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Volume 394 Issue 6696, 27 August 1998

Opinion

  • Belief in pseudo-science is a widespread problem. But some entertainment is misleadingly condemned in that context, promoting the harmful image of the scientist as truth's ultimate custodian.

    Opinion

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News

  • munich

    The European Commission should redesign the proposed research advisory system for its fifth Framework programme, which begins next year, according to the panel that previously advised the Commission on its research programmes.

    • Alison Abbott
    News
  • san fransisco

    A Massachusetts Superior Court judge has barred the state police from demanding DNA samples from prison inmates, parolees and probationers.

    • Sally Lehrman
    News
  • washington

    The National Institutes of Health, the DuPont Pharmaceuticals Company and the Jackson Laboratory have reached historic agreements on proprietary rights to research tools.

    • Meredith Wadman
    News
  • munich

    The environment minister of the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein is leading opposition to two planned field trials of genetically modified crops in the state.

    • Quirin Schiermeier
    News
  • sydney

    The JOIDES Resolution, research vessel of the international Ocean Drilling Program, began its first drilling leg in New Zealand waters this month. But the project — to investigate the circulation of cold Antarctic bottom water — is urgently seeking new members as pressure increases on its funding.

    • Peter Pockley
    News
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News in Brief

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Correspondence

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News & Views

  • A new model predicts that the oldest white dwarf stars should look blue. That could help to identify what makes up the massive halo of our Galaxy, and to pin down the age of the Universe.

    • Harvey B. Richer
    News & Views
  • In 1995, the authors of an influential report concluded that southern California had an ‘earthquake deficit’ —that is, a model of seismicity predicted that twice the number of earthquakes of magnitude 6 to 7 should have occurred than was evident from a catalogue going back to 1850. That deficit now disappears with a re-evaluation of both the model and the catalogue.

    • Steven N. Ward
    News & Views
  • Translation of messenger RNA into a protein requires recognition of the precise starting point on the mRNA. In eukaryotes that is accomplished by scanning of the small ribosomal subunit along the RNA. A battery of attendant eukaryotic initiation factors is required, two of which (eIF1 and 1A) have been thought to be marginal players in this process. From refined assays of translation initiation, however, it is clear that they are essential.

    • Richard J. Jackson
    News & Views
  • Nearly a century after Einstein's explanation of Brownian motion, we are still learning from the phenomenon. New measurements of the position of a colloidal particle suspended in water provide direct evidence of microscopic chaotic dynamics in the fluid. Oddly, this strengthens our conviction that chaos underlies the smooth behaviour of matter on large scales.

    • Detlef Dürr
    • Herbert Spohn
    News & Views
  • In the animal world, one strategy to lessen the chances of being eaten by a predator is to mimic other, unpalatable species. That strategy is used by creatures that may themselves be palatable or unpalatable, and study of mimicry has usually centred on this dichotomy. Now, however, it is proposed that the ability of a predator to discriminate between types of prey will also influence the evolution of mimetic systems.

    • Graeme D. Ruxton
    News & Views
  • Long-term potentiation (LTP) is thought to underlie the encoding of memory, and a new study looks into how it might do this. The authors find that if LTP is induced in rats, and they are then transferred to new surroundings, the LTP disappears rapidly as the animals explore the new environment. But such a reduction is seen only if the LTP has been induced recently —older ‘memories’ are not affected.

    • Richard G. M. Morris
    News & Views
  • Humans aren't the only ones to be dazzled by the bright colours of flowers, according to a new study. By looking at how often bees visited wild-type and mutant snapdragons, the authors conclude that bees prefer to visit magenta-coloured flowers with a sparkling surface. These findings have implications for the idea of ‘pollination syndromes’, whereby certain plants are thought to be adapted to attract particular pollinators.

    • Nick Waser
    • Lars Chittka
    News & Views
  • This week Daedalus proposes the ‘Noah's Ark Vaccine’, to achieve a complete victory against infections. Samples and specimens of every known living thing will be collected and forged into the ultimate vaccine. No foreign substance will be ignored by antibodies raised to this immunogen. Its incredible efficacy will easily overcome fears of horrific feverish reactions and only AIDS will be left for us to worry about.

    • David Jones
    News & Views
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Science and Image

  • How do you bring a flat picture to three-dimensional life? Early photographers met the same visual challenges that confronted Galileo. They used ingenious methods to build relief models of the lunar landscape.

    • Martin Kemp
    Science and Image
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Scientific Correspondence

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Book Review

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Article

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Letter

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New on the Market

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