Magazine Issue - October 2005 | October 2005

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October 2005

Editorial

Time for Rapid Rebuttal Technology

I hadn't realized until recently that the United States is in the grip of a mania.

About Us

Meet This Issue's Contributors

, National Wildlife Federation President and CEO since April of last year, has been a passionate advocate for progress in conservation.

Letter

Battling bad news

underlined the importance of organizations protecting the good names they have built over the years.

On the corn next door

stated that under USDA standards, "organic farmers should not lose their certification due to adventitious presence of GMOs, as long as they take 'reasonable steps' to prevent such commingling.

A live-animal BSE test?

Why is The Scientist giving prominence to a live bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) test for which no data is available?1 The question is particularly important in view of the fact that the July issue of Clinical and Diagnostic Laboratory Immunology carries published research of a live BSE test,2 which has already been patented along with a patent for the human equivalent of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

Opinion

Keeping Tabs on Mercury

When scientist David Evers of the Biodiversity Research Institute in Gorham, Maine, saw the latest data on mercury from Vermont's Green Mountains, he was amazed.

Notebook

A 9-year-old NIH grant awardee

If you're struggling to win your first National Institutes of Health grant, here's another reason to be depressed: One of the most unusual NIH awards ever given went to a 9-year-old boy.

Double helix double take

It's not often that you get to witness a major scientific figure watch his own theatrical indictment.

Research

The Flap about FoxP2

Recent results are as puzzling as they are beguiling, dredging up debates about the nature of language and the ability of a single gene to affect it so greatly.

Vision

On Human Diversity

Henry Flower became director of the British Museum of Nat ural History in 1884, and promptly set about rearranging exhibits.

The Protein Structure Initiative, Five Years Later

Five years have passed since the National Institutes of Health launched the Protein Structure Initiative (PSI), a 10-year, $600 million effort to accelerate structural genomics.

Hot Paper

Debating Cross-Presentation

The immune system uses a sophisticated profiling method to identify and subdue foreign pathogens.

Briefs

Did SARS come from bats?

Wild bats, rather than civet cats, may have been the source of the coronavirus behind the deadly SARS outbreak in 2003.

Blocking growth to regenerate nerves

Jamming the epidermal growth factor (EGF) receptor allows severed neurons to regenerate.1 "It's a surprising finding," says Martin Schwab of the University of Zurich, as activation of the EGF receptor is normally associated with proliferation and growth of cells.Previous research that sought to explain why mammalian axons fail to regenerate in the wounded brain or spinal cord found several inhibitory cues that prevent healing. The culprits include proteins associated with myelin and proteoglycan

Sexual communication in tears

For mice, getting teary-eyed conveys more than just sentiment.

Tribute

Most Highly Cited

When he was a boy, Eugene Garfield lived across the street from a branch of the New York Public Library.

The Future of Citation Analysis

has grown dramatically in size and influence. The database has expanded from 1.4 million citations in 1964 to 550 million today.

Top 10 Papers Published...

Top 10 Papers Published...Source Thomson Scientificin the last 2 years, in the last 10 years and of all time

Technology

Buyer's Guide to Flow Cytometers

NASA scientists, in conjunction with Guava Technologies of Hayward, Calif., recently announced a compact prototype flow cytometer that functions in zero-gravity, for use aboard the International Space Station.

Lessons from the Past

Although she died when the Roman Empire ruled her native land, a five-year-old Egyptian child named Sherit is nevertheless pushing the envelope in high-tech medicine.

Tools and Technology

A Bone to Pick

A new tissue-engineering method tricks the body into growing its own bone grafts.

Carbon Dating for Cells?

The cells in our body are continually replaced, especially those exposed to the harsher environments of the skin or intestine.

BioBusiness

Stem Cells in Racehorses

In the equine world, tendon and ligament injuries are bad news indeed.

The Early Money

When Todd Zion began looking for funds to launch Smart-Cells, a new company developing self-regulating insulin-delivery systems for patients with diabetes, he needed to raise just shy of $1.25 million, a number that "doesn't even show up on the radar screens of big venture capital firms," he says.

What is Phase Zero?

At one time, the drug development process had three phases.

Update

Will open access work?

A new report on open-access publishing released earlier this month has raised concerns about peer review, the standard of editing, and the financial future of some open-access journals.

US societies reverse rules on Iranians

Two American academic societies have recently reversed their policies toward Iranian scientists.

Closing Bell

Scientists: Kenya Wants You!

The Institute of Primate Research, in the Ololua forest about 20 kilometers outside the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, has been in operation since it was founded by the archaeologist Louis Leakey in 1960.