NewsBlog: [Entry posted at 29th March 2007 02:18 PM GMT] The chimera marmoset story reported here and elsewhere is fascinating; I was stunned by the possibility, not heavily noted in a lot of press, that male cells might have made it into the germline of a female - that is XY cells from a male might have developed into eggs in his female twin sister resulting in a live birth. Germline transmission of one's brothers cells is interesting enough, but the idea of XY eggs is particularly interesting --... Click to continue
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NewsBlog: [Entry posted at 28th March 2007 09:27 PM GMT] Continuing a debate that started several months ago, The Lancet this month published several letters, including one from a publication ethics group, criticizing the European Journal of Cancer (EJC)'s decision to quietly withdraw a publication about mammography from its Web site without any explanation. In this latest round of letters the... Click to continue
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NewsBlog: [Entry posted at 28th March 2007 05:03 PM GMT] Ian Wilmut talks about his disappointment in the failure to move forward on human stem cell research involving cloned embryos in today's Hartford Courant. Read it here
Obviously the challenges are many, but to blame his failure to receive a license for cloning human embryos on getting behind in the paperwork does seem a bit odd. Wilmut had written for us when he was first applying said... Click to continue
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NewsBlog: [Entry posted at 23rd March 2007 01:23 PM GMT] Earlier this weak a judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by primate researcher Sally Boysen against Ohio State University (OSU). Boysen claims the University shut down the Chimpanzee Cognition Center at OSU and moved the animals to a sub-standard facility without her approval. Boysen also holds the university responsible for the death of two animals that died after their relocation. OSU says the Center was closed and the animals moved because... Click to continue
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NewsBlog: [Entry posted at 22nd March 2007 05:35 PM GMT] Last Thursday, owners of Rabbit Island, a pristine 36 acre environment off the coast of British Columbia that has taught many budding scientists about natural phenomena, voted to sell the island to the highest bidder.
Professor Dennis Kelly of Orange Coast College in California has been taking students to Rabbit Island for years to demonstrate things most collegians only read about in textbooks -- island gigantism in the form of an... Click to continue
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NewsBlog: [Entry posted at 22nd March 2007 10:53 AM GMT] After all the wailing and gnashing of teeth in the UK recently over science budget cuts, the government is in the good books again. Why? The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, has vowed long term increases in funding in his latest (and probably last) budget announcement.
Broadly speaking, the budget includes a promise that total investment in the public... Click to continue
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NewsBlog: [Entry posted at 20th March 2007 07:19 PM GMT] I am waiting for a hypoallergenic cat. Not one to keep, but just one to prove all the skeptics wrong. In the January issue of the The Scientist I wrote an article about what scientists think of Allerca's hypoallergenic cats. The California company claims to have found and bred the world's first scientifically proven hypoallergenic cat, but most of the scientists I spoke with are dubious of its claims, not to mention the founder has a... Click to continue
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NewsBlog: [Entry posted at 12th March 2007 03:38 PM GMT] Last Wednesday in Alaska, a moose charged and downed a helicopter carrying a wildlife biologist. Neither the pilot nor the biologist were hurt during the attack, but the helicopter suffered damage to its tail rotor, forcing it to land. Sadly, the animal was put down due to its injuries (it got caught in the helicopter's blades).
Late last month, a curator of herpetology ... Click to continue
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NewsBlog: [Entry posted at 9th March 2007 04:19 PM GMT] A press release from Thomson Scientific lists 17 of the hottest researchers from 2005-2006 based on the number of Hot Papers published in that time. Hot Papers, as our readers know are papers, generally on the order of two years old, that have been cited much more than papers of a similar date and age (50 to 100 times as often according to Thomson). Immunologist Shizuo Akira of Osaka University tops the list with 7 publications in the specified time frame.... Click to continue
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NewsBlog: [Entry posted at 8th March 2007 12:03 AM GMT] Medical Research Council chief Colin Blakemore is stepping down at a time when the UK agency is facing major reforms.
Blakemore said that he decided to leave after his current term expires in September, but his decision has nothing to do with the MRC's upcoming changes -- which include the UK government's decision to reform medical research funding, creating an umbrella... Click to continue
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NewsBlog: [Entry posted at 6th March 2007 11:21 PM GMT] Who can argue with a punk rock anthem about the search for statistical certainty? Not me, at least. In fact, I couldn't help but smile this week when I came across a jaunty little tune called Increase the N by an outfit called Hefe from Vancouver.
I first saw reference to the song (lyrics below) on The World's Fair where they kindly offered a link to the group's myspace account.
Apparently, they're a group... Click to continue
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