New Science / AAAS Webinar
Improving Tissue-Sample Profiling: The Optimization and Application of Immunohistochemistry
Tuesday, July 7, 2015, at 12 noon Eastern, 9 a.m. Pacific, 5 p.m. UK (BST), 6 p.m. Central Europe (CEST)
Understanding the basic principles underlying IHC and how to address the technical aspects of experimental design are key to producing high-quality, reproducible data. In this webinar, we will hear from experts who will share their insights into assay design.
Register TODAY: webinar.sciencemag.org
Produced by the Science/AAAS Custom Publishing Office and sponsored by EMD Millipore.
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Science
Weekly News
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| A roundup of the week’s top stories in Science:
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| In Brief |
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In science news around the world, DNA sequencing shows that the 8500-year-old Kennewick Man was Native American, experts with the International Whaling Commission again conclude that Japan’s lethal research whaling program isn’t scientifically justified, astronomers decide to restart construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope on Hawaii’s Mauna Kea, a clinical trial of a promising Ebola drug in Sierra Leone is halted early after it fails to show a benefit to patients, and more. Also, the invasive, predatory New Guinea flatworm is found on the U.S. mainland for the first time. And vulture populations in Africa have plummeted over the past 3 decades, due primarily to farmers poisoning carcasses to target lions or hyenas.
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| In Depth |
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Infectious Diseases
Kai Kupferschmidt
More than 16,000 people have survived the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, the biggest in history. While the virus is still spreading in parts of Guinea and Sierra Leone, some scientists are turning their attention to these survivors. Many of them report symptoms ranging from hearing loss and eye problems to fatigue and erectile dysfunction. In a joint effort, the Liberian ministry of health and the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases are investigating how many people are suffering from this “post-Ebola syndrome” and what might cause it. A similar study is going on in Guinea. Investigators also hope to find out whether there is a chance that some survivors might still transmit the virus to others. Ebola virus has been found in the semen of one survivor and the eye of another months after it had been cleared from the blood.
Genetics
Elizabeth Pennisi
Although researchers have scrutinized genes as if they were Hollywood celebrities, the stretches of regulatory DNA called enhancers have largely stayed in the background, their workings a mystery. A recent genetics meeting signaled a change: In talk after talk, researchers described where and how these quiet fixers exert their influence. One group showed how enhancers maintain the right level of sensitivity to other signals, so that they switch on genes only at the right times and places. Others explored how cells package genes and their enhancers so that they can work together properly, and how DNA forms loops that bring enhancers right to the target gene. The advances even point to strategies for exploiting these regulatory elements to treat disease, by switching off disease genes and turning up the activity of healthy ones.
Optics
Robert F. Service
Soaring traffic on global fiber optic networks could reduce the Internet to gridlock within a couple of years. But new work reported this week in Science could push that “capacity crunch” back several years. Researchers at the University of California, San Diego, targeted fluctuations in the wavelength of the lasers that generate data-carrying light pulses. Those tiny changes create “noise” that builds up with distance, limiting the range of optical signals. Because the noise is random, it’s usually impossible to filter out. But the scientists discovered an optical trick that converts it into a form that’s easier to separate from the main signal. As a result, they say, light pulses can either carry twice as much data or travel twice as far before needing to be amplified.
Q&A
Daniel Clery
The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) has spawned a globe-girdling network of 300 detector stations that sniff out radionuclides, listen for low-frequency sounds, and record tremors—all to discern whether countries are carrying out clandestine nuclear weapons tests. And the treaty has not yet even come into force; the United States remains a prominent holdout. But the CTBT’s $1 billion International Monitoring System is 90% complete and has scored notable successes. Among them: sizing up North Korea’s nuclear tests, plotting the spread of radionuclides from the Fukushima nuclear accident, and tracking the spectacular Chelyabinsk meteorite as it broke up over Siberia in 2013. This global stethoscope is amassing a treasure trove of data. Initially, the CTBT Organization (CTBTO), based in Vienna, didn’t share, but after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami—when the monitoring system could have given an early warning—things have loosened up. Now, timely data are sent to tsunami warning centers in 13 countries, as well as to civil aviation authorities and nuclear regulators. This glasnost is due in large part to Lassina Zerbo, director of CTBTO’s International Data Centre from 2004 to 2013 and, since then, the organization’s executive secretary. Zerbo spoke with Science for this Q&A on the eve of the 5th CTBT Science and Technology Conference.
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| Feature |
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Jocelyn Kaiser
In the fall of 2013, emails arrived in the inboxes of dozens of scientists informing that their work had been chosen for scrutiny by a project aiming to replicate 50 high-impact cancer biology papers. The Reproducibility Project: Cancer Biology, an ambitious, open-science effort to test whether key findings in top journals can be reproduced by independent labs, has stirred concerns in the community. Almost every scientist targeted by the project who spoke with Science agrees that studies in cancer biology, as in many other fields, too often turn out to be irreproducible. But few feel comfortable with this particular effort, which plans to announce its findings in coming months. Leaders of the project say it will ultimately benefit the field by gauging the extent of the reproducibility problem in cancer biology.
Eric Hand
On 14 July, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft will swoop past Pluto, the gatekeeper to a region of thousands of icy bodies known as the Kuiper belt. Alan Stern is the principal investigator for the $700 million mission—the largest and most expensive ever controlled by a non-NASA employee. Equal parts taskmaster, entrepreneur, and showman, Stern has been working for 25 years to get a spacecraft to Pluto—10 years to muster political and scientific will, 5 years to build a spacecraft, and nearly 10 years to make the trip. Like the instrument-studded spacecraft—delivered on time and on budget—Stern is packed with purpose.
Eric Hand
Even while getting a NASA spacecraft to Pluto, Alan Stern has found time to set up two companies on the side. One, called Golden Spike, plans to sell billion-dollar trips to the moon to other nations. Another, called Uwingu, promotes gimmicky campaigns—such as selling unofficial naming rights to martian craters—in order to raise money for space research.
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New Science / AAAS Webinar
Improving Tissue-Sample Profiling: The Optimization and Application of Immunohistochemistry
Tuesday, July 7, 2015, at 12 noon Eastern, 9 a.m. Pacific, 5 p.m. UK (BST), 6 p.m. Central Europe (CEST)
Understanding the basic principles underlying IHC and how to address the technical aspects of experimental design are key to producing high-quality, reproducible data. In this webinar, we will hear from experts who will share their insights into assay design.
Register TODAY: webinar.sciencemag.org
Produced by the Science/AAAS Custom Publishing Office and sponsored by EMD Millipore.
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Science and the future 