Rising Star Journal: Advances in Atmospheric Sciences - Featured Journal Interview

Excerpt from the interview: "AAS, launched in 1984, is an international journal on the dynamics, physics, and chemistry of the atmosphere and ocean. It covers the latest achievements and developments in the atmospheric sciences, including marine meteorology and meteorology-associated geophysics, as well as the theoretical and practical aspects of these disciplines. "
View Article

Olaf R. P. Bininda-Emonds on the delayed rise of present-day mammals- New Hot Paper Commentary

Excerpt from the interview: "...the paper tells an interesting story with many interesting ingredients in the mix: mammals, dinosaurs, and the Cretaceous-Tertiary mass-extinction event. Moreover, it apparently dispels the long-held truth that it was the death..."
View Article

Tiziana Borsello peptide inhibitor of c-Jun N-terminal kinase - Fast Moving Front Commentary

Excerpt from the interview: "We believe that this paper is of general interest in the field of neuroscience since it illustrates the death of neurons during stroke and a possible way to prevent death. This is a hot field. Stroke is one of the leading causes of death..."
View Article

Canada - Featured Country Profile

According to Essential Science Indicators, among the 147 top-performing countries in all fields, Canada ranked #6 for citations (4,279,170), #7 for papers (388,471), and #15 (11.02) for citations per paper.
View Article

With Output and Impact Rising, China's Science Surge Rolls On - ScienceWatch.com Featured Analysis

A survey of research from the People’s Republic of China indicates that the nation has dramatically increased its production of scientific papers in recent years, nearly doubling its tally since 2003. In fact, China's 2007 output of papers surpassed all other nations except the United States, with particular concentration in the fields of materials science, mathematics, physics, and chemistry.
View Article

David Dollar; growth is good for the poor - Fast Moving Front Commentary

Excerpt from the interview: "We were stimulated to undertake this research because in the late 1990s it was common for pundits to claim that growing international trade and investment were leading to higher inequality in countries and to growing poverty..."
View Article

Philippe Horvath; CRISPR provides acquired resistance against viruses in prokaryotes - New Hot Paper Commentary

Excerpt from the interview: "Our paper represents the first demonstration of the functionality of CRISPR/cas as a new microbial immune system. It is essentially the validation of a putative hypothesis. This achievement is mostly due to the..."
View Article

Enzo Boschi on the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia's rising star status - Featured Institutional Interview

Excerpt from the interview: "INGV was born in 1999 through a merger of former ING, Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica, and four other national research institutes with expertise in different disciplines in the geosciences. The result has been the main permanent..."
View Article

Kenneth Livak & Tom Schmittgen discuss their 2001 Methods paper - Featured Paper Interview

Excerpt from the interview: "Regular PCR amplifies the RNA or DNA in a sample, and real-time PCR amplifies it and quantifies it. You’re actually measuring something as it occurs in real time. Following the PCR, you get a number, and that number tells you how much RNA..."
View Article

Materials Scientists Harness Viruses for Battery Power - What's Hot in Chemistry

A team of materials scientists at MIT has successfully used a virus to grow nanowires to serve as anodes in a lithium battery, just one example of the team’s harnessing of biological organisms and processes in the synthesis of new materials.
View Article

Professor Tom Millar on the chemistry of interstellar clouds - Special Topic of Astrochemistry Interview

Excerpt from the interview: "The underlying theme that interests me is the use of chemistry of molecules as probes of the physical conditions in interstellar space. To me that’s more than a question of using molecules as proxies to get temperatures..."
View Article

Professor Jesper Møller on his work in mathematical statistics and applied probability - Featured Scientist Interview

Excerpt from the interview: "My main focus of research is in mathematical statistics and applied probability, particularly in relation to spatial data sets and computational problems as covered in the research areas known as spatial statistics..."
View Article

Professor Chung-Yuan Mou on the physics of small systems - Special Topic of Mesoporous Materials Interview

Excerpt from the interview: "To me, mesoporous silica materials are an ideal playground for materials synthesis with wide possibilities of structure and morphology control and many chemical applications. My first paper on mesoporous silica was..."
View Article

Professor of Biochemistry Zbyszek Otwinowski - Podcast Interview

From the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas, Zbyszek Otwinowski discusses mathematical crystallography, the primary method used to determine three-dimensional structures of large biological molecules, namely proteins and nucleic acids and the principal tool for studying single crystals, x-ray diffraction.
Listen: MP3| WMA

Russel Reiter on Melatonin and its Metabolites - Podcast Interview

Russel J. Reiter, Professor of Endocrinology at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, discusses the uniqueness of the antioxidant melatonin. View Reiter's Fast Breaking Paper commentary (with figures) about this subject from February 2008.
Listen: MP3| WMA

Anton M. Scheulhammer on health effects of environmental concentrations of mercury- New Hot Paper Commentary

Excerpt from the interview: "A major conclusion of our paper is that significant reproductive and other health impairments in some fish and wildlife species are probable at currently realistic environmental concentrations of mercury..."
View Article

Dr. Keerti Shah discusses his HPV research - Special Topic of Human Papillomavirus Interview

Excerpt from the interview: "...with cancer of the uterine cervix, HPV is responsible for nearly 100% of the cancers, and this is true for all parts of the world. That’s very surprising, very unusual. It’s the only example of a major human cancer that has a single etiology..."
View Article

Paul E. Stackelberg on pharmaceutical compounds and other organic wastewater contaminants- Fast Moving Front Commentary

Excerpt from the interview: "Our paper was one of the first to demonstrate that extensively used chemicals such as prescription and non-prescription drugs, personal-care products, detergent metabolites, plasticizers, flame retardants, and fragrances..."
View Article

Craig Stockwell, Andrew Hendry & Michael Kinnison: contemporary evolution meets conservation biology - Fast Moving Front

Excerpt from the interview: "The goal of our paper was to look beyond simple demonstrations of contemporary evolution and illustrate its importance in the current biodiversity crisis. In particular, we noted that contemporary evolution..."
View Article

Anthony Westerling on increased wildfire activity - Podcast Interview

Anthony Westerling discusses climate-ecosystem-wildfire interactions and climate change impact assessments. Westerling has a corresponding Fast Breaking Paper comment from Feb. 2008 regarding this research.
Listen: MP3| WMA

Reprogramming Adult Cells Into Stem-Cell-Like State - What's Hot in Biology

Three separate teams of biologists succeeded in effectively reprogramming adult cells to serve as pluripotent stem cells, which are then able to differentiate into any cell type. This method of creating stem cells without the need for embryonic tissue offers enormous therapeutic potential for creating new tissue from a patient’s own cells.
View Article

(Additional interviews/commentaries will be added during July 2008)