December 2001

In June, word leaked out that something terrible went wrong with a clinical trial at Johns Hopkins University. A healthy, 24-year-old employee of one of the clinics died while participating in a research study on asthma. Such negative events are not unheard of: in 1993, half the participants in a 10-person trial of the anti-hepatitis B drug, fialuridine (FIAU), carried out at the National Institutes of Health, died. Two others became severely ill.1 In the ensuing investigations of the Johns Ho

Traditionally, high school and university curricula neatly fragment science into physics and chemistry, geology and biology. But that's not the way that the natural world works. In recognition of this disconnect, the National Science Foundation's "Biocomplexity in the Environment" program is funding explorations of the links that connect the living and nonliving components of the planet. Research sites involved in the effort span the globe, from coral reefs to estuaries, from urban/rural bound

Your ancestors didn't travel to the New World on the Mayflower? Not listed in Burke's Peerage and Baronetage? No worries, mate. For a couple of hundred bucks, Oxford Ancestors, a new British biotech company, will add cachet to your lineage by extending it back at least 10,000 years.

Next to 'why is the sky blue' and 'where do babies come from,' 'why do leaves turn color in the fall' might be the most frequently asked question about nature. 

In biomedical research, is the "gold standard" of controlled studies that analyze individual therapies the only way to get trustworthy results? That question is central to what has arguably become America's most profound public health development: the boom in complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). That question also was pondered frequently at the fourth annual Comprehensive Cancer Care Conference recently in Arlington, Va. Cosponsored by the nonprofit Center for Mind-Body Medicine in Wa

To say that K. Barry Sharpless has had an eventful year might be as understated as saying that he likes chemistry. In addition to receiving the Nobel Prize for chemistry on Dec. 10, Sharpless, W.M. Keck Professor of chemistry at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif., returned to his hometown of Philadelphia earlier in April to receive the Benjamin Franklin Medal, and then again this autumn to receive the John Scott Award. The latter award was bestowed by the Philadelphia Board of Ci

Surgeons may have rethink the way they operate on children with crossed eyes, or strabismus. This is thanks to the discovery by Joseph Demer, Jules Stein Eye Institute at the University of California at Los Angeles of the orbital pulley system. Using MRI and cadaver dissection, Demer found that each extraocular muscle consists of a global layer contiguous with the tendon and that inserts into the eyeball, along with a similar-sized orbital layer forming the extraocular muscle's pulley, which con

At The Scientist, we try to make incremental improvements in our publication every issue. The improvements may include spending extra time editing stories to make them easier to read, or calling additional sources to procure artwork to properly illustrate an article. A 24-times-a-year publication schedule leaves little leeway between issues to make major changes, but we still keep our sights set on making each issue better than the last. Now, after this, our final issue of 2001, we really have

Sidney Harriswww.ScienceCartoonsPlus.com

Roche Molecular Biochemicals of Indianapolis is offering a 30 percent discount on its Ribonucleoside Triphosphate set with the purchase of T7, T3, or SP6 RNA Polymerases. The offer is valid until December 31, 2001. To receive the discount, mention promotional code RN4 when ordering. Roche Molecular Biochemicals, (800) 262-1640, www.biochem.roche.com My-O-Mycoplasma La Jolla, Calif.-based Stratagene is offering 50 percent off any item of choice with the purchase of one Mycoplasma Plus™

Two months after the September 11 terrorist attacks the US government finally acknowledged that an already anemic economy had slipped into recession. It wasn't exactly a stop-the-presses moment. Everyone, from the guy with a few nickels in a 401k plan to big money investors, knew that Wall Street's run had ended. While every sector of the economy has suffered, the slowdown has refocused attention on the life sciences, which venture capitalists had shunned only a few years ago. In biotechnology

Joseph Schlessinger would hardly fit most people's definition of the unworldly scientist. Originally a physicist, Schlessinger has conducted groundbreaking work in identifying and characterizing molecules in the signaling pathways of receptor tyrosine kinases. Elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2000, Schlessinger, William H. Prusoff professor and chairman of pharmacology at Yale University, has achieved the acclaim some scientists yearn for. Yet in 1991, when he set out to build a c

Grant proposal writing for the life scientist may get easier in 2002 with the filing of a uniform electronic application for noncompetitive grants, but technical and bureaucratic tie-ups delay attempts to bring science funding into the computer age. The National Science Foundation has made strides in this direction by receiving applications electronically via a system called Fastlane, but the agency prints and circulates paper rather than electronic copies once the applications arrive. At the Na

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Many life science graduate students surveyed recently by the National Association of Graduate-Professional Students (NAGPS) expressed either dissatisfaction with, or a lack of knowledge of the career guidance and placement services provided by their institutions. Of the 7,400 life science graduate and doctoral students surveyed, 41-76 percent rated their institutions less than satisfactory on each of four measures of professional development listed in the National Doctorate Survey or reported th

We are witnessing the continuation of an accelerated, unprecedented explosion of scientific information that might make the life of a serious investigator unbearably complicated. Unlike our pioneering investigators, however, we are fortunate to have access to modern information-retrieving pools such as Medline, Biological Abstracts, and more recently selected electronic journals. These allow us, at the press of a key, to choose desired scientific citations. A search for articles in the medical