August 2005

Darwin's theory of evolution offers a sweeping explanation of the history of life, from the earliest microscopic organisms billions of years ago to all the plants and animals around us today.

J. Craig Venter's part in the race to sequence the human genome secured him a place in the history books.

The average British ambulance is hardly what you'd call spacious, with an interior volume measuring about 12 cubic meters.

Michelle Ledgister was hopping mad over losing a property tax exemption on a home she owns and rents out near Boca Raton, Fla.

Sequencers have come a long way since 1986.

It's common knowledge that BLAST's Web interface puts the power of the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) on users' desktops.

Microarrays are nothing without their scanners, the instruments that extract the array's data in computer-readable form.

The ultimate realization of the yeast two-hybrid (Y2H) assay is the interactome.

It's been 20 years since Hillenkamp and Karas developed MALDI.

With their tiny reaction volumes and parallel architecture, lab-on-a-chip systems promise to lower the cost and raise the quality of life science research.

Unlike the other technologies highlighted in this issue, optical trapping systems are not typically purchased off-the-shelf.

In 1986, the year in which the automated DNA sequencer was invented, GenBank held a scant 9.6 million bases.

spent almost 20 years developing technology at Bell Labs.

Bruce Lahn has always been something of a rebel.

A recent article on the situation about a PhD candidate at The Ohio State University, who is also a high school biology teacher, says the dissertation "pits evolutionary science against intelligent design" and involves high school students exposure to "whether evolution should be taught alongside intelligent design."1 I am on the dissertation committee and can say that the dissertation never mentioned intelligent design. Instead, it evaluated high school students' reactions to a state approved c

," based on a book I co-authored, Randall Kremer, the museum's director of public affairs commented, "The scientific content for the most part is accurate.

I greatly appreciate Dana Dalrymple's comments regarding the value of scientific knowledge as a public good.1 I want to point out another value of scientific research – that is, its role in education. Having students participate in research is not a new concept; indeed, this has long been the basis of graduate education and, at many institutions, research projects have served as capstone experiences for undergraduate science students. What is exciting is the way research is now being incor

makes it clear that any form of current classical one-by-one gene status assessment will not be adequately informative to assess an actual patient's genetic risks.