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All vacancies for scientific directors at Germany's Max Planck Institutes will in future be advertised, and a world-wide search for new institute heads will be co-ordinated by central search commissions.
Analysing the entire set of proteins of an organism is a far bigger challenge than anything in genomics. The technological obstacles and biological complexities require, for now, a steady approach to that necessary goal.
This week Daedalus further explores the consequences for citation indexes of Internet-based publication. He proposes a system involving publication of referees' comments along with a paper, and predicts the emergence of ‘citing regions’ — the biggest of which would be the domain of authoritative and consensual opinion.
IBM's choice of protein folding as the focus of its project to develop the supercomputer Blue Gene is part of a strategy to position itself as a leader in computational biology.
A widely-heralded strategy paper arguing for a significantly higher public investment in German genomics research appears to have been put on hold, leading to concern that the move could threaten German efforts to catch up with other countries.
The Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee of the National Institutes of Health has been urged to recommend that gene-therapy researchers be required to report all ‘adverse events’ occuring during their trials.
French science minister Claude Allègre has asked the directors of France's main research agency to come up with more moderate changes to the agency's structure than those proposed last year.
Twenty five British schools have been piloting a new approach to teaching physics to 16 to 19 year olds that is already being hailed as successfully attracting back those who have been deserting the subject.
The target chamber from the Nova laser experiment at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California was last week shipped to France, where it will be use as part of a huge new laser facility to be built near Bordeaux.
China's desire to strengthen its scientific links with the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region has been confirmed by the announcement of 14 research projects funded jointly by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong.
Hiding messages in DNA microdots C. Taylor Clelland, V. Risca, C. Bancroft Ageing, fitness and neurocognitive function A. F. Kramer et al.Dichromatism in macaque monkeys A. Onishi et al.Parasitoid behaviour and Bt plantsT. H. Schuler, R. P. J. Potting, I. Denholm, G. M. Poppy
The first bacterial glutamate receptor has been identified, and has an unexpected property: it is very selective for potassium ions. The receptor's amino-acid sequence shows similarity to both glutamate receptors and potassium channels, raising the exciting prospect that both originated from a common ancestor.
