Update

The US Senate recently dropped a proposed amendment from the Agriculture Appropriations Bill to restrict research institutions from purchasing laboratory animals from Class B dealers.

that implied levels of the carcinogen acrylamide in the body might not be as strongly influenced by consumption of acrylamide-containing food as is currently believed.

Last month, the Italian Parliament approved a debated reform proposed by University and Research Minister Letizia Moratti that eliminates permanent contracts for all but professors and establishes a national exam for those who wish to qualify as a professor.

The US Senate plans to offer new incentives to the pharmaceutical and biotech industries to develop more vaccines, drugs, and countermeasures against a range of pathogens.

Ethiopia plans to open its first Agricultural Biotechnology Research Institute (ABRI) by next year.

Australia's major government science body, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), plans to cut up to 25% of its research support staff during the next three years to save about $30 million (Australian) per year.

Scientists in countries with the most restrictive policies on research cloning may not be able to take advantage of the international consortium based in South Korea, which was hailed last month as a means to provide stem cells to researchers living in restrictive environments.

A fight has erupted over the composition of an influential European ethics panel that advises the government on science and technology, with some arguing that new nominations were based on political and religious considerations, not ability or experience.

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.

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

© Anthony FosterFunding for biomedical research in the United States jumped from $37.1 billion in 1994 to $94.3 billion in 2003, a doubling of support when adjusted for inflation, according to a recent study in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Private industry provided 57% of this total and the National Institutes of Health supplied 28%."We were surprised to find that the total numbers are as large as they are," says lead author Hamilton Moses III, chairman of the Alerion In

European Union legislation designed to limit workers' exposure to electromagnetic radiation will seriously hinder research involving the use of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), leading investigators warned the British government recently.

The field of pharmacogenetics has been overhyped and is still more than a decade away from living up to its promise in clinical practice, largely due to shortages in researchers and lack of international coordination, according to a recent report from the UK's Royal Society.

Courtesy of Scott Bauer, ARSFour weeks after delaying publication of a paper at the request of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) published the paper in late June.1 The study pinpoints areas in the dairy industry that are vulnerable to bioterror attacks.In the paper, professor of management science Lawrence M. Wein and graduate student Yifan Liu of Stanford University explain how bioterrorists could poison the US milk

Spanish science is in need of drastic and urgent reform if it is to keep pace with its European neighbors, according to a report that the Confederation of Spanish Scientific Societies (COSCE) released in June.

The chief executive of the Hong Kong Hospital Authority, William Ho, has become the fourth top health official to resign in the aftermath of Hong Kong's SARS crisis.

European Union leaders failed to reach an agreement over the EU budget in late June, but Janez Potocnik, European Commissioner for Research, says it doesn't have to be a setback for research in the region.

Papers arising from work funded by the Research Councils UK (RCUK) should be deposited in an open-access repository "at the earliest opportunity, wherever possible at or around the time of publication, in accordance with copyright and licensing arrangements," according to a draft policy that RCUK made public in July.

Scientific academies from the world's leading nations issued an unprecedented joint statement in June urging the leaders of their countries to commit to taking prompt action to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.

The University of Oxford is considering what to do about replacing the director of a high-profile center for studying ancient DNA, who resigned in the wake of an investigation into his conduct, according to a spokesperson.