In The News

In the Midst of War, Bloggers Are Talking Across the Front Line

Sarah Ellison August 3, 2006
Both Israeli and Lebanese citizens rely on the internet to provide live updates of their experiences. Before the fighting started, communications across the border were rare, as Lebanon prohibits Israeli citizens from crossing the border, and there are no phone connections between the two states. While most of the bloggers are Western educated, the conversations come in all forms, ranging from...

Cell Out

David A. Shaywitz July 26, 2006
When US President Bush vetoed stem-cell legislation, he did not stop scientists from pursuing stem-cell research. The US creates hundreds of thousands of embryos for infertile couples, many of which are disposed of or frozen, but prohibits federal funding to study any new embryo lines created after August 2001. Researchers hope to use the cells to treat diseases like Alzheimer’s, diabetes and...

Custom-Built Pathogens Raise Bioterror Fears

Joby Warrick July 25, 2006
In 2002, German-born molecular geneticist Eckard Wimmer created the first live and fully functioning virus in a lab. Built from scratch, this virus was a variation of one that causes polio. Wimmer points out that he didn’t invent the technology that made his experiment possible, but only drew attention to equipment that’s available at any well-funded university. Al Qaeda has sought biological...

Gates Won't Fund AIDS Researchers Unless They Pool Data

Marilyn Chase July 21, 2006
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, run by the chairman of the Microsoft Corporation, will deliver $287 million in five-year grants to researchers working to produce an AIDS vaccine. The caveat: Grantees must agree to pool their results. Fragmented and overlapping work in the area of AIDS research has hindered progress toward a vaccination for the virus that affects 40 million people around...

Wildfire Increase Linked to Climate

Robert Lee Hotz July 10, 2006
Climate changes – and not just land-use or forest management practices – are responsible for an increasing number of wildfires, researchers conclude after studying 34 years worth of data. The scientists also blame greenhouse gas emissions and other types of pollution for wildfire seasons that lengthen with every passing year. Wildfires affect much of the western US, but are most prevalent in the...

For Dr. Sengupta, Long-Term Visa Is a Long Way Off

June Kronholz June 30, 2006
Highly successful immigrant researchers, doctors and engineers often wait years for citizenship in the US. The US Labor Department has a backlog of 235,000 skilled-immigrant permanent-residency applications, and the Citizenship and Immigration Service has another backlog of 180,000 cases. About half of the Ph.D. engineers and scientists in the US are foreign born, according to the National...

Outsourcing Your Heart

Unmesh Kher May 23, 2006
People forced to pay their own health-care costs tend to hunt for bargains. As a result, medical tourism is booming, with patients in the US, Canada and UK scheduling flights to obtain surgery in India, Thailand, and other countries with trained physicians and procedures that cost 25 percent or less than those based in the US. Uninsured or underinsured patients in particular arrange for plastic...