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Public concern over the social impact of the life sciences has prompted the European Commission to set up a panel of prominent biologists to advise on the scientific aspects of social controversies about bioscience and biotechnology.
Public scepticism in Europe towards biotechnology has increased at the same time as public confidence has decreased in all sources of information on the subject.
Industry and private foundations are taking the lead in stem-cell research while Congress wrestles with legislation and researchers wait for revised guidelines from the US National Institutes of Health.
A survey to assess the extent of infection of the human form of bovine spongiform encephalopathy - BSE - has drawn a blank according to initial findings.
As the National Science Foundation approaches its fiftieth birthday next week the Clinton administration proposes a $675 million budget increase next year - the largest increase in its history.
Germany's network of national research centres is trying to reinvent itself. Alison Abbott talks to Rudi Balling, the dynamic biologist charged with revitalizing one of the country's scientific underachievers.
Some species of planktonic foraminifera - microscopic organisms that occur throughout the world’s oceans - are found in the chilly waters of both the Antarctic and Arctic. Given that the tropics lie between them, molecular evidence that there has been gene flow between these populations comes as a surprise.
According to a widely accepted view, modern humans originated in Africa. But by which route did they start to migrate from the continent and spread more widely? Recovery of artefacts from a site on the Red Sea, dating to 125,000 years ago, implies that modern humans may have dispersed along the coasts.
Turbulence is normally driven by fluid inertia (or momentum). But turbulent patterns can be seen in fluids with no inertial forces, if there are high elastic forces. Such patterns may be dubbed ‘elastic turbulence’.
Cells that have died by apoptosis are taken up by phagocytic cells, and a receptor on the phagocytes that allows them to recognize the apoptotic cells has now been identified. Binding of ligand to the receptor triggers the release of anti-inflammatory cytokines, ensuring that the apoptotic cell has a lasting effect on phagocyte behaviour.
Measuring distances to cosmic objects is a tricky business. Observations of a variable X-ray source provide a new way to determine distances to galactic objects, and perhaps even other galaxies.
Better predictions of earthquake likelihood will be possible only by understanding the physics of faults in the Earth’s crust. But the subject is a tough one. For example, although a new model of the characteristics of the San Andreas fault in California is consistent with some aspects of the available data, it does not account for others.
Plastids (the organelles in which photosynthesis occurs) originated when cyanobacteria set up home within other unicellular organisms. Red algae, green algae and glaucophytes all contain plastids, but the question remains as to whether plastids arose just once, in an ancestor of these plants, or several times. New evidence from nuclear genes supports the first possibility.
The human eye is highly sensitive to flickering or flashing objects. Hence Daedalus’s plan to produce an unsteady, oscillating phosphor, for use in ‘Wink’ inks and paints which will revolutionize the worlds of fashion and advertising.
