August 2010 Archives


August 31, 2010 5:15 PM |

NIH Asks Judge to Suspend Stem Cell Research Injunction

Warning of a "devastating impact" on ongoing research, government lawyers this afternoon asked a federal court to stay a preliminary injunction that last week forced the National Institutes of...
August 31, 2010 2:55 PM |

Japan's Government Aims High in Budget Plan

TOKYO—Funding to complete a controversial supercomputer, plan a second Hayabusa asteroid sample retrieval mission, and dramatically expand research into induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells is on the agenda of...
August 31, 2010 2:44 PM

How Australia's 'Smart State' Lured Irish Science Guru

Last month, one of Australia’s leading biomedical centers, the Queensland Institute of Medical Research (QIMR) in Brisbane, announced it had enticed Frank Gannon to step down from running the...
August 30, 2010 3:59 PM |

Judge Blocks Virginia's Request for Global Warming Records

A county circuit court judge today quashed a subpoena issued by Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli that sought documents related to work by climate scientist Michael Mann, according to...
August 30, 2010 3:08 PM |

Panel Calls for 'Fundamental Reform' of IPCC

A new review of the procedures of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) gives the influential science organization a solid B+ for its 2 decades of assessments of...
August 30, 2010 11:53 AM |

NIH Orders Immediate Shutdown of Intramural Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research

Responding to a court order issued a week ago, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) this morning ordered intramural researchers studying human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) to shut down...
August 30, 2010 10:50 AM |

Blogging Live: The IPCC Review

The InterAcademy Council, a coalition of world science academies, has released a 113-page review of the management of the world's most prominent climate body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate...
August 30, 2010 8:21 AM

Assailants Attack China's Science Watchdog

China's self-appointed science fraud buster was assaulted yesterday afternoon in Beijing. Fang Shimin, better known by his pen name Fang Zhouzhi, has used his Web site New Threads and...
August 27, 2010 5:41 PM |

HIV/AIDS Drug Maker's Patents Under Attack

A New York City public interest group yesterday challenged eight patents on the widely used HIV/AIDS drug ritonavir, a protease inhibitor. It wants the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office...
August 27, 2010 5:03 PM |

Journal Editor Says He Believes Retracted Hauser Paper Contains Fabricated Data

Evidence of bad behavior by Harvard University cognitive scientist Marc Hauser continues to mount. Today Gerry Altmann, the editor of the journal Cognition, posted a statement on his blog...
August 26, 2010 5:24 PM |

Several Options for Lawmakers to Reverse Cell Research Ban

Stem cell research supporters in Congress are hoping to take quick action to reverse the research ban imposed by U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth on Monday. They expect...
August 26, 2010 5:04 PM |

No 'Status Quo' for Scientists as Ruling Halts Stem Cell Studies

In his order halting federal funding of research on human embryonic stem cells (hESCs), Judge Royce Lamberth wrote that his ruling “would not seriously harm ESC researchers because the...
August 26, 2010 2:47 PM |

Head of Iranian Institute Fired as Regime Crackdown Widens

The Iranian Ministry of Science has fired the founder-director of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Basic Sciences (IASBS) in Zanjan and replaced him with a nuclear scientist known...
August 26, 2010 10:19 AM |

Stem Cell Injunction Could Stop All U.S. Funding, Some Fear

On the third full day of the U.S. court ban on using federal money to study human embryonic stem cells (hESCs), the research community is worrying that the news...
August 25, 2010 5:59 PM |

What's Next With the Stem Cell Injunction

On Monday, Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued a temporary injunction blocking the federal government from implementing the current National Institutes of...
August 25, 2010 3:19 PM |

European Particle Physics Lab Tightens Belt But Cancels No Projects

Many physicists around the world must be breathing a sigh of relief, as officials at the European particle physics laboratory, CERN, today released a revised budget for the next...
August 25, 2010 2:54 PM |

Hausergate: Scientific Misconduct and What We Know We Don't Know

Confusion still lingers after the recent news that Harvard University has found that noted cognitive scientist Marc Hauser engaged in scientific misconduct. Researchers don’t know whether to consider all...
August 25, 2010 2:41 PM |

Clean Energy Technologies Dominate Obama's View of Innovation

A new report from the Obama Administration makes the case that last year’s $787 billion stimulus package is helping to transform the U.S. economy by fostering more innovation. But...
August 25, 2010 2:27 PM |

Castro: Worries Over Nuclear Winter

With its antique Chevrolets and outdated politics, the communist island of Cuba seems like a time capsule of 1950s. So is it any surprise that Fidel Castro is worried...
August 25, 2010 10:39 AM |

Stem Cell Litigants No Stranger to Scientific Limelight

A day after the Justice Department said it plans to appeal the injunction that suspended federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, more details have emerged on the scientists...
August 24, 2010 6:08 PM |

Bits of Good News From the Gulf

BOSTON—The news out of the Gulf of Mexico doesn't look too bleak, according to preliminary reports here today at the semiannual meeting of the American Chemical Society. The researchers...
August 24, 2010 5:02 PM |

NIH Director Collins Says Cell Ruling Won't Halt Most Ongoing Grants

National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Francis Collins said in a press call this afternoon that yesterday's court injunction blocking federally funded research on human embryonic stem cells (hESCs)...
August 24, 2010 4:32 PM |

NIH Joins Smokey the Bear on Biden's List of Favorites

Labs and parks. Vice President Joe Biden placed the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in an exalted but quirky category of national "assets" today as he unveiled a report...
August 24, 2010 12:30 PM |

Injunction Leaves Stem Cell Researchers in Legal Limbo

Yesterday's court decision temporarily blocking federal funding for work with human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) has left researchers working with the cells in a legal limbo as government lawyers...
August 23, 2010 6:10 PM |

Hauser Speaks on Misconduct

In response to a letter from Harvard University reporting that an investigation by the university had found Marc Hauser "solely responsible" for "eight instances of scientific misconduct.", Hauser issued comments...
August 23, 2010 5:58 PM |

Federal Judge: Obama Stem Cell Policy Halted

Research on embryonic stem cells funded by the U.S. government must stop immediately for a court-ordered review, Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of...
August 23, 2010 2:52 PM |

Brazilian Oil Royalties to Fund Energy, Climate Research

Brazil will set aside hundreds of millions in government oil revenue to pay for efforts to reduce carbon emissions and adapt to climate change. Brazil's national climate fund, signed...
August 20, 2010 4:44 PM

Universities, Scientists Urge NIH to Narrow Conflicts Rule

The biomedical research community is reacting with concern to a proposal from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to clamp down on financial conflicts of interest in research. In...
August 20, 2010 4:25 PM

Tabak Named as NIH Deputy Director

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has a new principal deputy director: dental researcher Lawrence Tabak, now chief of the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research. NIH Director...
August 20, 2010 3:11 PM |

Harvard Dean Confirms Misconduct in Hauser Investigation

In an e-mail sent earlier today to Harvard University faculty members, Michael Smith, dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), confirms that cognitive scientist Marc Hauser "was...
August 20, 2010 1:05 PM |

New Light on Spilled Oil, But Only a Bit

A widely reported paper in Science this week shows that microbes were not rapidly degrading the oil in a plume streaming from the blown-out BP well in late June....
August 19, 2010 5:05 PM |

U.S. to Intensify Defense Against Infectious Threats

A review released today by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) could lead to major changes in the way the country prepares for public health emergencies,...
August 19, 2010 2:37 PM

New Details on Data Problems in Hauser Lab

The Chronicle of Higher Education has more details on the investigation of Harvard University cognitive scientist Marc Hauser, based on a statement a former research assistant gave to Harvard...
August 19, 2010 11:12 AM

'I Told Ya, You Can't Stop the Rage,' UC Endocrinologist Hayes Writes to Syngenta

He's tenured, raps at scientific meetings, and commands respect in his field—but now the world has a new window into the mind of an outspoken and controversial frog expert....
August 19, 2010 12:00 AM

American Students Struggle for U.S. Grad School Slots Against Foreign-Born Applicants

U.S. students had a much harder time getting into American graduate schools this past year than did their peers from China and the rest of the world. And while...
August 18, 2010 2:48 PM |

Sea Murkiness Affects Hurricanes? When 'Basic Research' Pays Unexpected Dividends

Ocean color affects the formation of hurricanes--who knew?
August 17, 2010 11:10 AM |

Aussie Academy: Warming Is Real, Dangerous

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA—In the run-up to national elections on 21 August, the country's top science body, the Australian Academy of Science (AAS), has weighed in on the climate change debate...
August 16, 2010 5:53 PM

Nobel Laureate Protests Lack of Israeli Speakers at Chemistry Conference in Jordan

A chemistry Nobel laureate wants leading scientists to boycott an upcoming international chemistry conference in Jordan because he suspects organizers have deliberately excluded Israeli scientists from the list of...
August 13, 2010 5:27 PM |

California Postdocs Embrace Union Contract

Postdocs at the University of California (UC) voted overwhelmingly this week to adopt a 5-year contract that would raise their pay and give them protections not guaranteed under the...
August 13, 2010 4:27 PM |

Berkeley Gene Testing Program Scaled Back

A novel experiment at the University of California (UC), Berkeley, that involved analyzing the genomes of new students has run into legal trouble. The academics who came up with...