Science Policy

A new IOM report claims that abstinence education for AIDS prevention (that the US funds) is not as effective as other methods.

The University of Wisconsin just had its patents on embryonic stem cells revoked. This could have a significant impact on stem cell research.

According to this blog there is a bill in congress to improve science communication with the public.

A consortium has been formed to knock-out every gene in the mouse. Wow.

For all the environmentalists, San Francisco has finally banned plastic bags from major chain stores. This NY Times article gets into some details behind this issue. The bottom line is that it should be good for the environment.

Newsweek has an article about the doubt behind the Cancer Genome project. Is it worth it?

The BMJ just published a series of articles discussing impact factors. This article gives a nice history of the metric and how it has changed the publishing enterprise.

A very sad article about how cuts in funding at the NIH are affecting clinical trials on pediatric cancer. While patient numbers and statistics are vital to the results of a trial, it is disturbing to find out that budgetary issues are forcing trials to recruit fewer patients or collect fewer samples. Budget cuts are actually hurting the data.

Here's a Nature article about a new online tool for data analysis. This article also brings up the point that scientists have not embraced the web as a tool for communication. Another article by the same author gets further into this point.

This synopsis summarizes an article that argues oxidation is the common pathway for toxicity. It also argues that very low doses of many compounds can alter oxidation state and cellular phenotypes.