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Talks about the criticism by the House of Commons on Britain's White Paper on science and technology. Failure to switch from military to civilian research; White Paper's alleged shortcomings; Reply to criticisms; Concern of the Royal Institute of Chemistry and the Institution of Chemical Engineers on biological organic chemistry; Setting up of Britain's new Council for Science and Technology.

Focuses on a retraction published in the May 29, 1992 issue of `Cell' which stated that data supporting a 1991 paper on mouse embryo development, written by four researchers from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) had been fabricated. Fabrication allegedly was the work of one author without the knowledge of the others; `Oct-3 is a maternal factor required for the first mouse embryonic division'; Problems of replicating the paper's results; Mitchell Rosner; More.

Reports that for the second half of 1989, Japanese research groups take two out of the top three positions in the lists of the most cited papers in biology and physics. Brief list of noted papers.

Science benefits when junior scientists sign up as reviewers. It’s also good for their careers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In June 2004, the results of an ambitious Antarctic ice-drilling project brought insight into hundreds of thousands of years of climatic changes. The extraordinary sample still has much to offer climate research — even as its successor is being drilled. Twentieth anniversary of a 800,000-year sample of climate history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some genes carry an ‘imprint’ on either the maternal or the paternal copy, which determines whether or not that copy is expressed. This 1984 discovery changed how scientists think about gene regulation and inheritance.Landmark 1984 experiments gave rise to a new epigenetics concept. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the failure of U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) to fund the most impactful researchers in favor of more conformists scientists with interests similar to those of the grant reviewers.

Reports on European Union research commissioner Philippe Busquin's plan to publish a white paper early 2000 outlining his plans for the creation of a European Research Area.

Reports that the Royal Society of Great Britain has criticized the medical journal `The Lancet' for publishing a paper on genetically modified (GM) potatoes by controversial author Arpad Pusztai. Royal Society's review of the Pusztai's data; Review process practiced by the journal.

From this week, Nature will be publishing an additional type of research paper — designed to encourage rigour and replication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An interview with acting U.S. National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) chairman Paul S. Keim is presented. When asked about his comments on papers reporting experimental adaptations of influenza viruses, he asserts that they demonstrate segments of the 2009 pandemic influenza. He affirms that the major benefit of the work is to alert humanity to the threat posed by H5N1. He states that they remain concern about any type of research that enhances the virulence of Influenza virus.

Reports on the findings of a review of scientific papers from fourteen journals that found one third of the lead authors had a direct financial interest in the published research. The report in the journal `Science and Engineering Ethics'; A list of the journals that were reviewed; Details of the study.

Reports on the controversy surrounding a US government position paper on combating global warming. The delay of legally binding limits on greenhouse gas emissions; The reason environmentalists are upset.

Discusses the early prediction by Japanese chemist Eiji Osawa of the existence and structure of the buckminsterfullerene (C60) fifteen years prior to the publication of an article in 1985 announcing the discovery of C60. Osawa's publication of the paper only in Japanese; The awarding of the 1996 Nobel Prize for Chemistry to the 1985 discoverers; Osawa's reaction and regrets.

Reports on a debate on the paper `A Solution to a Complex Problem on Cracks,' by engineer and murder convict Valery Fabrikant, published in the January 1996 issue of the periodical `International Journal of Solids and Structures.' Forfeiture of Fabrikant's liberty to publish his academic views; Defense of Fabrikant's right to publish.

The article reports on the oversight investigation conducted by U.S. Congressman John Dingell and his colleagues and staff on the probable fraud and misconduct in the preparation of a paper that was published in the 1986 issue of "Cell." They questioned the authors for exaggerating the mechanism of Bet-1 reagent and the inaccuracies in the text.

Reports on European leaders' approval of the policy document on competitiveness, growth and unemployment prepared by Jacques Delors. Creation of 15 million jobs in the European Union as the paper's aim; Importance of research and development (R&D) to economic recovery; Target of increasing spending on R&D; Setting up of a `Task Force on European Information Infrastructure.'

Discusses reaction to the British government's White Paper (policy statement) on the organization of science and technology, `Realising our Potential,' published last week in London, England. The lack of radical change; Additional information. INSETS: Waldegrave gets help, by D.D.;A global search, by D.D..

Reports that, according to William Waldegrave, the cabinet minister responsible for science, the forthcoming White Paper (policy document) on British science and technology is likely to be evolutionary rather than revolutionary. Advisory Council on Science and Technology (ACOST); Office of Science and Technology; Medical Research Council; Save British Science; More.

Notes that professional jealousy has for more than a decade blocked publication of a paper on leprosy that could have hastened progress on finding an animal model indigenous to India, where the disease in most prevalent. Findings by a group of Indian and US scientists at the Jawaharlal Nehru Institute for Postgraduate Medical Education and Research (JIPMER) in Pondicherry that leprosy could be experimentally transmitted to the slender loris; Details.

Reports that the collected papers of economist and polymath William Petty have been purchased by the British Library for more than 1 million pounds--a record sum for a historical figure of the period. Profile of Petty; National Heritage Memorial Fund; Comment from Peter Barber, a map specialist at the library.

Focuses on an announcement by Japanese researchers at Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT) who generated head among the country's media by announcing at a conference in Nagoya that they had found direct evidence of cold fusion. Failure of the NTT researchers to produce a paper, published or submitted, to back up their claim; More.

Looks at a report by the Office of Scientific Integrity (OSI) on the paper published by Mikulas Popovic in the May 4, 1984 issue of `Science.' Findings of misconduct on the part of Popovic; Report of immunofluorescence assay results; Development of a blood test for the AIDS virus; Recommendation of leniency by NIH director Bernadine Healy.

Reveals a survey by the Washington-based `Science Watch' journal of the `hottest' research papers coming out of Japan. Japan appears to be strongest in basic research in biochemistry, molecular biology and pharmacology, and weakest in engineering technology and applied science.

The article presents several charts concerning interdisciplinary science research, including a chart measuring the level of interdisciplinarity various fields are, the percentage of interdisciplinary papers published in 10 nations, and a citation analysis of interdisciplinary research over time.

The article discusses new guidelines of DFG, Germany's main research funding organization, regarding the publication of scientific researches.

The article focuses on the use of type Ia supernovae (SNIa) by astrophysicists and cosmologists for measuring distances of the Universe. It is stated that these supernovae burn with a known luminosity, due to which the apparent brightness of SNIa varies according to how far they are away from the Earth. In 2008, cosmologist Marat Gilfanov found that a white dwarf star gives off a distinctive X-ray emission for about 10 million years before the SNIa explosion.

The article discusses various studies regarding the role of a certain gene in the formation of the insulin-producing cells of the pancreas. Geneticist Constantin Polychronakos of McGill University found that each pancreas of a child lacks insulin-producing cells, as though the body had no proper instructions for making them. Michael German of the University of California suggests that Rfx6 expression is one of the earliest genes to be turned on by neurogenin 3.

The article reports on the study conducted by Lei Jiang on the water-collecting mechanism of the spider web. It notes the research team's probe on the wettability of the spider silk of the species Uloborus walckenaerius, and the hydrophilic nature of the silk nanofibrils. It also cites the group's development of a fiber with the same capabilities, and the applications offered by the fibers in collecting drinking water. Moreover, it ponders on the reasons why the spiders developed the mechanism.

The article discusses the study of David Frank, a climatologist at the Swiss Federal Research institute to determine the effect of carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere. It mentions that Frank and his colleagues obtained carbon dioxide records from three Antarctic ice cores and combined data from nine large-scale temperature reconstructions. It notes that they were able to calculate more than 200,000 estimates of how carbon dioxide varied in response to temperatures between 1050 and 1800.

The article reports on the study by economist Ernst Fehr of the University of Zurich in Switzerland on the effect of testosterone on social behavior. Fehr and colleagues gave a group of women a testosterone pill and another a placebo and observed their behavior while playing a game. It shows that the negative perception of testosterone as a substance linked to aggression may have affected women's behaviour in a negatively, although the hormone had a positive effect on social interactions.

The article focuses on the techniques developed by various group of researchers for sequencing cancer genomes. It states that sequencing technologies allow researchers to sequence the genome of an individual's cancer cells to identify all the mutations contributing to the cancer. It cites a study conducted genomicist Michael Stratton of the Wellcom Trust Sanger Institute which identified more than 33,000 mutations in the melanoma and more than 23,000 in the lung cancer.

The article reports on the research of psychologist Elizabeth Phelps and colleagues from New York University on ways of eliminating fearful memories, such as post-traumatic stress disorder. They found that a person's stored memory is called up and experienced anew and re-stored in a process known as reconsolidation. Moreover, she found that these painful memories can be eradicated by using behavioural manipulation or extinction training.

The article discusses the capacity animals and plant to shift with the changing climates and habitats. Plants and animals tend to shift with the changes at a phenomenal speed, according to global ecologist Christopher Field of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Stanford, California. While Carnegie postdoc Scott Loarie said that species who are used to the tropics tend to prefer continuous forests, than forest fragments.

The article discusses the introduction of near-field imaging to electron microscopy to develop real-time movies of nanometre-sized structures by Ahmed Zewail and his colleagues at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. The dubbed photon-induced near-field electron microscopy (PINEM) technique has the ability to alter the way scientists examine the nanoworld. Zewail mentions how his team work hard to discover fields of electrons within the nanostructures.

The article discusses the study of the flood's dynamics with the use of new formulations based on how rivers change landscapes through incision as modelled by Daniel Garcia-Castellanos and his colleagues in Barcelona, Spain. It mentions the influence of the underlying tectonic process that keeps water in place. It highlights the land bridge between Europe and Africa and the Mediterranean Sea.

The article reports on the study which aims to understand and examine the scope of RNA functions. It mentions that researchers Ronald Breaker and Zasha Weinberg have identified a class of non-coding RNA known as riboswitches which help cells to respond to the changing environmental condition through binding metabolites. It affirms that they modify their work and work on the research using tools being applied to the extensive genome databases to have an in-depth information on RNA's function.

The article reports on the significance of protein RANKL against osteoporosis. Josef Penninger, founding scientific director of the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, states that protein RANKL became a target for treatments against osteoporosis because it is a key regulator of bone physiology. In addition, it reduces bone fractures in postmenopausal women and in men with prostate cancer and serves as a key regulator of body temperature.

The article focuses on a study conducted by Samar Khatiwala and colleagues at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University in Palisades, New York, regarding the ocean carbon problems. They further measure the amount of carbon from carbon dioxide and the amount that came from human activity. Through the used of advection-diffusion equations, they found out that Southern Ocean absorbs larger amount of emissions, with approximately 40% of the total emission.

The article details an interview with Richard Mathies, author of a research investigating the structural changes in green fluorescent protein (GFP). He provides information about their research. By using Raman spectroscopy, Mathies also discusses how they materialized the first step of the study in visual process.

The article focuses on the discovery of David Weitz at his physics laboratory in Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachussetts that soft colloidal particles can be used to form glass. The discovery was made through a study along with postdoc Johan Mattsson and Zhibing Hu of University of North Texas in which they used colloids of different softness mixed at different temperatures and concentrations. Results show that softer particles approached the glass state more gradually than stiffer ones.

The article discusses the study of Ulli Eichman and colleagues of Max Born Institute in Berlin, Germany on the acceleration of neutral atoms using a strong laser pulse. It notes that Eichman and colleagues have used helium atoms in their experiment because of its atomic featherweight that can easily be push around with strong forces, and reveals that it has survived the strong laser. It mentions that its survival was because of the ability of helium's electron to oscillate near its ionic core.

The article focuses on the findings of the study conducted by Catherine Peichel and colleagues on genes underlying behavioural evolution in a population of sticklebacks in Japan. They found in their DNA testing that male fish that showed aggressive bumping had inherited a piece of chromosome 9. After five-year plus of work, the team found genetic evidence that a stickleback population in the Japan Sea has a new sex chromosome that explains the aggressive mating behavior of its males.

The article focuses on a study conducted by researchers led by Steven Bramwell of the University College London and Sean Giblin of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in London, England regarding the physical evidence for currents of magnetic monopoles. Bramwell states that the pairwise magnetic interactions between spinning atoms in spin ices stays disordered down to absolute zero. Giblin adds that a muon can be incredibly sensitive to local magnetic fields.

The article reports on the result of the study of Jay Neitz and Maureen Neitz on the monkeys who suffered colour blindness. Accordingly, the couple along with their colleagues have conducted an experiment with the monkeys-Dalton and Sam that are colour-blind since birth. It cites the transmission of the long-wavelength (L) opsin gene inside the eye and after a month it shows progress. Also cited is that the experiment offers hopes in treating colour blindness in human.

The article reports on the findings of the study about the function of crystalline molecular flask conducted by a team of researchers Makoto Fujita and his colleagues at the University of Tokyo in Tokyo, Japan. The researchers discovered a solution to the difficulty in catching a glimpse of the three-dimensional structures of the molecules' chemical reactions. The researchers made the solution by trapping the reagents in crystalline molecular flasks.

The article reports on the development of the European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica (EPICA) consortium to assess the controversial hypothesis on carbon isotopes in ice cores. It states that the consortium headed by Thomas Stocker of the Oeschger Center for Climate Change Research at the University of Bern, Switzerland will construct a historical record of atmospheric CO2 and other greenhouse gases. The study suggests that the hypothesis on carbon dioxide level can be rejected.

The article offers information on the factors that influence the formation of the atmospheric aerosols. The author states that the reaction of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) with hydroxyl radicals (OH) and ozone (O3) contributes to the formation of aerosol particles. Moreover, Astrid Kiendler-Scharr, an atmospheric chemist, with physicist Jürgen Wildt demonstrate the ability of isoprene to form aerosols.

The article discusses the development of a new synthesis that increases the performance of MFI, a zeolite. Researchers have done it through reducing the thickness of the zeolite crystal, thereby decreasing the lengths of the diffusion paths. They used a surfactant containing a quaternary ammonium group at one end to direct the synthesis of MFI. They found that when the zeolite was used to transform methanol into gasoline, the catalytic longevity has greatly increased.