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The political and practical obstacles to greater scientific exchange between Taiwan and the Chinese mainland are significant. It is achievable, however, and is in the best interests of both parties.
New analysis of particle collisions at the European Laboratory for Particle Physics in Geneva have increased physicists' hopes that they have witnessed evidence of the Higgs boson.
A prominent US economist has criticized Western governments and the World Bank for failing to acknowledge the full potential of science and technology in alleviating global poverty.
The European Space Agency is being asked to approve a package of missions that includes a major project to Mercury and significant participation in the NASA-led Next Generation Space Telescope.
Two anonymous notes have been received by police investigating the disappearance of a rare version of a machine used by the Germans to encrypt military secrets during the Second World War.
A two-week meeting in Tsukuba earlier this month held to annotate a large set of mouse cDNA has demonstrated a new spirit of openness by Japanese research institutes.
Small molecules that selectively disrupt the proteins encoded by individual genes could become powerful tools in functional genomics. Trisha Gura explores the nascent but highly promising field of chemical genetics.
Titanium is one of the most versatile materials used in engineering. An innovative way of producing it from titanium dioxide will make the metal cheaper — if the process can be scaled up.
Ribosomes are the cell's protein factories and consist of two subunits, the large and the small. The determination of the small subunit's structure at atomic resolution, along with other new results, means that ribosome function can be now be probed in unprecedented detail.
Astronomers suspect that there is a black hole at the centre of the Milky Way, but the evidence is all indirect. Measurements of the acceleration of stars close to the Galactic centre provide stronger confirmation of the location and size of this dark mass.
A compound that kills leukaemia cells does so by inhibiting an enzyme that keeps down the level of toxic reactive oxygen species. The result raises hope that this compound, together with substances that increase the concentration of these oxygen species, may be useful in treating some cancers.
Worries about rising levels of CO2 in the atmosphere centre on the possible climatic effects. But there may also be direct adverse consequences: the calcification rates of corals and coralline algae, and now coccolithophorids (an important group of ocean-surface algae), have been shown to diminish in high CO2conditions.
Why is the immune system ultimately unable to control HIV infection? Many of the immune system's cytotoxic T lymphocytes detect an HIV-infected cell by its expression of a peptide from the HIV protein Tat. In so doing, the lymphocytes may encourage the evolution of Tat, allowing HIV to escape immune detection.
The signalling pathways underlying the development of multicellular organisms have come under a lot of scrutiny. For a long while, the focus was on the regulation of genes involved in these pathways. But a recent meeting saw a shift towards looking at how proteins are regulated and localized.
Mobile phone users frequently annoy those around them by talking loudly into the phone. Daedalus has an idea for a phone that can be spoken into silently by using an ultrasonic signal to record the movements of the mouth and palate. Peace at last.
In under 30 years the tiny island of Taiwan has gone from agricultural backwater to global electronics giant. Now it is turning its attention to biotechnology. But can Taiwan sustain the pace of development?
By tapping a reservoir of ethnic Chinese scientists in the United States, the tiny island of Taiwan has achieved a global presence in the electronics industry. Substantial investment funds are now available to support new industries such as genomics and biochips. Although lacking the infrastructure to develop these industries, interaction between Chinese scientists in Taiwan, the United States and mainland China could bring Taiwan onto the map in biotechnology.
