Today's issue of Science includes a publication by researchers at the Heinrich Pette Institute for Experimental Virology and Immunology in Hamburg and their partners at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, discussing the results of their attempt to use enzymes to remove a specific, rarely mutating sequence of HIV-1: successf […]

Two new studies (CDC and Slone), published in the June 28, 2007 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, examine whether or not SSRI antidepressants contribute to birth defects if taken during pregnancy. The results are very reassuring. In an accompanying editorial by Michael F. Greene, MD, he writes: ...neither SSRIs as a group not individual SSRIs are […]

"What strikes you as the oddest feature of your experience, so far?" I considered. "There's so much—" "Might it not be that you have not seen a single man?" she suggested. I thought back. I remembered the wondering tone of one of the Mothers asking: "What is a man?" "That's certainly one of them," I […]

Advanced Cell Technology (ACT) announced in Nature Magazine in August of 2006 that they were creating embryonic stem cell lines from biopsied embyros. The headlines were a bit misleading, suggesting that this method did not result in the destruction of the embryos, when it did. Today, ACT announced at the fifth annual meeting of the International Society for […]

China Central Television (CCTV) is reporting that US researchers (Shoukhrat Mitalipov of the Oregon National Primate Research Center) in the US have produced the first embryonic stem-cell line using SCNT (cloning) from rhesus monkeys -- and that they were able to get these cells to differentiate. The researchers reported their findings at stem cell research […]

Well, as expected, Bush has vetoed the recently passed measure lifting the restrictions on human embyronic stem cell research. As the New York Times notes, this vetoputs him at odds not only with the majority of voters, according to polls, but also with many members of his own political party. Republicans sent him a similar measure last year when they contro […]

Over on MSNBC, Art Caplan writes about news outlets going gaga over megamultiples, and forgetting to report the downsides: One of the biggest problems arising when megamultiples — more than three babies born all at one time — arrive is the gushing media coverage of the births. First, there's the dash to get a camera into the nursery for baby pictures. E […]

An interesting paper looking at the potential fate of the nation's hundreds of thousands of frozen embryos will show up Thursday on the Science site (It's there now -- see also two related press releases from Duke and JHU). Ann Drapkin Lyerly (Duke Med Center) and Ruth Faden (JHU's Berman Institute of Bioethics) surveyed more two thousand infe […]

The NYTimes reports that the makers of Trojan condoms have developed a new marketing campaign called "Evolve." The message is all about thinking about your own health and that of your partners everytime -- a great public health message. However, CBS and the FOX networks are refusing to air these new TV commercials even during late night programming […]

I hate when the media proclaims, “They’ll have to rewrite the textbooks.” It’s easy for them to say. They don’t do it. I do. That phrase will likely be bandied about this week with the multiple publications from the ENCODE project. That stands for the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements Project, a mega-effort from 35 research groups around the globe to dissect a re […]