Britain's drive to put universities on a different funding base, which is also a key issue in many other countries scrutinising their higher education sector, continues to force major changes to traditional practice. One of the latest moves is to introduce measures to allow universities to estimate the full economic cost of its research projects, so that they are fully aware of these and can th...

The industrial workshop “Antibody biosimilars” was opened by Hervé Watier (CNRS UMR 7292, Université FrançoisRabelais de Tours, France), coordinator of the MAbImprove Laboratory of Excellence. He delivered his welcome address, starting with a quick recall of the LabEx MAbImprove story. This LabEx was created in 2011 and funded by “Investment for the Future” program (French “Big Loan”). He then ...

Clonogenic survival of HeLa, Chinese hamster and HaK cells after treatment with a range of cisplatin concentrations and exposure times was determined and cellular platinum concentrations were measured by PIXE. It was demonstrated that cisplatin cytotoxicity of the three cell lines varied considerably as a function of drug exposure dose. These differences are related to differential cellular dru...

Next year is International Year of Biodiversity but the latest report last month from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) marks a grim introduction to the year with growing numbers of species under threat. The Red List of Endangered Species is the world's most comprehensive information source on the global conservation status of plant and animal species with much infor...

Alarm bells rang eight years ago with the evidence that mad cow disease could pass from cows to humans via the food chain. But new research suggests that the disease, although still a problem in a number of countries, will have a limited effect on the human population.

The threat of bioterrorism has had a recent airing in the UK with radio adverts calling for volunteers to test a new anthrax vaccine. But even if the threat is relatively minor in comparison to real and possible natural disasters such as AIDS or influenza, its presence in political and public debate implies that the scientific community has to deal with it in some way. In November 2003, the Wel...

Evidence from twin studies suggests that genetic factors contribute to the risk of developing a fear or a phobia. The aim of the present study was to review the current literature regarding twin studies describing the genetic basis of specific phobias and their corresponding fears. The analysis included five twin studies on fears and ten twin studies on specific phobias. Heritability estimates ...

This paper gives an overview of consumer fears associated with the introduction of RFID technology. It analyses the motivation and technical viability of these fears and derives suggestions for privacyfriendly technology design. The analysis shows that all consumer fears currently debated are essentially justified, because from a technical perspective they can all be implemented in the shortor ...

been handcuffed, interrogated, held in a cell and maltreated by American security staff. This was as a result of landing at Los Angeles International Airport for a brief stay with the incorrect type of visa. With imminent laws insisting that all new passports contain biometric data such as fingerprints and iris scans, worse appears on the way. Many travellers are also desperately hoping Congres...

'horizon scanning' for biotechnology advances and provides information, " wrote Zoe Williams in The Guardian. Donna Dickenson, emeritus professor of medical ethics at the University of London, said that a fundamental part of the HFEA's work is consultative, taking the cultural temperature on issues like animal–human hybrid embryos. " We don't have a statutory national ethic commission. Almost e...