It is now more likely that the next graduate student you meet in the US is from one of two Chinese alma maters than from any other U.S. university?

The June 20th issue of Science had an interesting story worth noting (interesting to anyone into molecular pharmacology, anyway), on Drugs, Industry, and Academia. It caught my attention because of some conversations that I’ve been having recently with colleagues and friends in the industry – how is Big Pharma going to maintain itself amid slowing [...]

Catching up on the news after being away for two weeks – Lawrence Krauss had short comment in the New Scientist, Stop creationists undermining school science. The very quote-worthy punchline being: Say that you are in charge of developing a state-wide high-school curriculum in French-language studies, and that you need the advice of a group [...]

Here is an excerpt from a great article that I found recently on Reductionism in Biology from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

The methods of science aren’t foolproof, but they are indefinitely perfectible. Just as important: there is a tradition of criticism that enforces improvement whenever and wherever flaws are discovered.

The Biotechniques journal celebrates 25 years of existence with a series of retrospective articles covering developments in various fields over the same period.

Here’s the context: “Eighty years after Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin on a moldy culture dish, the battle against killer bugs is faltering. More and more bacteria – including insidious tuberculosis strains that have cropped up2 – now shrug off almost all antibiotics. Meanwhile, few new antibiotics are reaching the clinic. Medicine is on the defensive, [...]

Following up on my post last week about Emerging Biomedical Technologies and their Promise, Nature had a timely editorial in last week’s issue. In Broken Promises, the article describes precisely the phenomenon that I was referring to: Intense public support for clinical research can be a mixed blessing – and the hunt for a vaccine [...]

Do you remember how around ten years ago, gene therapy was supposed to cure various inheritable diseases? Or how various discoveries herald the expected development of new vaccines (AIDS being a notable example)? Most scientists would agree that they try to ‘sell’ their research to publishers and foundations by exaggerating the importance of findings or [...]

Injecting human DNA into a non-human egg is a “monstrous” undertaking, of “Frankenstein” proportions, according to the Catholic church. Next they’ll be telling us that The Earth is flat. These comments, delivered in an Easter sermon by a high-ranking Cardinal, are part of the Catholic church’s recent campaign against The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, [...]