Nikon has announced the winners of this year’s International Small World Competition — the 36-year-old contest that pits the world’s research laboratories against each other to crown the rulers of microscopy — and the results are stunning. Jonas King, a graduate student in the Vanderbilt University lab of biologist Julián Hillyer, took home the prize…
In this week’s F1000 roundup (your primary source of free F1000 evaluations) we have the genetic basis of height, a handle on the treatment of Parkinson’s disease, the effects of discrimination on lesbian, gay and bisexual adults, a new diagnostic for leptospirosis, and, I promise, no structural biology…
When we come down with flu, we do everything we can to get rid of the virus and get better. But when we come down with mind viruses—or ideas that harm us rather than help us—we often just accept them as “how things are,” doing nothing to counter their damaging effects. There’s one mind virus,…
After a month or so of preview, all of F1000 is now sporting the new design. This means if you go to f1000biology.com or f1000medicine.com, you’ll be redirected to the new look F1000.com. This includes The Scientist magazine, and of course Naturally Selected, as you can probably tell. There are a few wrinkles to sort…
Although it was by far the most visible thing we did, the Science is Vital rally was never intended to be the only event. It was, more than anything, a publicity stunt designed to rally support and to send a message to the Treasury that we were serious. There was, as you might expect from…
Last Wednesday, in celebration of Stem Cell Awareness Day, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) announced the winners of its annual poetry contest. The poems were not all well received, however. One poem in particular, titled Stem C., contains liturgical language used during the Christian sacrament of Eucharist, causing the Life Legal Defense Foundation…
A breathalyser for diagnosing disease sounds like something we’d expect to see on Star Trek. But work published in the British Journal of Cancer and evaluated by Christopher Janetopoulos suggests that such a thing might become not just possible, but affordable too. The ‘electronic nose’ detects volatile organic compounds1 arising from the peroxidation of membrane…
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. —Margaret Mead There comes a time when you have to say, “Enough.” Draw a line in the sand—this far, and no further. To stand up for what you hold dear. That’s all…
Skip the postdoc? The National Institutes of Health has begun a new program that allows PhDs and MDs to become Principal Investigators — without doing a postdoc. The Early Independence Awards (DP5) offer up to $250,000 in annual direct costs for five years for the “pool of talented young scientists who have the intellect, scientific…
Adult lemurs appear to play as a way of breaking the ice with males not a part of the established social group, according to a recent study published in PLoS ONE. Observing wild populations of lemurs, sociobiologist Elisabetta Palagi of the University of Pisa in Italy and her colleagues found that males tended to play…
