Excess postdocs causes quiet crisis
The life of the humble biomedical postdoctoral researcher was never easy: toiling in obscurity in a low-paying scientific apprenticeship that can stretch more than a decade. The long hours were worth it for the expected reward — the chance to launch an independent laboratory and do science that could expand human understanding of biology and disease.
Cancer researchers announce alliance
The two federally designated cancer centers in the Boston area are embarking on an unusual alliance that will combine the research strengths of both organizations to yield new treatments and insights into two highly lethal cancers.
There’s a little Neanderthal in us all, DNA says
Neanderthals — extinct for 30,000 years — live on today in the DNAof many people because the Ice Age brutes probably mated with prehistoric humans, scientists said yesterday.
MIT’s Soljacic and Ochsendorf Win MacArthur Prizes
A Harvard neurobiologist who regularly does surgery on fruit fly brains smaller than a poppy seed, and an MIT structural engineer who searches for modern design principles in Gothic churches, are among the 25 winners of the $500,000 MacArthur “genius” grants announced last week.
As Synthetic Biology Becomes Affordable, Amateur Labs Thrive
In a third-floor loft where programmers build Internet start-ups, Mackenzie Cowell is talking about the tools he and like-minded young colleagues are using to fuel what they hope will be the next big thing in biology. The list includes a cut-up Charlie Card, ingredients bought on eBay to make a kind of scientific Jell-O, and a refrigerator, just scored on Craigslist.com, that chills to 80 degrees below zero.
Large Hadron Collider Will Power On Tomorrow
The world’s biggest, most highly-anticipated physics experiment comes online this week, as the first beam of particles begins to circulate around a 17-mile underground racetrack that lies beneath France and Switzerland.
Out in the Open: Some MIT Scientists Sharing Results, Posting Unpublished Data
Barry J. Canton, a 28-year-old biological engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has posted raw scientific data, his thesis proposal, and original research ideas on an online Web site for all to see.
VA Tech Incident Sparks Discussion Among Colleges, Mass Text-Message Alerts Useful
In the wake of the Virginia Tech attack, administrators at college campuses across the country have been calling on a handful of companies that offer what once seemed like a nonessential: the ability to blast text messages to thousands of people within minutes.