The Agenda

DEADLINE APPROACHES » Need some extra cash for sequencing? You have until December 31st to submit a grant proposal to Applied Biosystems, which will award one first prize of 60GB or 750M tags of mappable sequence data as well as the primary analysis, and 10 second place prizes of 10 individual (2 slide runs) from the SOLiD™ 3 System, deemed the #1 innovation of the year

Credit: © Karin Pierre / Institut de Physiologie, Unil, Lausanne" /> Credit: © Karin Pierre / Institut de Physiologie, Unil, Lausanne N IS FOR NEURO » November is neuroscience month, both in our pages (A Potent Protein), and in Washington DC. On the 15th, attendees of the 38th annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience will gather to hear the latest on their fields. Organizers are expecting more than 30,000 people this yea

Credit: Courtesy of Public Library of Science" /> Credit: Courtesy of Public Library of Science GOT VIRUS, NO VACCINE » If you've got viruses on the brain - thanks to Ari Hellenius's research using viruses ("The Orange and the Circus Tent") and the Hot Paper on HIV (Impeding PD-1) - tune in to the AIDS Vaccine 2008 meeting in Cape Town, South Africa, Oct. 13-16. If you can't go there yourself,

Credit: © Matjaz Boncina" /> Credit: © Matjaz Boncina GET POLITICAL » If you'd like to see one of the political figures we profiled in the feature beginning on page 30, you can hear Kenneth Thorpe deliver a keynote at Forum 08, a meeting focused on improving health. Forum 08 is being held Sept. 8 at the Westin Diplomat Resort in Hollywood, Fla. For more information, visit

Credit: Courtesy of GE" /> Credit: Courtesy of GE ON YOUR MARK, GET SET, GE! >> The Summer Olympics, in Beijing will feature world-class athletes and the subject of our profile GE. The company has partnered with the games to be the official supplier of healthcare equipment to treat athletes, as well as provide water filtration systems and other technologies. For more on the compa

GET MORE GENOMICS » If work with the Quebec Founder Population inspires you to do more genomic analyses of samples from human populations, head to Bethesda, Md., July 18 for a National Institutes of Health short course on the field. To learn more about the event, which will also be videocast, visit: http://calendar.nih.gov/app/MCalWelcome.aspx. GET TO GERMANY » If the profile of

Credit: Photo by Mick Hales" /> Credit: Photo by Mick Hales EYEING EVOLUTION » In Before Darwin, Eric Smith describes how Darwin's theories don't quite work for the early earth. For a closer look at the world on which Darwin based his ideas, this is your last chance to visit the New York Botanical Garden's exhibit Darwin's Garden, featuring the plants that inspired him. It closes June 15. For more, see http:

WHY NOT WASHINGTON? » Any interest in running for office? If so, Scientists & Engineers for America is running a workshop May 10 to train scientists to run for office or work on an election campaign. To find out more about the "crash course" on being a political scientist, visit: http://tinyurl.com/2yc4nl. SEEING SCHNEYER » Alan Schneyer, the scientist we profile

Credit: Right: courtesy of Australian Animal Health Laboratory" /> Credit: Right: courtesy of Australian Animal Health Laboratory GRANT ME GRANTS » In "Click To Submit", we present tips for how to submit grants electronically. For some in-person advice, enroll in one of eight two-day grant writing courses offered in April by Grant Writing USA. Courses will take place across the cou

Credit: Top: Sarah Pierce and David Kimelman Right: courtesy of Robert Harrell" /> Credit: Top: Sarah Pierce and David Kimelman Right: courtesy of Robert Harrell WNT WORKSHOP >> Randall Moon describes how his discovery of a developmental signal which plays a role in tissue regeneration could be a target for cancer and Alzheimer therapies. On March 25, hear him speak about the subject in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, at the Keystone conference on Signaling P

Credit: © OLIVIER SCHWARTZ, INSTITUTE PASTEUR/ SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY" /> Credit: © OLIVIER SCHWARTZ, INSTITUTE PASTEUR/ SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY FATE FINDING >> Steven Reiner writes about how T cells divide to follow their fates - and the experiments he did to figure it out (see "Separate and unequal"). Hear him speak on the subject February 4 in Snowbird, Utah at the Keystone conference on Lymphocyte Activation and Signaling. To register, visit http://tinyurl.com/

Credit: Dirk Goldhahn" /> Credit: Dirk Goldhahn CLIMATE AND BIOLOGY >> In this issue, we explore the ways that climate change might be having an impact on the biosphere. Read about ways to mitigate the consequences of global warming in the latest report, published this month, from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. To order, click here. HEART HEALING >> Last year, Doug Bergman enrolled in a clinical trial testing whether stem cells could repair

SIGNALING SYMPOSIA >> Lewis Cantley describes how he discovered a fundamental kinase in numerous cell signaling pathways (see "From Kinase to Cancer."). For more on signaling, check out symposia on the Architecture of Signaling Systems and the Geography of Signaling at the American Society for Cell Biology's annual meeting in Washington, DC, December 1-5. Register at http://ascb.org/meetings. FILL UP ON BLADDERS >> Alison McCook writes about the quest to c

Credit: © THOM GRAVES" /> Credit: © THOM GRAVES FOCUS ON NEUROSCIENCE >> In "A Channel At Large," Kerry Grens explores why the identity of an ion channel in the inner ear has eluded scientists for decades. That's just one of several neuroscience-related pieces in this issue, which you may very well be reading at the Society for Neuroscience's annual meeting in San Diego, from November 3-7. Also see "Facelessness, faced," "The singing ear," and "Alzheimer's: Type

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

BLOOMING SCIENTISTS >> This month, The Scientist tackles a variety of issues in the life of a scientist, from tenure (see "Does tenure need to change?"), to salary (see "Life Sciences Salary Report 2007"), to becoming a teacher (see "From grad school to grade school"). Your kids (and you) can read more about career options for science lovers in Career Ideas for Kids Who Like Science, by Diane Lindsey Reeves, coming out this month from Facts on File. LIPID LOW-DO

Credit: Greg Kessler" /> Credit: Greg Kessler STRESS IN HUNGARY >> On page 52 of this issue, Jenny Marder profiles the work of Rockefeller's Russell Romeo, who studies stress hormones in rats. Learn more about cellular responses to stress at the World Conference of Stress in Budapest, August 23-26. For more, see http://www.stress07.com. SUPERCOMPUTING >> Andrea Gawrylewski went to Pittsburgh to see the BigBen Supercom

HOOKWORMS AND FRIENDS>> Peter Hotez, the director of the Sabin Institute's Human Hookworm Vaccine Initiative, is prominent in Merrill Goozner's feature on the initiative's trials now getting underway in Brazil (see story). He also appears in a new book by Gerald Esch, Parasites and Infectious Disease: Discovery by Serendipity and Otherwise (Cambridge University Press), which comes out this month. INTEREST ON INNOVATION>> In this article, Kerry Grens looks

ELITE HIV RESEARCHERS » On November 17, the Institute of Human Virology, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, will hold its 2006 International HIV/AIDS meeting in Baltimore. No doubt, elite controllers of HIV - the subject of a feature on page 26 - will come up at least a few times at the conference, which features many of the top researchers in AIDS. For more, see www.ihv.org/meeting/index.html. BIOMARKERS IN VIENNA » If Emanuel Petricoin and Lance Li

ASHG IN NEW ORLEANS » Just over a year after Hurricane Katrina began forcing many conferences scheduled for New Orleans to relocate, the American Society of Human Genetics expects the Society?s annual meeting there, from October 9-13, to draw numbers comparable to previous years. Health officials will speak on identifying Katrina victims, and members can participate in outreach efforts to repair science education in New Orleans schools. For more, see http://www.ashg.org/.