After months of speculation, a US government agency last week revealed its proposed guidelines for the federal funding of research using human embryonic stem cells. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) propose to allow the public funding of stem cell research but recommend prohibiting publicly funded scientists from the process...
Patients at certain infertility clinics in the UK have a six times better chance of conceiving than others, according to figures published in the annual patients' guide last week by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA). One London clinic is achieving a 'take home baby rate' of 36.7 per...
An international team of researchers has passed a scientific milestone by deciphering, for the first time, the complete genetic code of a human chromosome. Reporting in last week's Nature, researchers from the Wellcome Trust funded Sanger Centre in Cambridge, Keio University in Japan and various US laboratories announced their success...
Speculation about merger talks between SmithKline Beecham and Glaxo Wellcome was rekindled last week after confirmation that Jan Leschly will step down as SB chief executive to pursue his interests in the Internet. Previous merger talks between the two pharmaceutical giants collapsed last February with Mr Leschly's proposed role in...
Researchers at Colorado State University claim to be able to reliably sort sperm with X chromosomes from those with Y chromosomes, thereby allowing the selection of a mammalian offspring's sex when employing artificial insemination. A special dye stains sperm differently depending on which sex chromosome they have. The dyed sperm...
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Is Britain really so anti-science?
by Juliet Tizzard
Those who so often worry that the British public feel nothing but animosity towards science may be breathing a huge sigh of relief this week. News last week that one of the 23 chromosomes in the human genome had been entirely mapped was met with almost universal good feeling. Those...