How bacteria grew to love baseball

Article Abstract:

Stephen Jay Gould, a distinguished professor of geology at Harvard University, is well respected for his scholarship but criticized for unnecessary contentiousness. Gould is a prolific and eclectic essay writer in the field of natural history, but the main theme running through his career is the dynamics of evolution. Although he accepts Darwinism, he believes it is not fully adequate. Gould's theory of punctuated equilibria supports rapid bursts of evolutionary change rather than gradual change from the favouring of small advantages and he views small evolutionary changes as accidental rather than as selective and progressive.

Analysis, Interview, Evolution (Biology), Evolution, Gould, Stephen Jay

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Salami slicers taken to task

Article Abstract:

There has been an overdue move to tackle the problem of medical research fraud in the United Kingdom. Research papers may be divided up into a number of small papers, a common form of fraud. Data may also be falsified, and work may be plagiarised. This affected one researcher who sent a paper for review in order for it to be published in a research journal. The paper was rejected and the findings subsequently published by the reviewer as his own. One way to tackle the problem is to concentrate research in fewer establishments and limit the amount of research carried out.

United Kingdom, Investigations, Medical research, Fraud in science, Science fraud, Research ethics

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Pork that could give us the chop

Article Abstract:

Xenotransplantation, transplanting organs from pigs or baboons into humans, has the potential to save thousands of lives, but concern has already been expressed at the possibility that the animal organs might contain viruses which could start new epidemics. Robin Weiss, a professor at the London, England-based Institute of Cancer Research, has shown that a pig retrovirus is capable of infecting human cells in the laboratory. However it is not known whether the pig retrovirus actually causes human disease, or whether it can be easily transmitted between humans.

Research, Swine, Viruses, Transplantation of organs, tissues, etc., Organ transplantation, Tissue transplantation, Transplantation, Origin

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