Winner of 2004 EMBO Science Writing Prize announced
...arded annually for an outstanding piece of science writing that effectively communicates a topical issue to a non-scientific audience. Matthew Bottomley's innovative text fulfils this criterion on every level. The lively dialogue relates double agent James Pond's mission to combat the deadly 'Pseudo' bacteri...One-hundred-fifty year old lessons of John Snow still relevant today
...ll themselves the "snowflakes" to spend six years writing a comprehensive biography on the life and times of John Snow. Titled "Cholera, Chloroform, and the Science of Medicine: A Life of John Snow," the recently published book is what the authors call a "scientific biography" of the man who was a pioneerin...Gene duplication allowed pigs to have more babies
... these genes encode. Yet, according to researchers writing in BMC Biology, to fully understand any genome, researchers must use palaeontology, geology and chemistry to help them discover the reasons why specific genes evolved. Steven Benner and Eric Gaucher at the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution...For Africa's valuable mahoganies, it's the soil, stupid
...he regeneration requirements of these species when writing management plans will vastly improve the prospects for long-term management, Hall added. The authors said that failure to really look at the importance of soil with regards to plant diversity has been largely ignored. "Understanding how a tropical ...Wolf reintroduction reshapes Yellowstone ecology
...State University in Corvallis. Ripple and Beschta, writing in the August 2004 issue of BioScience, argue that fear of predation when wolves are present changes grazing patterns, prompting grazers to avoid sites that deny them easy escape and to browse less thoroughly. The "terrain fear factor" consequently a...Blood pressure hormone may inhibit growth of lung cancer
... at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, writing in the new issue of the journal Carcinogenesis. Patricia E. Gallagher, Ph.D., and E. Ann Tallant, Ph.D., said the hormone, called angiotensin-(1-7), "may represent a novel chemotherapeutic and chemopreventive treatment for lung cancer." Their studi...K-State professor combines love of teaching, research to examine eye development
...at Kansas State University, always keeps paper and writing utensils all around his house, office, car, etc. These ideas have proven to be quite beneficial to eye research, as Conrad has obtained seven, five-year research grants over a 33-year period. Conrad enjoys doing both research and teaching. To him, t...New textbook introduces students to the foundations, applications of nanotechnology
...site and approached Heflin in September 2001 about writing a textbook. "When I said, 'No way do I have the time to write a comprehensive textbook, they suggested I could form a team and invite contributors, so that's what I did," Heflin said. He invited Di Ventra, who was at Virginia Tech at the time, and Ev...New drug shows promise against Gleevec resistance in mice
... At the time Sawyers and his colleagues were writing their Science article, there were 17 reported Gleevec-resistance mutations. There are more known now. Each mutation hampers Gleevec's ability to bind to its target, the ABL kinase. Sawyers, who in addition to being a researcher, also ...Baby born from sperm frozen for record 21 years
UK researchers writing in Europe's leading reproductive medicine journal Human Reproduction[1], report (Tuesday 25 May) what they believe to be a world record a baby born using sperm that had been frozen for 21 years. "We believe this is the longest period of sperm cryop...Beagles win first round in fight for reprieve from patenting
...so responded to the AAVS/PatentWatch initiative by writing to the Patent Office and the President of the University of Texas. Students at UT Austin held a campus rally, collected over 300 signed letters, and delivered them to their University's President urging him to reclaim the patent. In addition, AAVS ......ool students, providing laboratory experiences and writing workshops. The colleges also will offer summer workshops for Philadelphia area teacher In the lower Rio Grande Valley, where the population is 88 percent Hispanic and the unemployment rate is triple the national average, the University of Texas-Pan ...Teachers turn to Tolkein to explain physics
...find the solution using only their minds - without writing or drawing anything down. Voice reveals the answer in this month's issue, which includes photos of what happens when you try it for real. The question serves to show just how hard many people find it to visualize in three dimensions. Redefining the...Laser technique used to build micro-polymeric structure on a human hair, without harming it
...s area that are being pursued by us and by others, writing a structure on a hair does not have direct bearing on optical communications," Fourkas said. "On the other hand, we can and have done exactly the same sort of thing on optical fibers that are of comparable size, and this does have direct bearing."...Leslie Ann Schiff wins 2004 Carski Foundation Award
...he conducts on the effective use of technology and writing in the classroom. Schiff is widely recognized as a gifted educator who inspires her students to high levels of achievement. She designed an upper-level, writing-intensive course in virology for advanced undergraduate majors, for which she consi...Bye-bye Bio 101: Teach science the way you do science
...ng experiments, collecting and analyzing data, and writing about the results. "Most scientists don't read reports on education, but they do read Science , so this was the place to reach our colleagues," Handelsman points out. In some instances, this shift is happening. Pioneer reformers such as Handelsman...Researchers caution against linking strep, neuropsychiatric disorders
...ted to a strep infection, according to researchers writing in the April issue of the journal Pediatrics. In the last few years, debate has heated up among both parents and doctors about a purported link between an infection caused by strep bacteria and the development of neuropsychiatric symptoms such as ti...Scientists call for less destructive remediation at DOE sites
...ersity of Georgia and Argonne National Laboratory, writing in the journal Science, suggest that some of the policies for remediating slightly contaminated land on U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) sites be changed. Some clean-up efforts have been based on the unrealistic scenario that people will live on...Sarah Staples and Daniel Grossman win 2004 AIBS media awards
... on science for the Ottawa Citizen. In addition to writing for the Ottawa Citizen, Sarah Staples has covered ...niel Grossman has been producing radio stories and writing magazine articles since 1986, and has produced material for radio shows and networks as diverse Nati...UVa researchers describe method of protecting chromosomes during cell division
...chers at the University of Virginia Health System, writing in a recent issue of the journal Current Biology, think they know how cells protect themselves from aneuploidy when they divide in a process known as mitosis. "During mitosis, the cell divides replicated chromosomes to two daughter cells. We are stud...