April 2003

Frontlines | The Unstuff'd Brain Courtesy of Dana Press Macbeth: Canst thou not minister to a mind diseas'd ...? Doctor: Therein the patient must minister to himself. Macbeth: Throw physic to the dogs; I'll none of it. --Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act V, Scene III Though William Shakespeare uses the word 'brain' 66 times in his plays, his works hardly read like a neurological review article. Yet, say neurologist Paul Matthews and linguist Jeffrey McQuain, his comprehension of how the brai

Frontlines | Smallpox Vaccination and (Unnecessary?) Caution Courtesy of CDC People with eczema and immunosuppressed patients need to forego voluntary smallpox vaccination to avoid adverse effects or even death. Now, another group joins them: those with heart trouble. Recently, three deaths occurred due to myocardial infarction shortly after vaccination, and adverse cardiac events have occurred in six civilians and 12 military personnel. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

Smears and Swabs I read with interest the article "Quantitative Image Analysis Gives More Power to the Pathologist."1 However, I must draw your attention to an inaccuracy. In the first paragraph, "A woman visits her gynecologist for her annual Pap smear. The doctor takes a cervical swab." However, a swab is used to diagnose infection. A cervical smear is the means to gather cells required for cytological analysis. Amanda Watters Division of Cancer Sciences and Molecular Pathology Depart

Lipidomics I read your recent article on lipids in The Scientist1 with great interest. I am a physician who studied for many years with Emanuel Revici, MD, a Romanian physician-scientist who lived from 1896 to 1998, and devoted his life to the study of lipids and their role in physiology and cancer. He created many of his own medicines, based on lipids, and, among many other things, identified the conjugated trienic fatty acids as "pathological" fatty acids 30 years before Bengt Samuelsson

Who Gets Credit for EvoBank? We were pleased to read your article "Building an Evo-Bank"1 in the Feb. 24th issue. Since 1999, we have been proposing the opening of electronic archives for fossil and modern hominoids in professional journals, in scientific meetings, and by distributing E-data of hominid fossils.2 We called this idea a "Glasnost for paleoanthropology" because we thought not enough effort was being directed toward establishing cooperative networks in our field of science. Rea

Obligations of English Speakers It's not just foreign-born researchers whose lack of English proficiency hurts their careers.1 Many Americans have the same problem. Every year, I read grant applications from young (and sometimes rather senior) American scientists who MIGHT actually have good ideas. However, the syntax is so fractured, the flow of ideas so random, and the use of jargon and cliche so pervasive, that I am utterly stymied in my attempts to understand the science. When undergrad

No Shortage Here I particularly agree with Daniel S. Greenberg.1 I know he has been in journalism 40 years. It shows. He was particularly astute about the myth of science folks out there. There is a huge pool to draw from! There is also no shortage of eager beavers who are led to believe that if you have the intelligence, the fortitude, not to mention the sheer enjoyment of doing the science, that this is enough. People don't give scientists credit for being clever about the political are

Evolution Redux Regarding Barry Palevitz's opinion article1 about whether biology faculty should write letters of recommendation for students who deny evolution, I raise a voice of caution. Palevitz asks, "Do we as scientists and educators have a responsibility to society beyond transmitting facts and awarding grades?" The responsibility of scientists to society is primarily to be truthful, even about the uncertainty that may accompany their most precious conclusions. If scientists openl

Courtesy of SRI International  METABOLITES GO 'OMIC': Metabolomics researchers seek to catalog and quantify the myriad small molecules found in biological fluids. Such molecules stem from biological pathways, whose complexity and interrelationships are neatly captured in this depiction of SRI International's BioCyc database. The dots represent individual metabolites and the lines represent enzymatic reactions that interconvert the metabolites. The circle surrounding the pathways depicts th

Courtesy of Applied Biosystems  THE TAQMAN PROCEDURE: Applied Biosystems' TaqMan procedure relies on the 5'-to-3' exonuclease activity of Taq polymerase. The TaqMan probe bears a fluoro-phore at the 5' end and a quencher on the 3' end, rendering the molecule non-fluorescent. During amplification, the probe binds to the template between the two PCR primers. When the polymerase encounters the probe, it starts chewing away at the end, releasing the fluorophore into solution, where it is free

David Baltimore has faced down a congressional committee and parleyed with presidents and kings. 

 Click for larger version (58K) Scientists throughout Europe are busy clicking on a "Find a Partner" link. They are not seeking romance. A typical proposal: "Seeking partners to study the influence of genetic and environmental factors on human morphofunctional status." The partner search service on the European Union's Framework 6 Programme (FP6) Web site (www.cordis.lu/fp6) is linking scientists seeking the transnational partners required for their projects to be eligible for FP6 fundin

Erica P. Johnson The young field of proteomics has quickly risen to match physics and meteorology in its huge appetite for computational capacity. According to Sylvie Langevin, development group manager of Montreal-based proteomics firm Caprion Pharmaceuticals, the computer processing and data handling requirements of proteomics exceed those of genomics by a factor approaching one million. "In genomics we have files of several kilobytes in size, but in proteomics we're closer to 1 [gigabyte],"

Brian Behnke In Washington's biotech debates, Irving Weissman, a professor, entrepreneur, and political activist, is among the most influential, visible, and effective advocates for the science community. He's also forthright about any potential conflicts of interest that may arise as he lobbies against curbs on scientists' freedom to conduct human embryo-related research. "I always disclose. ... Everybody in this area should do that," he says. During his long career Weissman helped create Sy