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Hollywood's absent-minded professor, always a cliché, is now more unrealistic than ever before. Just how can biological research move forward in the modern era?
Burundi and Rwanda have been hit before by atrocious cases of ethnic violence. Why are there discrepancies between these occurrences and the United Nations population data?
The complementary interests of climate scientists, national and international bureaucracies and politicians have so far determined the political dynamics of the global warming debate. But cracks are now beginning to appear.
A World Health Organization (WHO) advisory committee meeting in Geneva at the end of last month approved phase III trials for HIV vaccines in developing countries. What is the justification for this decision?
The planned international observatory at Mount Graham, Arizona, provides a model of how environmental concerns should be met in a project of this size. But it remains vulnerable to Irresponsible "activists".
Is milk produced using recombinant bovine growth hormone hazardous to animal health? Despite wide publicity, the controversy remains unresolved. Rapid publication of all available data is essential if progress is to be made.
How can the international trade in genetic resources help global biodiversity conservation? The UN's Biodiversity Convention provides the means to resolve this question.
Everybody knows that the situation for scientific researchers in the former Soviet Union is dire. But, in Russia at least, there is some reason for optimism.
Modern biology has far-reaching implications for medicine. But a new type of medical training will be necessary If advances in scientific understanding are to become advances in treatment.
Linus Pauling, a giant of modern chemistry, died on 19 August (see page 584 of last week's issue). What follows is an account, in his own words, of his first years as a research scientist.
New infectious diseases continue to emerge, yet there is no clear strategy for managing them. A model response should be devised in the light of past events such as the recent US outbreak of a previously unknown hantavirus.
As a first step towards a new form of male contraception - sperm cryopreservation, vasectomy and eventual artificial insemination - the military services should begin a large-scale sperm cryopreservation programme.
The mass screening of plants in the search for new drugs is vastly expensive and inefficient. It would be cheaper and perhaps more productive to re-examine plant remedies described in ancient and mediaeval texts.
Value-judgements about the need for more ‘goal-directed’ or ‘basic’ scientific research beg the question of how the publicly funded scientific enterprise works. An efficient management would start to put things right.
Panda conservation in China has been plagued by controversy and cultural and political differences. But international cooperation, together with new studies identifying the main threats, offer renewed hope for the species' survival.
What should be the priorities for supporting life-science research in Europe? This article, an upshot of an initiative by Commissioner Ruberti of the European Union, addresses the question.
The Burke and Wills expedition through the interior of Australia in the nineteenth century ended in calamity. But the cause of death was more pernicious than anyone at the time had imagined: beriberi due to thiaminase poisoning.
