A mitosis mystery solved: How chromosomes align perfectly in a dividing cell. To solve a mystery, sometimes a great detective need only study the clues in front of him.
Like Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot and Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, Tomomi Kiyomitsu used his keen powers of observation to solve a puzzle that had mystified researchers for years: in a cell undergoing mitotic cell division, what internal signals cause its chromosomes to align on a center axis? "People have been looking at these proteins and players in mitosis for decades, and no one ever saw what Tomomi observed," says Whitehead Institute Member Iain Cheeseman.
"And it's very clear that these things are happening. These are very strong regulatory paradigms that are setting down these cell division axes. And careful cell biology allowed him to see that this was occurring. Kiyomitsu, a postdoctoral researcher in Cheeseman's lab, published his work in a recent issue of the journal Nature Cell Biology. The process of mitotic cell division has been studied intensely for more than 50 years. Scicasts - Science and Technology Trade News Network.
Security in H5N1 Bird Flu Study Was Paramount, Scientist Says. Q.
What was your reaction to efforts to censor the research? A. The draft recommendations reached us at the end of November, and since that time we have been working with the journals and the international organizations to figure out a way to deal with it, because this is an unprecedented issue in science. In principle, we of course understand the statement by the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity and the United States government.
This is dual-use research, meaning research that can be used for good and bad purposes. The N.S.A.B.B. advice is that we can share this in a restricted form. We would be perfectly happy if this could be executed, but we have some doubts. Q. A. Q. A. The first part of the work can be shared without detail. So if we can stamp this virus out before it actually emerges, then we prevent a pandemic. Now, drugs and vaccines are normally evaluated with bird flu viruses that are not adapted to mammals. Science retracts paper on detection of XMRV in CFS patients. Bruce Alberts, Editor-in-Chief of Science magazine, writes that the journal is retracting the 2009 paper describing the detection of the retrovirus XMRV in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome: Science is fully retracting the Report “Detection of an infectious retrovirus, XMRV, in blood cells of patients with chronic fatigue syndrome”.
He writes that the decision was reached because multiple laboratories have failed to reliably detect XMRV or related viruses in CFS patients. He also cites evidence of ‘poor quality control in a number of specific experiments in the report’, and that Figure 1, table S1, and figure S2 have been retracted by the authors. Finally, he notes the omission of information from the legend of figure 2C, specifically that the authors failed to indicate that the peripheral blood mononuclear cells had been treated with azacytidine, phytohemagglutinin, and IL-2.
He concludes: Tagged as: CFS, chronic fatigue syndrome, retraction, retrovirus, viral, virology, virus, xmrv. Scientist who deliberately created 'Armageddon' bird flu virus in lab says he will not publish details. By Fiona Macrae and Katie Silver Updated: 08:38 GMT, 22 December 2011 A super-strain of bird flu that could infect and wipe out millions will not be published by the virologist developers.
Dutch scientists who created ‘probably one of the most dangerous viruses you can make' have agreed to leave out details on how to construct the virus from published reports. But the scientists warned that the data had already been shared with hundreds of researchers. The decision was made after the US government warned releasing the details could be kill millions of people if it was used as a weapon of biological warfare.
Deadly: The new strain of bird flu could wipe out millions of people at a time Their research focused on what it took to convert bird flu – which can kill more than half of those infected but does not spread easily – into a highly contagious virus. But others argue the virus should never have been created – and warn the potential if it escaped from the lab is ‘staggering’.