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Whatever doubts there may be about the timing, public celebrations of genome projects are well deserved. Researchers should now be left to complete significant tasks that remain, and to tidy up troublesome errors in their databases.
German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder has stepped in to try to resolve an impasse between government ministers over the cultivation of genetically modified (GM) crops.
Two NASA strategies may have finally paid off: not only ‘better, faster cheaper’ missions, but also ‘follow the water’, an approach to Mars exploration that has turned up what look like gullies freshly sculpted by water on frigid Martian slopes where no liquid water should be.
Light pollution by the parent company of the specialist science cable channel - Discovery Communications - threatens the work of local astronomers in Washington.
Better-educated Americans have become less well disposed toward the topic over the past five years, according to a survey carried out for the National Science Foundation.
Neuroscientists worldwide can continue to enjoy access to an important transgenic mouse for Alzheimer’s research, following the rejection of a patent infringement claim against the non-profit Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research in Minnesota, which distributes the mice.
A patent at the centre of a heated court battle over tools used for research into Alzheimer’s (see previous story) itself emerged from a controversial arrangement between an expatriate British scientist and a public university in Florida.
British astronomers are bracing themselves to meet the cuts that may be required in current and planned programmes if Britain is to make a successful bid to joint the European Southern Observatory.
Philippe Kourilsky, who took over as director-general of the private Pasteur Institute in Paris earlier this year , has begun a major shake-up of the centre.
The question of whether birds evolved from dinosaurs arouses strong opinions. Rex Dalton reports on a scientific meeting that at times bore more resemblance to a political sparring match.
Einstein once cited the origin of the Earth's magnetic field as one of the fundamental unsolved problems of physics. Although there has been progress on paper, experimental models have been elusive until now.
Selective breeding has gradually altered the physical characteristics and genetic make-up of sheep, and transgenic technology has allowed us to add new genes (encoding, for example, useful human proteins) to the sheep genome. But it has not been possible to alter sheep gene sequences in specific ways - until now.
Electrical resistivity is a basic property of materials that can tell us a lot about the behaviour of electrons. A model of resistivity in superconducting 'buckyballs' sheds new light on the unusual electrical resistivity of these complex metals.
The islands of the western Pacific became colonized by humans only comparatively recently, but the sequence of events is contentious. A technique used in molecular taxonomy, parsimony analysis, has now been applied to the languages of the region and supports one view of colonization history.
Most of the deuterium in the Universe was thought to be created by the Big Bang, and subsequently destroyed by stars to form heavier elements. The discovery of deuterium near the centre of our Galaxy is a good indicator of past star formation.
One model for changes in the structure and function of synapses in response to neuronal activity invokes protein synthesis at synapses. In vivo evidence now confirms that neuronal activity regulates protein synthesis at synapses, which in turn controls synaptic plasticity.
The front-door letter-box is a brilliant invention: it lets a postman deliver mail even if you are not home, and it is wonderfully secure. Daedalus is now inventing a domestic 'minicon'container that will do the same job for parcels.
