September 2011 Archives


September 30, 2011 5:59 PM |

Connecticut Offers $291 Million to Land Jackson Lab Branch

Connecticut is proposing to pony up $291 million to help open a new offshoot of The Jackson Laboratory (JAX), a genetics research institute best known as a leading breeder of...
September 30, 2011 5:39 PM |

Canada's Top Court Keeps Injecting Drug Use Site Open

The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that a “safe injection site” in Vancouver that aims to thwart the spread of HIV can continue to operate, providing a place for...
September 30, 2011 3:33 PM |

Deadline Approaches for Hundreds of Endangered Species Decisions

If the Florida bog frog had fingernails, it might be biting them right now. Today marks the deadline for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to decide the...
September 30, 2011 12:18 PM |

France Hangs On To Generous Research Tax Credit

PARIS—Despite its increasingly dire financial situation, the French government has decided to keep its controversial Research Tax Credit (CIR), which is among the most generous in the world. The...
September 30, 2011 11:39 AM |

Japan to Boost Science Spending, Reduce Support for Nuclear Power

TOKYO—Japan's ministry of education wants to boost overall science-related spending next year by 5.8%, to $14.7 billion. But amid increasing support for most programs there is one big loser:...
September 30, 2011 11:28 AM |

Grand U.S. Atom Smasher Winds Down Today

A day that many particle physicists had dreaded has arrived. Today, around 2:30 p.m. U.S. Central Daylight Time, researchers at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Batavia, Illinois, will...
September 30, 2011 3:00 AM |

Survey: European Ph.D. Students Underfunded, Unaware of Rights

Money is the most pressing concern for European doctoral students, according to the first Europewide survey of working conditions for young researchers, which is set to be released today. The...
September 29, 2011 4:38 PM |

NIH's 2012 Budget Would Get 3.3% Boost in House Bill

A House of Representatives panel released a 2012 draft spending bill today with surprisingly good news for the National Institutes of Health (NIH): The agency's budget would rise $1 billion...
September 29, 2011 3:26 PM |

Lasker Award Rekindles Debate Over Artemisinin's Discovery

The Lasker Foundation's first ever award to a Chinese scientist working on the mainland has reignited a 30-year controversy over whether one person should be recognized for developing a powerful...
September 29, 2011 12:23 PM |

The Consortium That Will Launch 5000 Mice

A global consortium of mouse genetics centers kicked off a project today that aims to create and test 5000 strains of knockout mice over the next 5 years. The International...
September 29, 2011 11:08 AM |

Germany Returns Colonial-Era Skulls to Namibia

BERLIN—The skulls of 20 Namibians killed in brutal wars with German colonists a century ago will be returned to Namibian government officials here on Friday. The skulls have been part...
September 28, 2011 11:10 PM |

A Dizzying Second Twist in Trial of Anti-HIV Drugs as Preventives

Yet another large study that aims to prevent the spread of HIV by giving uninfected women antiretroviral (ARV) pills has had to redesign the trial because of startling—and negative—interim results....
September 27, 2011 5:37 PM |

DOE Plan Would Boost Technology Spending on Transportation

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today unveiled the results of a sweeping review designed to make the department's efforts to develop better energy technologies more coherent and productive....
September 27, 2011 1:18 PM |

Twelve Researchers Take Home Top Medals

Two mathematicians, a bevy of molecular biologists and a rocket scientist are among the winners of the highest honor that the United States bestows on researchers. President Barack Obama...
September 27, 2011 11:46 AM |

Insider Looking Out: How People With Chronic Fatigue Syndrome View the Death of XMRV

The findings reported last week in Science that a mouse retrovirus dubbed XMRV poses no threat to the blood supply provided great relief to public health officials. New evidence...
September 27, 2011 11:26 AM |

German Ethics Council Weighs In On Human-Animal Chimeras

BERLIN—Mice carrying human genes are ethically acceptable, but German scientists who want to make transgenic monkeys with human genes should get permission from a national ethics panel, according to...
September 26, 2011 2:40 PM |

White House Touts NSF's New Family-Friendly Policies

The National Science Foundation (NSF) hopes that a new set of family-friendly policies will reduce the number of young women who abandon scientific careers because of responsibilities outside of...
September 26, 2011 2:18 PM |

After Long Hiatus, Iraq Museum to Open Its Doors

Following a looting spree during the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, the famous Iraq Museum was shuttered and sealed. But Iraqi and U.S. officials say the Baghdad repository...
September 26, 2011 11:48 AM |

Decadal Plan for Plant Science Begins to Take Shape

U.S. plant scientists have taken the first steps toward a 10-year plan to help improve global food supplies using sustainable practices and to make progress in understanding how plants...
September 23, 2011 5:11 PM |

Hotly Disputed Life Sciences Award Back on UNESCO's Agenda

A year ago, human rights activists thought they had squashed a proposed United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization ( UNESCO) prize in the life sciences that would honor...
September 23, 2011 2:57 PM |

NIH Chided on Translational Center, Warned of More Budget Cuts

A Senate spending panel has praised a new translational center at the National Institutes of Health but scolded NIH officials for how it was created. The language accompanies the...
September 23, 2011 12:44 PM |

Protests Drive Out Egypt's Antiquities Chief

Just 2 months after Zahi Hawass was removed as chief of Egypt's antiquities, his successor has submitted his resignation. Mohammad Abdel Fatah, a former Cairo University professor, told ScienceInsider...
September 22, 2011 4:45 PM |

South Carolina Virologist Charged With Illegal Campaign Contributions, Grant Fraud

A virologist who worked on biodefense vaccines and was active in South Carolina politics has been charged with making illegal campaign contributions and using research grants to defraud the...
September 22, 2011 4:29 PM |

House Science Panel to Investigate NOAA Climate Service

A political feud over a "shadow" climate science service is heating up again. Following months of partisan sparring, Representative Ralph Hall (R-TX), announced yesterday that the House of Representatives...
September 22, 2011 3:38 PM |

Iran Reschedules Espionage Trial for Texas Graduate Student

A doctoral student at the University of Texas (UT), Austin, who has been detained for months in his native Iran on espionage charges will go on trial on 4...
September 22, 2011 2:26 PM |

Atlas Can't Shrug Scientists; Publisher Issues Apology and Promises Corrections

The new The Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World that had glaciologists in a rage for incorrectly showing Greenland as having lost 15% of its ice since 1999 is...
September 22, 2011 11:25 AM |

U.K. Approves Europe's First Embryonic Stem Cell Clinical Trial

A U.S.-based company has received permission to start Europe's first clinical trial involving human embryonic stem (hES) cells. Advanced Cell Technology (ACT), based in Marlborough, Massachusetts, received approval today...
September 21, 2011 4:43 PM |

2011 Nobel Prize Predictions Roll In

Are cancer researchers Brian Druker, Nicholas Lydon, and Charles Sawyers becoming the Jon Hamms of the science world? Hamm, the suave star of the TV hit Mad Men, is...
September 20, 2011 5:11 PM |

Senate Panel Trims NIH Budget By $190 Million

A Senate panel today approved a 2012 spending bill that would slightly trim the budget of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), cutting it by $190 million to $30.5...
September 20, 2011 3:05 PM |

Nine Researchers Win MacArthur Fellowships

A nonet of researchers is among the 22 winners of this year's MacArthur Fellowships. Over the next 5 years, each of the winners will receive $500,000 in no-strings-attached support...
September 20, 2011 2:10 PM |

NSF Prepares for Review of Two Giant Telescopes

The National Science Foundation (NSF) is gearing up for a long-awaited competition between two California-based consortia seeking federal support to build the next giant ground-based telescope. But a perception...
September 19, 2011 5:14 PM |

Family Puts $10 Million Into Chronic Fatigue Research

A family charity is hoping to jump-start the search for a cause for the mysterious disease known as chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) by funding around $10 million in studies...
September 19, 2011 4:35 PM |

Stem Cell Lawsuit Back Again

As expected, the plaintiffs in a law suit claiming that federally funded research on human embryonic stem cells (hESC) is illegal have appealed a ruling that dealt them a...
September 19, 2011 3:45 PM |

Jan Hendrik Schön Loses His Ph.D.

BERLIN—A German court has ruled that it is legal to revoke the Ph.D. of disgraced physicist Jan Hendrik Schön. Schön was the center of a spectacular scandal in 2002,...
September 19, 2011 3:17 PM |

U.K. Scientists Challenge Creationism in Schools

Thirty prominent U.K. scientists today released a statement raising concern about the teaching of creationism in British publicly-funded schools. They highlight organizations that are visiting schools and sending them...
September 19, 2011 12:00 PM |

UPDATED: Atlas Shrugged? 'Outraged' Glaciologists Say Mappers Misrepresented Greenland Ice Melt

CAMBRIDGE, UNITED KINGDOM—So much for claims that climate scientists deliberately misrepresent their data: glaciologists are broadly and loudly panning the latest version of The Times Comprehensive Atlas of the...
September 19, 2011 11:07 AM |

UNESCO Panel Takes High-Level Look at Helping Development

PARIS—Science and sustainable development were the buzz words at the first meeting of a new advisory panel to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) at the end...
September 16, 2011 5:29 PM |

White House Boosts Translational Medicine, Drug Chip Project

National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Francis Collins's controversial plan to launch a new center for translational biomedical research got a boost today in a White House announcement on...
September 16, 2011 4:37 PM |

Israel Joins European Particle Physics Laboratory, CERN

Sticklers for geographical correctness will roll their eyes, but Israel is joining CERN, the European particle physics laboratory just west of Geneva, Switzerland. Officially, Israel has become an associate...
September 16, 2011 3:04 PM |

Senate Plan Gives NSF a Choice on Facilities vs. Research

A Senate proposal that would reduce next year's budget for the National Science Foundation (NSF) by $162 million includes unprecedented flexibility for the agency to decide how best to...
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