July 2009 Archives

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July 10, 2009 4:50 PM |

UC President Announces Furlough Plan

by Greg Miller

The Golden State is on the verge of going broke, and the 170,000 faculty and staff of the University of California (UC) are feeling the pinch. Today, UC President Mark...

July 10, 2009 12:57 PM |

House Panel Gives NIH a 3.1% Raise

by Jocelyn Kaiser

A House of Representatives spending panel today approved a $942 million raise for the National Institutes of Health that would bring its 2010 budget to $31.3 billion. That 3.1% boost...

July 10, 2009 11:53 AM |

Lingering Concerns Remain About NIH Stem Cell Rules

by John Travis

UPDATE: NIH posted a notice today saying that ongoing research on previously approved stem cell lines can continue.BARCELONA, SPAIN—Science was the main topic of conversation here yesterday at the International...

July 10, 2009 11:32 AM |

23andMe Seeks Exemption from California Rules

by Jennifer Couzin-Frankel

23andme, the genetic testing company in Mountain View, California, has drafted a bill introduced into the California State Senate that would exempt it and similar companies from certain regulations and...

July 10, 2009 9:25 AM |

McNutt Named to Lead U.S. Geological Survey

by Jeffrey Mervis

President Barack Obama has nominated a prominent oceanographer to lead the U.S. Geological Survey. Marcia McNutt, a geophysicist and CEO of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in Moss Landing,...

July 9, 2009 5:06 PM |

Planetary Scientists Sharpening Their Pencils

by Richard A. Kerr

WASHINGTON, D.C.—With NASA mired in budgetary woes, scientists this week gathered here at the National Academy of Sciences to begin planning the next decade’s missions to the solar system. The...

July 9, 2009 3:10 PM |

Report Urges Fewer Restrictions on Skilled Immigrants to U.S.

by Preyanka Makadia

An expert panel convened by the Council on Foreign Relations has recommended increasing the number of foreign students and skilled workers allowed to enter the United States as part of...

July 9, 2009 2:03 PM |

New EMBO Director on Open Access, Reaching Out

by Gretchen Vogel

Yesterday, Maria Leptin was appointed the new director of the European Molecular Biology Organization. EMBO is an honorary organization with more than 1300 members and a budget of €18 million....

July 8, 2009 4:59 PM |

White House to Nominate Collins as NIH Director

by Jocelyn Kaiser

It's official: The White House intends to tap geneticist Francis Collins to lead the National Institutes of Health. President Barack Obama's announcement today ends months of speculation that Collins, leader...

July 8, 2009 3:11 PM |

Finally, An NIH Director

by Jocelyn Kaiser

This afternoon, the White House will nominate geneticist Francis Collins to be director of the National Institutes of Health, administration sources say....

July 8, 2009 3:01 PM |

Congress Backs DOE Science Budget, But Not New Ideas

by Jeffrey Mervis and Robert F. Service

Congressional spending panels are taking nicks and cuts out of the 2010 budget request for the Department of Energy (DOE). So far, the department's bread and butter, lab-based research programs...

July 8, 2009 1:43 PM |

A Plea to Soften NIH's Post-Stimulus Landing

by Jocelyn Kaiser

Biomedicine may have done well so far in the economic downturn, but the largest coalition of U.S. biomedical researchers is warning of dire consequences if the National Institutes of Health...

July 7, 2009 5:53 PM |

Bye, Bye, Bioinnovation Center?

by Greg Miller

Back in 2007, drug giant Pfizer hired hotshot biotech entrepreneur Corey Goodman to reinvigorate research and get the pipeline flowing with potential blockbuster therapies. Goodman was to head a new...

July 7, 2009 5:37 PM |

International Agencies Try to End Flu Naming Wars

by Martin Enserink

Repeat after me: "Pandemic H1N1 2009." That's the new name three international agencies, including the World Health Organization, have picked to end the chronic confusion about what to call the...

July 7, 2009 5:23 PM |

Czech Science Academy Threatened by Budget Cuts

by Gretchen Vogel

Scientists at the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic (ASCR) are fighting for their reputation and the future of their institutes. A budget proposal announced last week by the...

July 7, 2009 3:31 PM |

Academy Report Tells Obama to Think Big About Space

by Andrew Lawler

The Obama Administration should use the U.S. civil space program to help meet a broader array of national goals, says a report released today by the National Academies' National Research...

July 7, 2009 11:08 AM |

Bucking Downturn, India Hands Science a Hefty Increase

by Pallava Bagla

NEW DELHI—Joining a global trend, India is giving science a boost in the face of the worldwide economic downturn. On 6 July, the newly elected government headed by Prime Minister...

July 7, 2009 5:12 AM |

China Sets Huge R&D Budget Boost

by Li Jiao

BEIJING—The United States and Japan are not the only countries hoping that a massive windfall for science will help rescue their economies. In response to the global financial crisis, China...

July 7, 2009 4:56 AM |

Lords Want U.K. to Prepare for Future With Genomic Medicine

by John Travis

The House of Lords Science and Technology Committee in the U.K. Parliament has come out with a new report on genomic medicine. The report expresses concern about at-home direct-to-consumer genetic...

July 6, 2009 5:08 PM |

Researchers Pleased With Final Stem Cell Rules

by Constance Holden

Scientists expressed satisfaction with the final guidelines on research with human embryonic stem (ES) cells issued today by the National Institutes of Health. The new rules, which set out criteria...

July 6, 2009 3:53 PM |

Institutions, Company Spar Over Rights to RNAi

by Jennifer Couzin-Frankel

A fight has broken out over who owns important pieces of RNA interference (RNAi) technology, a strategy to silence genes that could prove extremely lucrative as companies figure out how...

July 6, 2009 12:16 PM |

Final Stem Cell Rules Are Out

by Constance Holden

Note: This item has been corrected to indicate that the draft rules were issued in April rather than March as previously reported.The National Institutes of Health is holding a press...

July 6, 2009 10:54 AM |

Fears That Funds for HIV/AIDS Will Dwindle

by Jon Cohen

A survey of people working on HIV/AIDS in 71 countries under various guises of the United Nations found that 31% expect the global financial crisis will impact the ability to...

July 6, 2009 10:50 AM |

Inside China's Swine Flu Quarantine System

by Richard Stone

BEIJING—China has perhaps the strictest quarantine procedures in the world to limit the spread of the Influenza A H1N1 virus—as I found out firsthand today.I’m the Asia editor for Science....

July 3, 2009 3:14 PM |

Hong Kong Case Suggests Resistant Swine Flu May Be Spreading

by Martin Enserink

A third case of oseltamivir-resistant swine flu, announced today in Hong Kong, has flu experts worried that resistance to the drug is spreading. Unlike the previous two cases, the Hong...

July 2, 2009 2:49 PM |

U.S. Donates Flu Drug, White House Organizes Summit

by Jon Cohen

The U.S. government will donate 420,000 treatment courses of the drug Tamiflu to help treat severe cases of influenza in Latin America and the Caribbean. U.S. Secretary of Health Kathleen...

July 2, 2009 2:47 PM |

DARPA Gets First Woman Chief

by Yudhijit Bhattacharjee

Regina Dugan, a mechanical engineer with a background in explosives detection, has become the first woman to lead the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Dugan, who was named today,...

July 1, 2009 5:06 PM |

Wellcome Funds Pan-African Research Consortia

by Robert Koenig

The Wellcome Trust is pouring nearly $50 million into bolstering research capacity in Africa. On Thursday, the U.K. biomedical research charity announced seven pan-African research partnerships, involving more than...

July 1, 2009 11:10 AM |

Cancer Chief Fires Back

by Jennifer Couzin-Frankel

John Niederhuber, the director of the National Cancer Institute, is not a fan of Sunday’s front-page article in The New York Times that harshly critiques how cancer research is funded....