Magazine Issue - January 2009 | January 2009

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January 2009

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As a grad student at the University of Edinburgh, Elie Dolgin wrote and recorded science radio shows and podcasts in between experiments with C. elegans. Within only weeks of defending his thesis, Dolgin became an editorial intern at The Scientist. "I liked The Scientist because, even though I was no longer a practicing scientist, for the first time I felt I was part of a sc

Editorial

Innovation Imperiled

US healthcare needs radical revision, but we can't wipe out innovation in the process.

Mail

Citation debate hits Cell The general issue highlighted in the post "Critics rip Cell paper"1 and many of the comments that followed is one of "selective citation," in which papers fail to include all relevant prior art. I believe that this example reached the current level of scrutiny because the complainant, Peter Lawrence, is a well-known scientist and he was willing to raise a

Notebook

Smells funny?

Scanning electron micrograph of the head of a female Anopheles gambiae mosquito, indicating the olfactory appendages (antennae, maxillary palps and proboscis) Credit: Courtesy of LJ Zwiebel, colorization by Dominic Doyle / Vanderbilt University" />Scanning electron micrograph of the head of a female Anopheles gambiae mosquito, indicating the olfactory appendages (antennae, maxillary p

Lost in space

Few people possess a perfect sense of direction. Some need a GPS just to find their wits. Then there's Patient 1. Patient 1, as Giuseppe Iaria and his colleagues refer to her in an online article in Neuropsychologia(doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2008.08.021), doesn't even try to drive because she gets turned around in her own neighborhood. Family and friends accompany her almost every

Bio-Microsoft

Drew Purves Credit: Courtesy of Microsoft Research" />Drew Purves Credit: Courtesy of Microsoft Research Drew Purves had been a postdoc at Princeton University for almost five years when he saw a weird job advertisement in August 2006. He and his companions in Stephen Pacala's lab were the techies of the ecology world, building mathematical models of forest ecosystems. Weaned on a Commodore-64 computer and the BASIC

Icy treasure

The giant volcano sponge Anoxycalyx joubini can grow large enough for a diver to swim inside. Kim can now study these deep sponges using the SCINI. Credit: Courtesy of Stacy Kim" />The giant volcano sponge Anoxycalyx joubini can grow large enough for a diver to swim inside. Kim can now study these deep sponges using the SCINI. Credit: Courtesy of Stacy Kim Four decades ago, Paul Dayto

Uncategorized

Video: Icy Treasure

Video: Laborin' Lizards

Laborin' lizards

Anolis sagrei in Jamaica Credit: Courtesy of Luke Mahler / Harvard University" />Anolis sagrei in Jamaica Credit: Courtesy of Luke Mahler / Harvard University Head bobs, a series of quick pushups, and displays of a colorful double-chin. Life as a male anole lizard defending its territory against other male lizards is a lot of work. As is the life of the single-minded scientist who chooses to study them.

Darwinian Time

Darwinian Time Does adaptation to an environment act as a speed bump for evolutionary change? By Andrea Gawrylewski Illustrations by JT Morrow Photos by Stephen Kennedy n a windowless room, three researchers hunker over a waist-high lab table. Dressed in white coats and latex gloves, the investigators, all members of the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, get down to the business at hand: skinning frozen mice. Related Ar

Of cells and wires

Of cells and wires The first step to computer augmentation and neuroprosthetics lies in the connection between nerve cell and metal. How are scientists bridging the gap? By Edyta ZielinskaIllustrations by Thom GravesNeural probe illustrations by Christopher Burke. Provided courtesy of NeuroNexus Technologies, Ann Arbor, Michigan. he man skis down sharp inclines at tremendous speeds, sees wind frolic through a woman's hair as the French countryside passes outside of th

Priority Setting at the NIH

Priority Setting at the NIH © Dustin Fenstermacher / Wonderful Machine Nearly 10 years after stepping down as director, Harold Varmus reflects on his life at the agency, and some of the delicate negotiations that often precede funding decisions. By Harold Varmus Editor 's note : The following is an excerpt from Harold Varmus's upcoming memoir, The Art and Politics of Science, (Norton Books, Feb. 2009). In his book, Varmus recounts his days at

Out of the Frying Pan

After trial-by-fire training during the feverish early days of HIV research, Amanda Fisher has kept up the pace in the hot fields of epigenetics and nuclear reprogramming.

Neuroprosthetics Today

Neuroprosthetics Today For more than 20 years, researchers at the Cleveland Functional Electrical stimulation (FES) Center have been training patients with paralysis to control their own neurological signals - not from electrodes in their brains (the focus of our feature Of Cells and Wires), but from those implanted in muscles. Watch the video below to learn how.

Opinion

Tackling Human Resources in Africa

How one institute leverages overseas talent to develop its research strategy.

Column

Don't Fight to be Cited

Forget and - submit your papers to the journals read by your grant reviewers.

Books etc.

The Disputed Rise of Mammals

Generating the most complete evolutionary tree for mammals sparks debate and discovery.

Hot Paper

Energetic senescence

Credit: Courtesy of Thomas von Zglinicki and PLoS Biology" /> Credit: Courtesy of Thomas von Zglinicki and PLoS Biology The paper: J. F. Passos et al., "Mitochondrial dysfunction accounts for the stochastic heterogeneity in telomere-dependent senescence," PLoS Biology, 5:1138, 2007. (Cited in 31 papers) The study: To investigate why cells senesce at different rates, Thomas von Zglinicki of

Focus on phosphorylation

Credit: Generated using Polyview-3D / A. Porollo, J. Meller (2007) Versatile Annotation and Publication Quality Visualization of Protein Complexes Using POLYVIEW-3D" /> Credit: Generated using Polyview-3D / A. Porollo, J. Meller (2007) Versatile Annotation and Publication Quality Visualization of Protein Complexes Using POLYVIEW-3D The paper: J. Villén et al., "Large-scale p

Fungus, decoded

Credit: Courtesy of Fungal Biodiversity Center, Utrecht, the Netherlands" /> Credit: Courtesy of Fungal Biodiversity Center, Utrecht, the Netherlands The paper: H.J. Pel et al., "Genome sequencing and analysis of the versatile cell factory Aspergillus niger CBS 513.88," Nat Biotechnol, 25:221-31, 2007. (Cited in 65 papers) The gist: Hein Stam and colleagues at DSM Food Sciences in The Neth

Scientist To Watch

Leonard Foster: A quantitative quality

Credit: © Robert Karpa" /> Credit: © Robert Karpa When he was a child growing up in northern British Columbia, Leonard Foster's great aunt spread natural willow extract over her garden to promote plant root growth; when Foster and his three younger siblings came down with sore throats, his mother served hot tea spiked with a resinous mixture, called propolis, which is made by honey bees. These traditional customs seemed to work. But Foster wasn't entirely convinced. Star

Lab Tools

Let's Get Physical

How to modify your tools to prevent pain at the bench.

BioBusiness

The Mentorship Market

New organizations want to help you succeed in biotech - for free.

Pulse Oximeter

Balancing Life and Science

How four successful scientists find time for their other passions, and why it's good for their science.

Foundations

Miller-Urey Amino Acids, circa 1953

Credit: Courtesy of Adam Johnson" /> Credit: Courtesy of Adam Johnson When chemistry graduate student Stanley Miller first heard University of Chicago professor and Nobel laureate Harold Urey's idea that organic compounds, such as amino acids, arose in a reducing atmosphere, Miller was determined to find out. Together, they built the spark-charge apparatus—two glass flasks connected by glass t