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While the spotlight has been focused on mistakes by US space engineers and managers for the loss of recent Mars-bound spacecraft, others share responsibility. This includes those who have set unrealistic goals for the agency.
British scientists involved in animal experiments are complaining that the administrative burden of processing licence applications has increased beyond the system’s capacity to cope.
Former director of the National Instiutes of Health, Harold Varmus, has told a group of congressmen that they should spend more time addressing political issues facing biomedical research - and less seeking budget increases for popular medical causes.
US human geneticists were last week warned that they could be placing their research at risk if they ignore US government regulations protecting the family members of individuals involved in genetics research.
Researchers who have just completed the largest-ever survey of Arctic stratospheric ozone have found that climate change could prolong ozone depletion in the Arctic by many years.
Wildlife conservationists and cetacean researchers are raising the alarm over a proposal by Japan to downgrade the protection of northeastern Pacific gray whale.
Whether a patent on a genetically engineered protein give the owner rights to versions produced in other ways is being put to the test in a closely watched battle opened in a Boston court-room.
A wave of shock spread through the world’s ecological research community last week with the news that five researchers on an expedition in the Gulf of California died when their boat was caught in a sudden wind storm.
The sacking of France’s former research minister has re-awakened hopes among French researchers that the government could also agree to build a French machine, Soleil.
The world's leading maize and wheat research organizations has decided to seek intellectual property protection on its research results in order to protect it from being exploited by private companies.
The coming reorganization of NASA’s Mars programme in the wake of last year’s double spacecraft disaster effectively ends a short but intense chapter in the saga of Red Planet exploration that began in August 1996.
Just five years ago, it seemed that a single protein might reverse the rising tide of obesity. What worked for mice has not yet translated to people. But watch this space, says Marina Chicurel.
Sea levels are likely to rise in response to global warming. But by how much? Identification of the causes of the six-metre surge during the last interglacial provides a useful clue.
A family of human and mouse proteins needed to detect bitter tastes has now been identified. This may open to the way to the development of better-tasting medicines and the control of insect pests by tastes rather than environmentally damaging insecticides, amongst many other applications.
Since the 1920s, Mexico City has expanded hugely, and the heat differential with the adjacent countryside has risen sharply. Conversely, a neighbouring lake has become much reduced in area. Modelling studies show that it is loss of evaporative cooling by the lake that is largely responsible for the large heat differential today.
It is not just groups of higher organisms that are susceptible to cheaters - individuals that reap the benefits of cooperation without paying the costs. Cheating individuals also appear in laboratory cultures of Myxococcus xanthus bacteria, although their fate in nature is uncertain.
Electrons have spin as well as charge. Interactions between electrons in ferromagnets (such as iron) can vary according to their spin. These interactions provide a new mechanism for magnetoresistance, the effect used to store information on a computer’s hard disk.
Dendrites and axons grow from the cell body of neurons, and have to make the right connections. Growth is directed by various repulsive or attractant factors. One such factor is semaphorin 3A, and it now emerges that this molecule acts as a dendrite attractant as well as an axon repellant for pyramidal cells in the cerebral cortex.
The latest survey of bird populations in Britain gives cause for optimism and pessimism, depending on the species concerned. There is especially good news about certain birds of prey: for instance the estimate of osprey numbers in 1998 was 130 pairs compared with fewer than ten in 1970.
When a cell replicates and divides, it must copy its DNA. But the DNA must be copied only once per cell-division cycle, so DNA duplication is tightly controlled. A protein called Cdt1 has now been revealed to be a key part of this control mechanism.
The first image produced by the Faint Object Camera and Spectrograph instrument on the Subaru Telescope is of the irregular galaxy M82, which is notable for its extended hydrogen emission.
Following last week’s scheme involving ‘photoklystrons’, the next stage in developing this technology will be to harness photoklystron output in phase to create a light source that will be as parallel and monochromatic as any laser. The upshot should be transformation of electronic cinema and big-screen displays.
George Ledyard Stebbins - the scientist whose work on the genetics and evolutionary history of plants was central to formulating the modern synthesis of evolution.
Bioinformatics marries together a wide range of scientific disciplines, but with a global shortage of skilled researchers, training is high on the agenda.
Today, there are as many people in the world who are affected by obesity and its related health problems as there are suffering from hunger. This Collection of reviews investigates this complex disease from its basic epidemiology through to the molecular mechanisms for regulation and possible treatment strategies that are being developed.
