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Volume 396 Issue 6711, 10 December 1998

Opinion

  • The process from which the Nevada desert has emerged as the only candidate site for disposal of US high-level nuclear waste has been flawed. But the result may still be a safe repository.

    Opinion

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News

  • washington

    Germany's new left-leaning coalition government may be a stumbling block to timely approval of new laws governing biotechnology patents, according to a German official.

    • Tony Reichhardt
    News

  • washington

    The US Department of Energy is preparing to investigate claims that underground fluids may have entered its proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, possibly less than a million years ago.

    • Ehsan Masood
    News

  • paris

    Plans by France's science minister for sweeping reforms of the country's research system suffered a serious setback last week when all senior adminsitrators in his own research department resigned.

    • Declan Butler
    News

  • sydney

    A wide-ranging overhaul of university funding in New Zealand has pleased polytechnics and Crown Research Institutes, but attracted criticism from university leaders and researchers.

    • Peter Pockley
    News

  • london

    The ‘shadow’ science minister in Britain's opposition Conservative party has expressed regret for cuts that were made to the funding of science whilst the Conservatives were in power.

    • Natasha Loder
    News

  • washington

    The US company Monsanto is considering delaying the introduction of its controversial germination control technology — tagged by critics as ‘terminator’ technology.

    • Ehsan Masood
    News

  • SÃO PAULO

    Brazil's Ministry of Science and Technology could be merged with the larger Ministry of Education when the second term of President Fernando Henrique Cardoso begins next year.

    • Ricardo Bonalume Neto
    News

  • london

    The use of cloning techniques should be permitted in human embryo research under restricted circumstances, recommends a report by the UK Human Genetics Advisory Commission and the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority.

    • Natasha Loder
    News

  • cape town

    Some international AIDS researchers are considering boycotting the forthcoming World AIDS Congress in South Africa in protest against a decision to abandon plans to administer AZT to pregnant mothers.

    • Michael Cherry
    News

  • munich

    Biomedical researchers in Germany and Britain are calling for greater support from research organizations following a wave of violence and death threats by animal rights activists.

    • Quirin Schiermeier
    News
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News in Brief

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Correspondence

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Commentary

  • The green movement has an impressive history of drawing attention to environmental problems. But if these are to be solved it must be more closely engaged in forging partnerships with business and government.

    • Pete Wilkinson
    Commentary
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News & Views

  • Ever since their discovery, extrasolar planets have challenged standard ideas about planet formation. Faced with increasing numbers of ‘unusual’ planetary systems, astronomers are now developing models that attempt to explain these giant planets around Sun-like stars.

    • Brett Gladman
    News & Views

  • The so-called SNARE hypothesis suggests that membranes bearing v- (for donor vesicle) and t- (for target membrane) SNAREs join and fuse to assemble membranes. This view is now challenged by two studies that define three distinct stages in the fusion pathway, and show that formation of a v-t-SNARE complex is, in fact, separable from membrane fusion.

    • Randy Schekman
    News & Views

  • A great deal can be learned from the composition of gases emitted by volcanoes, but there are obvious dangers in sampling them at the volcano itself or even from aircraft. Hence the need for remote sensing of such emissions, and the value of techniques which in particular allow their halogen content to be analysed.

    • William I. Rose
    • Gregg J. S. Bluth
    News & Views

  • It is now well established that mitochondria - organelles that consume oxygen and produce ATP - arose from an endosymbiotic bacterium that colonized eukaryotic cells. This has led scientists to wonder whether hydrogenosomes, which generate hydrogen as a by-product of ATP synthesis, might have arisen in the same way. Support for this idea now comes from the identification of a hydrogenosome that contains its own genome.

    • T. Martin Embley
    • William Martin
    News & Views

  • Hydrodynamic turbulence is a universal phenomenon - found in the motion of interstellar dust in spiral galaxies and in the flow of water from a tap. But scientists have always wondered whether the properties of turbulent flow are universal. Experiments with magnetically ordered crystals and airflow in a closed volume indicate that some of the statistics of turbulence are universal.

    • Victor S. L'vov
    News & Views

  • A complete skull of the hominidAustralopithecushas been uncovered in the Member 2 breccia of the Sterkfontein Caves near Krugersdorp, South Africa. The fossil is believed to be more than three million years old, and the scientists who found it believe that the rest of the skeleton may still be buried under the breccia.

    • Henry Gee
    News & Views

  • Estimation of how much of the rising atmospheric burden of carbon dioxide is taken up by the oceans is central to predicting how climate may change. Making such measurements is a highly demanding task, not least because the annual increase in oceanic CO2is tiny. From studies in the Indian Ocean, however, an accurate accounting of ocean uptake of anthropogenic CO2now seems possible - at least on a local basis, and over a ten-year period.

    • Alain Poisson
    News & Views

  • The genome is not static - it is dynamic and constantly evolving. A striking example of this comes with the identification of a recently evolved gene that encodes a component of a sperm protein. The gene,Sdic, was created from two different parts of two unrelated genes. What's more, part of an intron from one of the original genes was refashioned into a protein-coding exon in the new gene.

    • Pierre Capy
    News & Views

  • A new purple precious ‘stone’ has entered the market, though it is in fact not a stone at all. Rather it is the intermetallic compound AuAl2, which is being set into jewellery by a South African business specializing in mineral and metallurgical technology.

    • Robert W. Cahn
    News & Views

  • The classical DNA double helix, known as B-form DNA, has the bases on the inside and the phosphate backbone wrapped around the outside. Another stable DNA structure has now been identified. Christened P-form DNA, this conformation has the phosphate backbone running up the middle, and may be involved in transcription and replication.

    • Alison Mitchell
    News & Views

  • Animals are known to use electrical signalling in their nerves and some fish produce enough electricity to stun a predator. This week Daedalus wonders if the electrical potential of plants has been overlooked. DREADCO botanists are searching for weeds that generate electricity with the hope that selective breeding could eventually produce an environmentally friendly power plant.

    • David Jones
    News & Views
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Science and Image

  • Today we need computers to create images of the complex structures of protein molecules. Irving Geis, nearly 40 years ago, painted a portrait of myoglobin using only his astounding observational skills.

    • Martin Kemp
    Science and Image
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Scientific Correspondence

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Book Review

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Review Article

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Article

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Letter

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New on the Market

  • Finding the answers to complex life science problems requires implements well matched to their task — such tools may be found in the emerging electronic marketplaces that operate over the the Internet and kick off this cell biology section.

    • Brendan Horton
    New on the Market
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