooker Imagine the gall Humans don't usually select mates on the basis of their gall, but the male gall wasp does. Antistrophus rufus can search through a maze of dead plants and locate an inconspicuous gall that houses his intended bride, thanks to his ability to detect modified plant chemicals. Graduate student John Tooker and adviser Lawrence Hanks were studying wasp sympatric speciation, examining the chemical cues that gall wasps use to distinguish pla

The Faculty of 1000 is aWeb-based literature awareness tool published by BioMed Central. For more information visit www.facultyof1000.com. Embryonic development doesn't occur by magic; it occurs by predetermined genetic steps leading to production of transcriptional molecules. This process is addressed by two Faculty of 1000-featured papers that deal with unrelated species and cover different manners of viewing gene roles in developmental processes. Nonetheless, the work is related. Kevin Whit

Photo: Courtesy of Lee Petersen Researchers from Ascent Power Systems examine a large-area fuel cell component. Could the world's waste--peanut shells from Georgia, coconut shells from the Philippines, pig-farm waste from China, or even left-over gas from Japanese-beer kegs--be the answer to the next energy crisis? Probably not, but a number of companies and individuals are touting the benefits in a variety of ways. Talk abounds about fuel cells and the "hydrogen economy," spurred by rec

Image: Courtesy of Karl Malcolm SAFETY RING: This X-ray image depicts the position of the silicone intravaginal ring in vivo. When researchers learned that the spermicide nonoxynol-9 (N9) killed HIV in vitro, they were hoping that they had a cheap, ready-made, effective topical microbicide that women could use to block sexual transmission of HIV. But clinical trials showed that N9 increased vulnerability to HIV infection because it damaged mucosal cells, making the mucous membrane more p

Top and left: courtesy of Craig Sholley; Right: Courtesy of AWF/IGCP  IN THEIR WORLD: A gorilla rests with her infant as another gorilla plays in the trees. At right are Annette Lanjouw and Mbake Sivha in Goma, standing on lava after the Nyiragongo volcano eruption of Jan. 21 this year. Next to chimpanzees, gorillas are the closest living human relatives. Yet, humans have loved, sold, killed, even eaten gorillas. Dian Fossey's popularization of her field work with mountain gori

Funding for translational research flows from government agencies and through foundations and associations. At meetings around the world, the pleas go out for more researchers to join the field. Yet if you ask 10 researchers to define "translational re-search," you're likely to get 10 different definitions, ranging from "translating a laboratory discovery into a clinical application up to, but not including Phase III clinical trials" to "all research involving human beings." A middle-of-the-ro

Photo: Courtesy of Judith Vaitukaitis Were it not for the National Institutes of Health's former policy that did not allow NIH researchers to patent their discoveries, "Vaitukaitis" would have been a household name, like Pasteur or Steinway. That's because reproductive endocrinologist Judith Vaitukaitis, now director of NIH's National Center for Research Resources (NCRR), discovered what became the first simple pregnancy test--the immunoassay for the presence of human chorionic gonadotrophin (

Volume 16 | Issue 13 | 22 | Jun. 24, 2002 Previous | Next Honeybee Sequencing: One Honey of an Idea The little buzzers are a magic well for discoveries in biology | By Myrna E. Watanabe Photo: Courtesy of Chip Taylor TOGETHERNESS: A swarm of Neotropical African honeybees in Venezuela In late May, the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) released its priority list of organisms

Are colleges dropping biology laboratories? Some people say yes, while others don't see it. Both sides agree, however, that economic factors could result in the demise of labs in some college biology courses. Paleobotanist Jeffrey Osborn, of the biology department at Truman State University in Kirksville, Mo., is a member of the Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR), a Washington, DC-based consultancy that conducts external reviews for biology departments. The results of these reviews are con

The National Center for Science Education (NCSE), a clearinghouse for information about evolution and the anti-evolutionist initiatives, reported more than one state or local difficulty per week in 1999 and 2000 related to the teaching of evolution. One of the prominent figures in the ongoing evolutionist vs. creationist debate is NCSE executive director Eugenie C. Scott, a physical anthropologist by training. Scott didn't intend to become embroiled in this issue; one of her graduate school prof