March 2005

exert a special influence on the orchestration of international research activity

When Frankfurt University said last month that anthropologist Reiner Protsch von Zieten had engaged in repeated scientific fraud for much of the past 30 years, the question naturally arose of how on earth he'd gotten away with it for so long.

Step into David Kritchevsky's irregularly shaped basement office at the University of Pennsylvania's Wistar Institute, and you'll immediately be able to tell that he's been there for a while.

Back in 1973, when Julia Goodfellow finished her PhD at Britain's Open University, like many of her peers, she jumped on a plane to California to take up the de rigueur three-year overseas postdoc.

The massive efforts to systematically find and catalog single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) bear witness to the conviction that small genomic changes may provide clues to the origins of such things as heart problems, obesity, and pharmacologic responses.

Rodney Brooks has what seems like modest career goals: to achieve the manual dexterity of a 6-year-old and the object-recognition skills of a toddler.

The completion of the Human Genome Project (HGP) symbolizes the entry of biology into the "big science" arena.

Antibiotics have been around since the introduction of penicillin in the 1940s, but the fight against bacterial infections is far from over.

The discovery of several genes linked to Parkinson disease (PD) in recent years has spawned extensive research efforts to elucidate the underlying mechanism of this prevalent neurological disorder.

Old cells may regain a youthful phenotype when exposed to a young cell environment, say researchers from Stanford University and VA Palo Alto Health Care System in California.

© 2005 National Academy of SciencesIsraeli researchers report that embryonic pig tissues used for liver, pancreas, and lung transplants need to come from very specific windows of time in embryonic development.1 The findings offer new insights into organogenesis and might help explain past failures in xenotransplantation, says coauthor Yair Reisner of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel.Reisner and his colleagues transplanted pig tissue precursors from embryonic day (E)21 to

Two distinct pools of synaptic vesicles appear to be involved in the spontaneous release of neurotransmitters and in neurotransmission triggered by a stimulus, according to Ege T. Kavalali and colleagues from University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.

Researchers in China, South Korea, and Singapore are testing the lead taken by Western countries in the field of stem cell research, according to members of a UK government mission.

Genetic Savings and Clone, a leading pet-cloning company in Sausalito, Calif., announced the sale of its second cloned cat in February and dropped its price for the service from $50,000 to $32,000.

An Illinois judge cleared the way for a couple to sue a Chicago fertility clinic for wrongful death after clinic workers accidentally disposed of a healthy embryo.

Last month Ron Smock, owner of Drug Detection Services, a forensic and criminalistic testing facility in Albuquerque, NM, posted this auction on eBay

THE CULTURE WITHIN:Photo courtesy of Drs. C.C. Uphoff and H.G. Drexler, DSMZ-German Collection of Microorganism and Cell Cultures, Braunschweig, GermanyHeLa cell line infected with Mycoplasma hyorhinis. Scanning electron micrograph of critical point-dried cell culture grown on cover slips. Note the loop- and rod-like mycoplasmas attached to the host cell membrane. Smaller web-like structures on the cell surface represent microvilli of the cell. Original magnification 3,000×.Mycoplasmas have

Audrey Player is searching for the ideal RNA amplification protocol.

In the largest project of its kind, Swedish scientists are studying normal and cancerous tissues to discover not only the location and abundance of all human proteins, but also how these are affected by disease states.

Researchers are now using symbolic logic as a proteomics tool.

has released a baculovirus expression system that reduces the timeline of recombinant virus production by up to 10 days, according to company literature.

When SARS struck more than 8,000 people and killed nearly 800 in the spring of 2003, the world clamored to know when a vaccine against the deadly virus would come to the rescue.

When Human Genome Sciences in Rockville, Md., recruits top scientists, the biotechnology company usually offers them a stake in its future success in the form of stock options.

When British regulators suspended the license of Chiron's manufacturing plant in Liverpool, England, in October 2004, the move caught the US Food and Drug Administration by surprise and triggered an international vaccine crisis.

"We have your dog," read the cut-and-paste ransom note taped to Chris Miller's office door one day in the late 1990s.

Professional sports are at the peak of their power.

covered the SARS outbreak as a journalist and experienced it personally as she shopped in a surgical mask.

proves that scientists, or at least those who claim to speak for them, can be just as biased and opinionated as any politician.

It is the total scientific output and its quality that really matters, but still it can be fun to discuss how many papers it is possible for one author to publish in a single journal issue.

rightly lays blame for our current crisis in pharmaceuticals in the lap of the FDA.

Unfortunately, Professor Wolniak's experiences as an online punching-bag are not extreme or unusual.1 Since 1995, I have been the subject of similar attacks on message boards and Usenet groups devoted to infectious diseases. To date, my name has been mentioned 1,720 times in posted messages containing false information and wild accusations. Some of my colleagues have fared even worse on these same boards and groups; one favorite target has racked up an impressive 6,870 hate-filled messages.Remar

and for letting us know that the subject is very much alive.