The field candidates for the top job at the World Health Organization is dominated by a list of current and former WHO insiders, it emerged on Wednesday. Of the 13 nominees to fill the post of director general that was linkurl:left vacant;http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/23475/ earlier this year by the death of Lee Jong-Wook, four currently hold senior WHO posts and three have former connections to the agency. Lee?s unexpected passing in May forced the WHO to put in place an accelera

Former German Research Foundation president to lead the European Research Council

Roger Hegarty isn't a big fan of fart jokes. But over the course of a decade studying livestock methane emissions for the New South Wales state government in Australia, he's found that few people have been able to resist sharing their favorite wind-breaking witticism. "There isn't a fart joke in the world I haven't heard," he says with good-natured weariness. He'd be thrilled not to hear any of them again, particularly considering that 95% of the gas actually issues from front en

New law that requires licenses for stored tissue is encouraging researchers to consolidate their samples into central repositories

Neuropsychopharmacology's chief steps down after a paper he co-authored omitted significant financial disclosures

On anniversary of major assault by animal rights extremists on science, research groups say similar incidents are on a decline

Government's plan for new funding system for research lacks peer review, says Royal Society

Unusual move receives support from critics of troubled paper suggesting breast implants may increase body levels of platinum

Iranian biosciences aren?t exactly top of the news agenda these days, so I was interested to linkurl:read;http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/research/story/0,,1839217,00.html this week that researchers at Tehran?s linkurl:Royan Institute;http://www.royaninstitute.org/ have "succeeded" in producing what is apparently the Middle East's first cloned sheep. The sheep died minutes after it was delivered at the institute, which specializes in fertility issues (Royan meaning Embryo in

Proposal to combine basic and clinical research funding into one agency sparks disagreement over how to manage the money

By her own admission, Melissa Bateson has spent most of her research career knowing very little about how the European Union sets science policy. Any scraps she did pick up were routinely distorted by the snide lens of the UK's tabloid newspapers.So when Britain's Royal Society offered her the opportunity to join in a partnering scheme with her local representative in the European Parliament (her "MEP" in Euro-speak) she jumped at the chance. "I was interested to see whe

RCUK report shows many schools aren't applying for extra funding to supplement young researcher salaries