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About Us

Meet This Issue's Contributors
Meet This Issue's Contributors
, scientist at the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute in San Francisco.

Editorial

The Challenges Facing Neuroscience
The Challenges Facing Neuroscience
Neuroscience is intellectually the broadest and most taxing field in life sciences, and technologically it is the most challenging.

Letter

Open access business models
Open access business models
Re: "Will open access work?"1 It is quite untrue to suggest that our report is biased because its funders all have an interest in the existing subscription/license journal publishing model. We deliberately engaged an impartial consultancy to carry out the work in order that the study should be entirely objective – we are perfectly willing to make the anonymized data freely available for others to analyze. And all three organizations have a strong interest in the Open Access model. The Asso
Animal rights extremism revisited
Animal rights extremism revisited
in the September 12, 2005 issue addressed the issue of animal rights terrorism.

Opinion

What's Wrong With Single Hypotheses
What's Wrong With Single Hypotheses
The classic description of the scientific method begins with devising a hypothesis.

Notebook

Get thee to a gene-ery
Get thee to a gene-ery
Sister Mary Jane Paolella blames herself.
Bipartisan bacteria
Bipartisan bacteria
No doubt plenty of nasty things have been said about food poisoning bacteria over the centuries, but one thing they've never been accused of is political bias.
Seeing sharks from space
Seeing sharks from space
There's always been an air of mystery around whale sharks.

Research

Neural Oscillations ...Still Make Waves
Neural Oscillations ...Still Make Waves
When an oscilloscope's audio monitor starts to screech rhythmically in a neurophysiology lab, its waves hint at one of the most puzzling patterns in biology.
The Autism Genetics Quandary
The Autism Genetics Quandary
Although arguments remain over whether autism is genuinely on the rise to the astonishing degree reported in places like California, there is general agreement among scientists that the condition has a genetic basis.

Vision

How Do We Look?
How Do We Look?
Since long before the word neuroscience was coined, the community has devoted substantial resources to studying the visual system, and for good reason.
Minding the Drug Development Gap
Minding the Drug Development Gap
Twenty-five years after the enactment of the Bayh-Dole Act, scientists and administrators in academia who are interested in moving bench discoveries to the clinic are learning what travelers in London's subway system already know: It's important to "mind the gap."

Hot Paper

Another Chapter in Going from Blood to Brain
Another Chapter in Going from Blood to Brain
While politicos continue to debate the ethics of expanding research on embryonic stem cells, the scientific debate persists as to whether adult stem cells are multipotent, or if they even need to be in order to be therapeutically relevant.

Briefs

Cannabinoids boost neurogenesis?
Cannabinoids boost neurogenesis?
Dope may help the growth of new brain cells.
Interdisciplinary Research
Interdisciplinary Research
These papers were selected from multiple disciplines from the Faculty of 1000, a Web-based literature awareness tool http://www.facultyof1000.com.A. O'Doherty et al., "An aneuploid mouse strain carrying human chromosome 21 with Down syndrome phenotypes," Science, 309:2033–7, Sept. 23, 2005.This is the first study to show that a human chromosome can be introduced into a mouse's germline and transmitted to successive generations. The authors introduced a copy of human chromosome 21. The mice
Getting on top, genetically
Getting on top, genetically
Take the bully out of the schoolyard and another quickly takes his place.

Technology

Brain Stains
Brain Stains
Short of sticking electrodes directly into an organism's brain, scientists looking to image neural signaling in living systems have few options.
How to Move Your Lab
How to Move Your Lab
Irene Pepperberg, a Harvard University research associate who studies cognition and communication in African grey parrots, has moved her lab four times since 1984.
Trading Up in Animal Research
Trading Up in Animal Research
So, you've been working with small animals and you want to move up to larger experimental models.

Tools and Technology

A Crystal Ball for Protein Separations?
A Crystal Ball for Protein Separations?
An interdisciplinary team at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, NY, has developed a computer program that uses protein structural information to predict how proteins separate on a chromatography column.1 "This is something that is usually done by trial and error, but in this case we've used information from the experiment to build a computer model that enables us to make that prediction," explains coauthor Curt Breneman, a computational chemist at RPI.The technique first takes exper
A Personal Microarray Scribe
A Personal Microarray Scribe
Foot soldiers in the "Omics revolution" have an ally in the BioOdyssey Calligrapher MiniArrayer, a new entry into the benchtop microarray printing arena from Bio-Rad Laboratories.
Genes Get a PiggyBac Ride
Genes Get a PiggyBac Ride
they have been a boon to scientists.
Blue-Light Special
Blue-Light Special
Researchers imaging DNA gels can put away their UV-protective gear.
Affordable Gel Image Analysis
Affordable Gel Image Analysis
has just released the G:BOX, a modular image analysis system designed for a range of applications and budgets.

BioBusiness

How to Avoid Losing Your Patent
How to Avoid Losing Your Patent
During the early and mid-1990s, Purdue Pharma filed three patent applications for oxycodone formulations.

Best Places to Work

Best Places to Work in Academia, 2005
Best Places to Work in Academia, 2005
third annual Best Places to Work in Academia survey conveyed a clear message: The people that they work with, the resources at their disposal, and their opportunities for career advancement are the leading factors in determining their satisfaction with their work environment.

Closing Bell

Buy your own lab
Buy your own lab
Anyone can buy naming rights to a star, but Gary and Linda Dower are hoping to pick up their very own observatory.
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