NewsBlog: Nature press on errors Posted by Brendan Maher [Entry posted at 30th August 2006 03:48 PM GMT] After issuing two post-press corrections to the release notes for a headline grabbing news story about human embryonic stem cells last week, Ruth Francis, Nature?s senior press officer said she got a lot of calls and emails from editors and journalists. They issued the second correction Friday night about 9pm Francis? time, just before a three day weekend which was bound to... Click to continue Comment on this blog NewsBlog: The Embryo Corrections Posted by Brendan Maher [Entry posted at 25th August 2006 09:54 PM GMT] When Robert Lanza?s group at Advanced Cell Technology reported this week creating so-called ethically clean ES cell lines (establishing colonies from an early human embryo without destroying it) they didn?t make clear whether they had actually accomplished this feat. This work might have potential, but the numbers speak to a logical smoke and mirror show. Using 16 blastomeres (embryos in the 8-to-10-cell stage), Lanza?s group extracted... Click to continue View comments (3) | Comment on this blog NewsBlog: Decoding the code code Posted by Brendan Maher [Entry posted at 21st August 2006 07:05 PM GMT] A few weeks ago I chided Nick Wade (lovingly! I?m a huge fan, after all) for invoking the ?code? word when describing a study on nucleosome positioning. It surprised me when my post spurred some comments on the nature of the Nature press office, and their proclivity for hyping, but ?not overhyping,? the research papers within. Wade can be forgiven. I didn?t realize how pervasive the word code had been in Nature until I saw the... Click to continue View comment (1) | Comment on this blog NewsBlog: Government lab unites science journalists Posted by Ivan Oransky [Entry posted at 16th August 2006 04:55 PM GMT] Earlier this week, I and several other editorial staffers here at The Scientist started receiving Emails titled ?User Quarantine Release Notification? from an ?inel.gov? address, presumably from the Idaho National Laboratory. Nothing terribly unusual about such spam, which requested that we click on a link to view a list of all of our quarantined messages. Someone had been attacked by a virus. What happened after that, however, was more unusual: The New York Times? George Johnson... Click to continue View comment (1) | Comment on this blog NewsBlog: Stem cell reprogramming clues revealed Posted by Alison McCook [Entry posted at 11th August 2006 09:10 PM GMT] During one of the most memorable conference sessions I attended, a researcher from Japan wowed an entire Keystone meeting on stem cells by announcing he had found a way to reprogram adult stem cells into embryonic stem cells using only a few factors. What those factors were, however, Shinya Yamanaka from Kyoto University wouldn?t say -- even after numerous probing questions from the audience. Now, Yamanaka is revealing his secrets in the... Click to continue View comments (5) | Comment on this blog NewsBlog: Cloning in Iran Posted by Stephen Pincock [Entry posted at 11th August 2006 12:59 AM GMT] Iranian biosciences aren?t exactly top of the news agenda these days, so I was interested to read this week that researchers at Tehran?s Royan Institute have "succeeded" in producing what is apparently the Middle East's first cloned sheep. The sheep died minutes after it was delivered at the institute, which specializes in fertility issues (Royan meaning Embryo in... Click to continue View comments (2) | Comment on this blog NewsBlog: Another sad anniversary Posted by Brendan Maher [Entry posted at 9th August 2006 01:38 PM GMT] It?s been a summer of depressing anniversaries, but not until now have I had the occasion to remember, vividly, the actual events. I was too young to remember the first reports of AIDS, 25 years ago. Legionnaire?s disease, happened (just a few blocks from where I now work) five years earlier than that. But I still remember quite vividly watching President Bush give his... Click to continue Comment on this blog NewsBlog: Consumer genetic tests on trial Posted by Brendan Maher [Entry posted at 2nd August 2006 01:30 PM GMT] I was glad to see that someone?s taking direct-to-consumer genetic testing to trial. Nutrigenetics and nutrigenomics is a burgeoning experimental science as we?ll be writing about in September, but the common refrain among many experts -- ?It?s not ready for prime-time? -- hasn?t stopped several companies from marketing store bought genetic tests which are used with a lifestyle inventory to provide customized nutritional guidance. I?ve been ... Click to continue View comments (3) | Comment on this blog

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