Filing deadlines set in US stem cell appeal
Precisely how an increasingly complex legal drama surrounding stem cells will unfold is not known, but a timetable for the next act has now been set. Read more
Precisely how an increasingly complex legal drama surrounding stem cells will unfold is not known, but a timetable for the next act has now been set. Read more
Like any federal agency, NASA is subject to the whims of Congress, which funds its activities. And following the passage of the NASA Authorization Act of 2010 on 29 September, the agency’s priorities have been reshaped. Read more
It’s that time of year, when a few elite scientists are recognized for years of hard work tackling the great problems of the day. Yes, IgNobel season is upon us.
A court in Freiburg, Germany, has upheld the right of disgraced physicist Jan Hendrik Schőn to hold a doctoral degree, reversing a 2004 decision by his alma-mater, the University of Konstanz, to withdraw it. Schőn, who was a staff physicist at Lucent Technologies’ Bell Labs in New Jersey, is notorious for having perpetrated a remarkable string of fabrications in the fields of organic and molecular electronics, several of which were published in Nature and Science between 2000 and 2002. The university withdrew his PhD not because of any misconduct in his 1997 thesis, but because of its view that misconduct … Read more
The US House of Representatives burned the midnight oil to pass S.3729, an authorization bill for NASA, by a vote of 304 to 118 on 29 September. Read more
Back in May the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research hosted a National Climate Adaptation Summit that brought together roughly 150 people representing the US science, business and policy communities for a three-day conversation about coping with the impacts of global warming. On Wednesday, summit representatives provided the White House with a summary document (available here) laying out a series of recommendations as the administration seeks to craft a national adaptation strategy. Read more
Not too hot. Not too cold. Those are the criteria that astronomers have applied in their search for habitable worlds beyond our solar system. Now, an Earth-sized planet has been discovered that apparently meets the Goldilocks test. Read more
Only nine days after the end of the comment period on the US Department of Interior’s proposed policy on scientific integrity, Secretary Ken Salazar has issued a memo that appears to address some of the issues raised by critics and recently reported in Nature. The memo orders the development of a new policy that “must clearly direct that DOI employees, political and career, must never suppress or alter, without new scientific or technological evidence, scientific or technological findings or conclusions. Further, employees will not be coerced to alter or censure scientific findings, and employees will be protected if they uncover … Read more
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