Keeping up with the Joneses has become critical in research, where the race to achieve an important result not only guarantees a high-profile paper, but in the increasingly commercial world can provide an edge over a competing interest. [ + ]

Dr John Sader used established mechanical principles to prove that the popular V-shaped cantilever inadvertently degrades the performance of the instrument and delivers none of its intended benefits

Of the five basic senses, the sense of smell is the least understood. Now, scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have sniffed out potential clues to how olfactory receptors in the nose detect odours

CSIRO chief executive Dr Geoff Garrett will have more riding on the May 13 Federal budget than most Australians. Halfway through his five-year appointment, he will be wanting to show his staff that they can look forward to real growth in public funding in the years ahead. If not, their disgruntlement over his challenging leadership may render the second half of his tenure more challenged than the first. [ + ]

When Eiffel Technologies' CEO Christine Cussen said last December that the company would start this year with $6.2 million in its back pocket, she outlined several ways the funds would be used. One of these -- pursuing drug re-engineering research to extend patent protection -- could prove particularly lucrative given that drugs worth more than $US42 billion will come off patent in the next three years. [ + ]

Although Australia has some great researchers coming out of its universities, attracting and keeping scientists and biostatisticians local can be a problem, Pete Young finds. [ + ]

Working hard for low pay, but Graeme O'Neill reports that the pursuit of a PhD could be the most rewarding time in a scientist's life. [ + ]

Nobel Laureate Prof Peter Doherty is lending his name to a new prize to be awarded at Australia's first Commercialisation Forum and Fair of Ideas, which started in Sydney today and runs to March 28. [ + ]

Phil Batterham is a skilled and meticulous organiser, with an understanding of the value of theatre. When the University of Melbourne geneticist flew to Beijing in 1998 for the 18th International Congress of Genetics, he had already spent two years organising Australia's bid to bring the world's biggest genetics festival to Melbourne in 2003. [ + ]

Undergraduate level biotechnology degree programs are becoming increasingly popular in Australia, offering students the opportunity to combine the essential basic science requirements with exposure to business and other aspects of the industry. [ + ]

According to Bob Horvitz, along with Sydney Brenner and John Sulston one of the winners of the 2002 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine, there are four big-picture problems confronting biologists today. [ + ]

From institutes with fewer than 100 staff to the CSIRO with several thousand, the vast majority of Australia's life scientists are employed by research institutes. Among the dozens of research institutes found across the country are numerous internationally renowned centres of scientific excellence like the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research (WEHI), small focused institutes like Melbourne's Bionic Ear Institute and government-owned agricultural institutes like the South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI). [ + ]

Prof Peter Rowe, the current Lorimer Dods Professor and Director of the Children's Medical Research Institute (CMRI), Westmead, NSW, is gearing up for his final few years in this position. [ + ]

With apologies to Kermit, TV's most famous amphibian, it's sometimes easier being green. In the perennial quest for funding, those Australian research institutes with ivy on their walls are doing best. [ + ]

Some of the laboratory managers at Sydney's Centenary Institute are concerned that one of the more challenging aspects of their role is about to get harder. The Federal government's Office of the Gene Technology Regulator (OGTR), which issues licenses and certification to research institutes working with genetically modified organisms, has proposed introducing charges to recover its running expenses. If this happens, the research institute will have to bear the cost. "It would be a whole new area of funding which would have to come out of the institute's infrastructure budget because it would not be allowed for in other areas of funding," says Dr Nick Pearce, the institute's business development manager. [ + ]