October 2007

As an assistant professor in the School of Communication at American University, Matthew Nisbet studies scientific and environmental controversies. Part of his work involves examining the interactions between experts, journalists, and the public. He tracks these issues in his blog, Framing Science (http://scienceblogs.com/framing-science). In "The Future of Public Engagement", he and Dietram Scheufele, professor of life sciences communication at the University of Wisconsin in Madison

Should researchers "frame" their work, or is that just spin?

How much should Gardasil cost? Re: "How much should Gardasil cost?",1 which argues that Merck could cut the price of its HPV [human papillomavirus] vaccine by 90% and still profit. Stop complaining that publicly traded, for-profit companies charge too much for their products. They were not established to maximize the social good. If you believe they are denying treatment due to pricing, you have other options beyond haranguing them about morality: Go to a stockholders' meeting,

Fluorescence indicates chlorotoxin binding to medulloblastoma cells in a mouse (right). Credit: Image by Mandana Veiseh, courtesy of AACR" />Fluorescence indicates chlorotoxin binding to medulloblastoma cells in a mouse (right). Credit: Image by Mandana Veiseh, courtesy of AACR Within minutes after being stung by the scorpion known as the deathstalker (Leiurus quinquestriatus), weakness starts to kick in. The feeling quickly spreads, paralyzing its prey (typically insects) for hours -

As she walks into her microbiology laboratory at Oregon State University, Kate Field hands her graduate student a Ziploc bag full of tubes of fecal samples. "These are just in from New Zealand," she says with a smile. For just being handed what essentially amounts to a bag of poop, her graduate student seems pretty excited as well. Now, the student's job is to test whether the genetic markers Field has developed can reliably identify what type of animal produced the sample. "Right no

A digital model of two of the "synaptic" proteins Kosik and his team found in a sponge's genome. Credit: Courtesy of The Public Library of Science (PLoS)" />A digital model of two of the "synaptic" proteins Kosik and his team found in a sponge's genome. Credit: Courtesy of The Public Library of Science (PLoS) Three years ago, Ken Kosik, a Harvard Medical School neurologist who studies Alzheimer disease, packed up files and equipment from his lab in Cambridge and moved 5,000 kilomete

Prepping a koala for a procedure Credit: Courtesy of Stephen Pincock" />Prepping a koala for a procedure Credit: Courtesy of Stephen Pincock Peering through a fringe of eucalyptus leaves, Don the koala greets visitors with an air of unmistakable curiosity. His large and sensitive nose can easily detect the scent of unfamiliar humans, but his tiny eyes seem much less useful. Swollen and half covered by inflamed eyelids, they've been reduced to slits by debilitating conjunctivitis.

Credit: Courtesy of Save China's Tigers" /> Credit: Courtesy of Save China's Tigers A steel cage-covered jeep barrels through the gates at the Siberian Tiger Park in Harbin, China, and tosses out a scrawny pheasant. A few lazily sunbathing tigers lift their heads in curiosity. In a matter of seconds, one tiger leaps toward the confused creature, which musters up enough energy to flutter away. But, the bird's small victory is short-lived: The tiger, followed by several freeloaders, ch

Credit: © David Goodsell" /> Credit: © David Goodsell FRAMING TALK >> Matthew Nisbet opens up a discussion on how researchers should frame science for the public. To hear more from Nisbet, attend one of his talks this month in Seattle, October 5th; Washington DC, October 18th; or New York City, October 24th. For a full list of Nisbet's talks, visit his blog at www.scienceblogs.com/framing-science/. COURSE IN BIAS >> In an opinion, Frank Douglas t

A faculty member and administrator who resigned over conditions at MIT speaks out.

Gerry Rubin was exposed to the leading lights of molecular biology right from the start of his career. Now he's trying to attract the next generation of leaders to Janelia Farm.

Two groups reveal an essential messenger in store-operated calcium entry.

Credit: © Scimat / Photo Researchers, Inc." /> Credit: © Scimat / Photo Researchers, Inc. The paper: P.B. Eckburg et al., "Diversity of the human intestinal microbial flora," Science, 308:1635-8, 2005. (Cited in 158 papers) The finding: David Relman from Stanford University and colleagues sequenced more than 13,000 ribosomal RNA genes from microbial populations in the gut tissue and feces of three adult humans. "In some ways, thi

Credit: © Dr Neal Scolding / Photo Researchers, Inc." /> Credit: © Dr Neal Scolding / Photo Researchers, Inc. The paper: M. Van Sickle et al., "Identification and functional characterization of brainstem cannabinoid CB2 receptors," Science, 310: 329?32, 2005. (Cited in 80 papers) The finding: While studying the anti-emetic effects of endogenous cannabinoids in ferrets, Keith Sharkey at the University of Calgary, Canada and collea

David Allis from Rockefeller University and colleagues used a biochemical pull-down assay and found that the protein WDR5, a common part of histone methyltransferase complexes, associates specifically with dimethylated H3K4 nucleosomes.

Credit: © Dr. Jeremy Burgess / Photo Researchers, Inc." /> Credit: © Dr. Jeremy Burgess / Photo Researchers, Inc. To better understand how evolutionary pressures have helped shape genetic variation in Arabidopsis thaliana, Detlef Weigel from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif., and colleagues used high-density oligonucleotide arrays to look at single nucleotide polymorphisms of 20 diverse strains of the plant.1 The group found that, since 2000, abo

N. Stern-Ginossar, et al., "Host immune system gene targeting by a viral miRNA." Science, 317:376-81, July 20, 2007. Upon infection of its host, human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) expresses a miRNA that directly down-regulates expression of an immunorelated gene, MICB. Thus, it appears that HCMV has developed two distinct mechanisms to down-regulate expression of the same immunorelated gene, with the RNA-based strategy presumably being more ancient. -

While the internal mechanisms that guide cell migration have been described for individual cells, Pernille Rørth at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany, and colleagues examined signaling activation in Drosophila border cells to uncover how groups of cells migrate collectively. They found that in the later phase of migration, leading cells have more mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase activation than trailing cells.1 "What's setting direction

Credit: © Lincoln Barbour PHOTOGRAPHY" /> Credit: © Lincoln Barbour PHOTOGRAPHY Though it's been decades since he was a kid turning over rocks in St. Joseph, Missouri, Dee Denver, now assistant professor in the zoology department at Oregon State University, still enjoys looking at nematodes. "It's beautiful," he says, watching through a microscope in his laboratory as a tiny worm makes sinusoidal tracks through a plate of Escherichia coli. It's no coincidence that the a

How to make the most of the evolving technology for detecting copy number variants.

Related Articles How It Works: CGH Arrays Genomic Alterations 2.0 Bac in time Aneuploid problems Old dog, new tricks Multiplex for control Needle in the haystack Keep it clean - Do everything you can to remove proteins and keep the DNA from degrading, Scherer says. "Sample preparation is critical. All problems, in some way, can be tracked back to the quality of the DNA." Double up - If your lab can afford it, run samples with two types of arrays. Lo was able to confir

Related Articles Genomic Alterations 2.0 Tips for CNV Detection Bac in time Aneuploid problems Old dog, new tricks Multiplex for control Needle in the haystack Comparative genomic hybridization (CHG) provides the densest coverage of probes for CNV detection, but the traditional technique using bacterial artificial chromosome arrays is time consuming and not always reproducible. Two companies, Agilent and NimbleGen, have released dedicated CGH platforms that instead use oligonucleotid

How Cubist's Jeff Alder turned a devastating Phase III failure into an approval.

A hen's leg with osteochondrosarcoma, circa 1912 Credit: © Jason varney | Varneyphoto.com" />A hen's leg with osteochondrosarcoma, circa 1912 Credit: © Jason varney | Varneyphoto.com It was not odd that an upstate New York farmer would bring a sick Plymouth Rock hen to Peyton Rous at the Rockefeller Institute in 1909, nor that Rous would be interested in the case. Two years earlier, Hungarian veterinarian Joseph Marek had identified the costly, highly transmissible visceral