September 2009 Archives
September 30, 2009 5:26 PM
Round Up 9/30: Vigilant Eye Edition
The National Academy of Science says Arecibo Observatory (left, credit NASA) could provide a "uniquely powerful" tool for finding incoming space rocks before they impact earth and destroy all...
September 30, 2009 2:11 PM
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Obama Announces $5 Billion in NIH Grants; Cancer, Autism, Heart Disease Named as Targets
President Barack Obama paid a visit to the National Institutes of Health this morning to announce that the agency has given out $5 billion in stimulus money for over 12,000...
Spain's Science Budget Holds Steady
A 2010 national budget plan (in Spanish) was given to Spain’s Parliament yesterday and funding levels for the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation are staying more or less...
September 30, 2009 1:03 PM
New Nobels Needed?
The Nobel Prizes need an overhaul, according to a panel of scientists assembled by New Scientist magazine. In an open letter to the Nobel Foundation published today, the scientists...
September 30, 2009 12:58 PM
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Petition Filed Against Nationality Testing by the United Kingdom
A petition aiming to stop the U.K. Border Agency's controversial Human Provenance Pilot Program has been filed with the U.K. government, according to a comment on the original ScienceInsider story. If...
September 30, 2009 12:16 PM
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Big Progress, Daunting Challenges in HIV/AIDS Treatment and Prevention
The push to deliver antiretroviral drugs to all HIV-infected people who need them made another step forward last year, but still has a long ways to go. As of...
Renewable Energy Research in Focus in New Japanese Budget
As expected, Japan's new government announced yesterday it is ordering ministries to rethink the 2010 budget requests they submitted on 28 August—a process that could have an impact on...
September 29, 2009 6:05 PM
Roundup 9/29: Little Things Matter Edition
Indonesia, the third biggest single carbon dioxide emitter of the world in 2000, has pledged to cut its emissions 26% by 2020. President Barack Obama will visit the U.S.. National...
September 29, 2009 5:05 PM
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Bio-Containment Labs Urged to Report Accidents, Train Personnel
How can safety be improved at biocontainment labs, where researchers work with dangerous pathogens and toxins? A new report from an interagency task force that has been studying the topic...
September 29, 2009 4:01 PM
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NASA Changes Moon Target
Just days after expressing “great confidence” that they had found the best possible target for next week’s planned crash into the moon, the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS)...
September 29, 2009 1:49 PM
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Minister Accused of "Bullying" Science Council Over Palestine Conference
Is it "heavy-handed bullying" or simply a "misunderstanding between bureaucrats"? The suggestion that Canada's science minister threatened to punish one of the country's research funding councils over its support...
September 29, 2009 10:01 AM
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U.K. Border Agency Docs and Expanded Reactions
Some further reaction and expanded comments from geneticists and isotope specialists who examined the UK Border Agency documents--a stakeholders letter ( stakeholder+letter.11.9.09.doc) and one titled "Nationality-Swapping ( nationality-swapping-DNA-testing.pdf)--describing the Human Provenance...
September 29, 2009 10:00 AM
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Key Questions on Nationality Testing
Below are some questions raised by the scientific criticism (original story) of the U.K. Border Agency’s Human Provenance program. Q: How long has the Border Agency been working on...
Scientists Decry "Flawed" and "Horrifying" Nationality Tests
(This story is adapted from a version appearing in this week's Science) CAMBRIDGE, UNITED KINGDOM—Scientists are greeting with surprise and dismay a project to use DNA and isotope analysis of tissue...
September 28, 2009 5:30 PM
Roundup 9/28: Shock and Awe Edition
Responding to a petition from environmental groups, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has agreed to examine whether it should revise the critical habitat for the Florida Manatee. The...
September 25, 2009 5:04 PM
Lawmakers Attack Federal Research on Sex Workers, Ravers
The National Institutes of Health is facing a new salvo from conservatives upset about research on topics involving sexual behavior and drug abuse. Yesterday, Joe Barton (R–TX) and Greg Walden...
September 25, 2009 4:55 PM
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Climate Skirmishes Stalk Environmental Spending Bill
Supporters of President Barack Obama's approach to limiting greenhouse gas emissions scored two wins this week in the Senate, one in open field battle and the other in more...
September 25, 2009 4:25 PM
Roundup 9/25: Light and Shadow Edition
Duane Alexander, director of the National Institute Child Health and Human Development for the past 23 years, is stepping down at the end of this month. He will become an...
September 25, 2009 1:50 PM
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An Insider Conversation: China, India, and the Illusion of Safety
This week, China made what appears to be its opening move in the negotiating run-up to the international climate change talks in November in Copenhagen. In an email conversation with...
September 25, 2009 12:24 PM
New Ads Say More Carbon Dioxide Is Good for Planet
The Washington Post explores the groups behind this new campaign:...
September 25, 2009 11:53 AM
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FDA Admits Politics Trumped Science on Knee Device
For the first time, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has publicly admitted that politics has trumped science. The agency acknowledged yesterday that it approved a device to help...
September 24, 2009 4:34 PM
Roundup 9/24: Fates Up in the Air Edition
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has draft plans to save the bats from white nose syndrome, which is mysteriously devastating them in the Eastern United States. The National Institutes...
September 24, 2009 12:18 AM
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Massive AIDS Vaccine Study a "Modest" Success
A large clinical trial of an AIDS vaccine has, for the first time, yielded positive results. But researchers immediately questioned the relevance of the data, which indicated that the...
September 23, 2009 5:55 PM
Biotech Advocate Picked to Oversee USDA Research Grants
Roger Beachy of the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis, Missouri, will be the first director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture...
September 23, 2009 5:12 PM
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Meet Obama's Head Energy Research Gambler
Last week, the White House nominated Arun Majumdar to lead ARPA-E, the risk-taking blue-sky energy research shop at the Department of Energy. Majumdar is a professor at the University...
Roundup 9/23: Good Vibes Edition
The National Science Foundation's Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) has awarded six $20 million grants for infrastructure to support research including grassland studies in Kansas and Hawaiian environmental...
September 23, 2009 4:20 PM
New Nature Journal to Offer Open-Access Option
The Nature Publishing Group (NPG) today announced a new online journal that will allow authors to pay a fee so that their paper will be freely available online the...
September 23, 2009 4:10 PM
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Rethinking the Ingredients of Influenza Vaccines for 2010
Next winter in the Southern Hemisphere, influenza vaccines should no longer be designed to protect against the seasonal H1N1 strain as the pandemic H1N1 strain has replaced it, according...
Can Saudi Arabia Build an MIT? $10 Billion Says "Yes" as Desert School Opens
THUWAL, SAUDI ARABIA—King Abdullah opened the kingdom of Saudi Arabia today to a throng of foreign dignitaries, government officials, scientists, and guests to show off his new King Abdullah...
Allegations of Faked Data Spark Swiss Resignation and Lawsuit
A day after Switzerland’s tabloid press published headlines like, “Research Chief of ETH Resigns after Data Manipulation,” Switzerland’s top university, ETH Zürich (Swiss Federal Instititute of Technology), is struggling...
September 22, 2009 6:58 PM
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Three Answers and Three Questions on China and Climate
The biggest news coming out of the one-day U.N. General Assembly summit on climate change was President Hu Jintao's announcement that China will seek to cut its greenhouse gas emissions...
September 22, 2009 4:08 PM
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Power Company Alleges Business Lobby Trying to "Distort" Climate Findings
Pacific Gas and Electric Chair Peter Darbee has written the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to say that his company will leave the powerful business lobby. "In particular, he took...
September 22, 2009 4:03 PM
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Roundup 9/22: Threatening Clouds Edition
The African Science Academy Development Initiative will hold a workshop in Ghana in November to tackle maternal, newborn, and child health in Sub-Saharan Africa.Joel Myers, founder of AccuWeather.com, has...
September 22, 2009 3:43 PM
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Lawmakers, Officials Press for More Biosecurity Controls on Labs
Biodefense researchers in the United States, watch out. A crescendo of concerns over biosecurity and biosafety expressed at different forums today may signal that tougher oversight of research involving dangerous...
From the Comments ...
... on a Carnegie Mellon University robotics scientist eschewing military cash: I adore such a scientist. It might be difficult, but I believe that it is worth it. On the...
September 22, 2009 1:56 PM
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Giant Fishery in Danger?
Despite government assurances that Alaska's Bering Sea pollock fishery—the nation's largest commercial fishery—is managed sustainably, the fish's population continues to decline. On Friday in Seattle, Washington, the North Pacific...
September 22, 2009 9:52 AM
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To Help Young Scientists, NIH Bends Quality Rules
A new analysis of the grantsmaking process at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) lifts the veil on how many grant proposals are funded even though they fall below...
Korea Research Chief Espouses "Free to Fail" Culture
Earlier this summer, South Korea merged three science agencies to form the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF). The new body will control a $2 billion pot of money,...
September 21, 2009 6:01 PM
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Plague Samples Suspected In Scientist Death
An autopsy last week revealed that a geneticist who died mysteriously might have succumbed to the plague. Malcolm Casadaban, 60, studied a weakened and reportedly benign form of the...
September 21, 2009 4:41 PM
Roundup 9/21: Explosive Issues Edition
Disgraced Korean stem cell scientist Woo Suk Hwang, who is awaiting a court judgment due next month that could send him to jail for embezzling research funds, got some good...
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