The Australian Academy taps a new head, the PATRIOT Act proves prodigal and tainted rotavirus vaccines are given the all-clear.

— A new study provides further support for the notion that autism and schizophrenia might be two ends of the same spectrum. DNA comparisons from more than 1,700 adults with schizophrenia and twice as many healthy individuals found copy number variations in or near genes that had previously been linked to autism and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. (Scientific American)

— A US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) panel recommended the continued use of contaminated rotavirus vaccines despite trace amounts of a pig virus. For the time being, the recommended suspension against GlaxoSmithKline’s Rotarix, which was discovered to be contaminated well before the researchers detected the virus in Merck’s Rotateq, remains in effect, and the agency will make a decision on new recommendations “in the very near future,” according to an FDA official. (Reuters)

— Two pieces of legislation passed in the wake of 11 September 2001 have made research involving select agents less efficient in the US, according to a report published yesterday in PNAS. For example, the cost of a study involving the Ebola virus rose from around $60,000 to more than $330,000 since lawmakers adopted the Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002 and the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001, the study authors found. (Nature News)

— Cancer biologist Suzanne Cory was elected president of the Australian Academy of Science this week — only the second female to head up the venerable, 56-year-old institution. Also the first female to lead Melbourne’s Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research and one of Australia’s most highly cited researchers, Cory has clearly traversed science’s gender divide. (Sydney Morning Herald)

Image of Rotarix vaccine from Nature Reviews Microbiology