Magazine Issue - February 2005 | February 2005

Meet This Issue's Writers

worked down the hall from Bert O'Malley, an early intron pioneer.

Intelligent Design and Informed Debate

The current frenzied attack on the teaching of evolution in public schools in school boards across the United States is to be welcomed.

How to Blow the Whistle

Thank you for publishing Eugene Russo's article, "The Plight of the Whistleblower."1 It is important to keep this issue in the public eye. Your readers might profit from two articles23 that offer practical advice on whistleblowing. They are available in PDF format at http://poynter.indiana.edu/links.shtml#SEE by special arrangement with the publishers of Science and Engineering Ethics.

Scholarly Citizens

I agree completely with the thesis presented by Richard Cherwitz in your Jan. 17 issue.1 However, while I agree with Cherwitz that teaching is part of the mission of our academic institutions and is examined for tenure decisions, I disagree that this activity is valued to the extent that he suggests.Perhaps such citizen scholars deserve even more recognition than those conducting just research. The problem is that the business of research is the culture of our ivory-tower existence, and it will

Science Education Needs Case Studies

My very first year teaching, I was humbled by a student in my animal physiology class at the University of Alaska.

Creationism: from the US, with love

The pressure from US religious groups to unseat the teaching of evolution as the sole construct in public schools shows no sign of slowing.

Journals and intelligent design

Biologists often get angry about the publication of studies defending "intelligent design," the notion that biochemical systems could not have been produced by evolution because they are "irreducibly complex," and as such, must have been "designed" by an unknown entity.

Renewed faith in Ecstasy

on methyl-enedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), the chemical used to make the illegal drug Ecstasy, two researchers in the United States have moved closer to studying the potential benefits of the compound.

Homo floresiensis

Paleoanthropology is among the most quarrelsome of fields, so it is no surprise that researchers have gone to war over the remarkable bones discovered in a Liang Bua cave on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2003.

Beating the Clock for a Better Understanding of Metabolism

Timing is everything, even with regard to metabolism.

Synthetic Peptides Spur Apoptosis

Peptide mimetics are becoming increasingly popular pipeline leads for pro-apoptotic cancer drugs.

Does Telomerase Moonlight?

Telomerase, a cellular ribonucleoprotein (RNP) reverse transcriptase, is not detected in most normal human tissues but is almost universally expressed in human cancers.

What Makes a Human?

Sometimes it is hard to see the forest for the trees.

A Matter of Life and Cell Death

A cell has more than one option when it comes to protecting itself and surrounding tissues against the repercussions of DNA damage.

Active breathing in insects

Rather than rely solely on passive diffusion, insects use discontinuous patterns of gas exchange to avoid the toxic effects of oxygen, according to researchers at the University of California, Irvine.

Interdisciplinary research

These papers were selected from multiple disciplines from the Faculty of 1000, a Web-based literature awareness tool http://www.facultyof1000.com.J.F. Roeth et al., "HIV-1 Nef disrupts MHC-I trafficking by recruiting AP-1 to the MHC-I cytoplasmic tail." J Cell Biol, 167:903–13, Dec. 6, 2004.This study defines a novel pathway by which immune evasion protein Nef of HIV-1 traffics MHC-I proteins in T cells from the trans-Golgi network (TGN) to the lysosome for degradation. Indeed, the authors

RNA pol does double duty

by an RNA polymerase that acts as a liaison between both pathways, according to UK researchers.

Unraveling Cellular Biochemistry, One Cell at a Time

For decades biochemists have been teasing apart the metabolic circuits that power eukaryotic cells.

Tag! Purifying Proteins with Affinity Chromatography

What is now a standard protein laboratory technique began as an act of desperation.

Cryo-Neutron Protein Crystallography Produces Sharper Structures

X-ray crystallography has long been the method of choice for obtaining atomic-resolution protein structures, but it doesn't provide the whole picture.

The Bare Bones of Animal Imaging

Eastman Kodak of Rochester, NY, has developed a module for its Image Station 2000MM Multimodal Imaging System that precisely coregisters X-ray images of lab animals with fluorescent, luminescent, or radioisotopic images generated using molecular markers.

Protein PCR with Chimeric "Tadpoles"

DNA has its PCR, but no comparable method exists for high-sensitivity detection of proteins.

Adventure with Ventures

Bruce Weintraub is a cofounder and chief executive of Trophogen, a biotech startup in Rockville, Md., that develops protein therapeutics.

When the Line Between Science and Business Blurs

In 2004, media reports and US congressional investigations revealed that dozens of intramural scientists and officials at the National Institutes of Heath had received substantial amounts of cash and stock options by consulting with drug and biotech companies, many of which had dealings with the agency.

Biotech Takes on New Industries

With a little help from biotechnology, corn stalks, saw dust, and garbage can be converted into a fuel that could potentially reduce gasoline consumption by 25%, according to Iogen in Ottawa.

GM policy shift in Europe?

Newly installed European Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel suggests there might be a major shift in European Union policies on genetically modified (GM) crops.

What's in a Gene Name?

If you thought the hard work of sequencing the human genome was complete, think again.

February 2005

February 2005

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