Own goal INSULIN itself triggers the immune system to destroy insulin-producing cells in the pancreas during early-onset diabetes. Susan Wong of Yale University genetically engineered diabetes-causing T cells from mice to turn blue when activated. Exposing these cells to a soup of protein fragments from insulin-producing cells, Wong and her colleagues found that a particular region of … News
The cruellest irony COULD doctors testing a polio vaccine in Africa in the late 1950s have unintentionally started the AIDS epidemic? Seven years after this conspiracy-style theory was first floated, the publication of The River, a new book by the writer Edward Hooper, is forcing scientists to take this disturbing possibility seriously again. Hooper spent nine years researching … Opinion
Space Fantastic voyager LYING ON A BENCH in Robert Winglee's lab is a small quartz tube laced with thin metal wires that looks suspiciously like a light bulb. It even casts a pale glow on Winglee's face when he turns it on. But switch it on in the darkness of space, and it will pump out a giant, … Features
Basic instinct THREE centuries ago, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz had a dream. The German philosopher and mathematician believed that all rational thinking could be described with a formula. He imagined that by inventing an alphabet of human thought—a system of characters for irreducible concepts—and then combining these in a calculus of reasoning, mathematicians would be able to solve … Uncategorized
Feedback MEETINGS of psychology associations always produce a crop of interesting paper titles, and last week's conference of the American Psychological Association was no exception. Papers presented included: "The impact of time pressure on condom use" and (for those occasions when the time pressures get too much) "Brief female condom skills building intervention for women". Then … Regulars