Search

FLAGSTAFF, ARIZONA--It's hard to resist comparing forest ecologist Wally Covington to the old-growth ponderosa pines that tower above this bustling mountain town. Both are tall and burly, with rugged skins [...]

When computer scientist Jennifer Weller took a job at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute in Blacksburg last year, she was eager to start work on new 'open source' genome-sifting software that [...]

U.S. scientists anxious about next year's federal research budget got some good news last week. Several congressional panels approved preliminary 2002 spending bills that restore research programs targeted for cuts [...]

Science lobbyists are enjoying unprecedented success in Washington, from pumping up biomedical research budgets to blocking unwanted regulations. Can it last? The team of animal-welfare activists walked out of a [...]

Research librarians have asked the U.S. government to block one of the biggest ever science publishing mergers as part of a battle against spiraling subscription prices and the growing concentration [...]

Biomedical research groups have won a last-minute reprieve from threatened regulations covering laboratory mice, rats, and birds. In a surprise reversal, Congress voted this week to bar the U.S. Department [...]

The U.S. government has decided that laboratory mice are animals. This week a federal judge is expected to accept an agreement between the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and animal-welfare [...]

An increasingly public backlash by scientists angry about recent security crackdowns at Department of Energy (DOE) labs is having an effect. DOE is preparing to streamline some rules and is [...]

What began as an explosive case of alleged nuclear espionage petered out in an Albuquerque, New Mexico, courtroom this week. Once last-minute legal wrangling is complete, physicist Wen Ho Lee [...]

Animal-rights activists may have landed a knockout blow in their decade-old fight to force the U.S. government to regulate the use of laboratory mice, rats, and birds. Some research groups [...]

A plan to double federal civilian research spending over a decade is surprisingly contentious because it could cramp biomedicine's push for even faster growth The idea of doubling federal spending [...]

Conceived in controversy, the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah is the largest U.S. reserve ever created specifically for science. Now, 3 years after President Bill Clinton set it [...]

Last summer, astronomer Mark Hurwitz won a coveted NASA grant to build one of the first members of a new generation of small, bargain-priced science satellites. But there was a [...]

A coalition of animal rights advocates--including three academic scientists and a biomedical supply company--announced this week that it will go to federal court to force the U.S. government to redefine [...]

Three years ago, the small number of life scientists using the term 'biosecurity' were talking about ways to keep diseased crops and livestock from crossing national borders. Then came the [...]

The government's interpretation of a 25-year-old law giving federally funded researchers the tight to patent and commercialize their discoveries was put to the test last week. AIDS activists want the [...]

Will U.S. scientists soon have to ask the government for permission to perform certain potentially dangerous biological experiments? That's the question swirling around lab benches in the wake of a [...]

There's no end in sight to a bitter legal battle over the use of patented tools in academic research. The U.S. government's top lawyer has recommended that the Supreme Court [...]

The University of Rochester's dream of reaping a billion-dollar windfall from a drug patent has suffered a serious setback. A federal judge last week ruled invalid the university's sweeping claim [...]

When Johns Hopkins University scientists met with the school's general counsel to discuss a recent court ruling involving patent rights, the lawyer offered them a disturbing real estate tip. 'I [...]

University of Utah physicist Xiaomei Jiang rushed home to China this fall after her parents died in a car crash. But new security reviews adopted after the 11 September terrorist [...]

Ocean mappers are getting funding from governments eager to divide up 5% of the sea floor. Some of the claims have already sparked controversy., Centuries ago, James Cook and other explorers set sail to lay claim to vast and valuable new territories. Modern ocean scientists are embarking on similar voyages of discovery, but this [...]

Texas A&M University found itself the villain of a political drama last week, as the U.S. Senate rushed to complete work on legislation creating the new Department of Homeland Security [...]

The U.S. Supreme Court has scaled back a controversial lower court ruling that some feared would open the door to wholesale copying of patented inventions. Research universities and some technology [...]

Biomedical and agricultural researchers working with potential bioweapons face an array of new regulations under a new U.S. law aimed at combating bioterrorism. Science lobbyists say that the rules, passed [...]

Biomedical research groups have won a major victory in a long-running battle over U.S. government regulation of laboratory mice and rats. But the war isn't over. The U.S. Senate last [...]

BOSTON--U.S. academic researchers are again debating the wisdom of doing secret science on campus. But some Bush Administration officials hope that the answers will be different from the ones most [...]

When California officials began holding public meetings last year on a controversial state plan to ban fishing in some coastal waters, some anglers raised a stink. Their anger, which included [...]

Molecular biologist Julia Hilliard has spent the past 20 years studying deadly viruses, including the monkey-borne B virus that can destroy a person's brain. But if the Georgia State University [...]

The possibility of bioterrorism shouldn't stop scientists from freely sharing genome data, concludes a new report from the National Academies' National Research Council (NRC). The study, requested by the CIA [...]

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has rejected a controversial plea to use its legal muscle to rein in the spiraling cost of a widely used AIDS drug. NIH Director [...]

Most scientists predict that it will be at least several years before human embryonic stem cells are used to treat disease. But Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry is betting [...]

Two new reports have reminded scientists of the fine line between scientific freedom and national security at U.S. universities. The first, from two associations representing top research institutions, documents how [...]

Marine conservationists are demanding that the U.S. government take emergency action to protect deep-sea corals and sponges from net-dragging trawlers. Arguing that environmental regulations haven't kept pace with new science, [...]

The 21st Century Nanotech Research and Development Act (S. 189) authorizes the government to spend $3.7 billion over the next 4 years on the science of the very small. Universities [...]

Bowing to mounting criticism, the Department of Energy (DOE) will curtail its use of polygraph tests among nuclear weapons scientists and security officials. Last week DOE Undersecretary Kyle McSlarrow told [...]

Bioethicists, make room for nanoethicists. The U.S. Congress is on the verge of approving legislation that would require the government to study the implications of nanotechnology at the same time [...]

The U.S. government's effort to regulate bioterror research appears to be off to a rocky start. Key elements of the sweeping new security rules are vague, confusing, and possibly counterproductive, [...]

If it were a movie, it would be called Clone Wars II. Last week, the U.S. Senate resumed an emotional debate over proposed legislation that would ban all human cloning--including [...]

Do it yourself--before the government does it to you. That's the advice U.S. bioscientists received last week at a workshop on developing guidelines to handle research findings that could threaten [...]

One of science's hottest fields is now becoming one of its most heavily regulated, too. The U.S. government last week unveiled sweeping new bioterror research regulations that will require 20,000 [...]

CAMBRIDGE, U.K. -- In what could prove to be a serious blow to Europe's ailing cod-fishing industry, fisheries scientists last week advised the European Union (E.U.) to ban cod fishing [...]

A misrigged trawling net has brought a haul of problems for the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). The faulty net has been used for the past 2 years in [...]

Every child knows that if Mom says no, she can always ask Dad. Now, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is worded that clinical researchers might try the same [...]

A proposal to impose new controls on U.S. scientists who do basic research for the military is drawing fire from universities, members of Congress, and even some top Pentagon research [...]