This year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry goes to three scientists responsible for transforming a green-glowing jellyfish protein into a ubiquitous tool in molecular biology. Green fluorescent protein (or GFP in lab jargon) and its various colored relatives have made many previously impossible experiments cheap and easy, and you would be hard-pressed to find any molecular or cell biologists who have never used some variant of GFP. There is no denying the influence of GFP, but was its discovery Nobel-caliber?

San Diego Beach Scene, Fluorescent E. coli on agar, Nathan Shaner, photography by Paul Steinbach, created in the lab of Nobel Prize winner Roger Tsien, posted under the GNU Free Documentation License

DALLAS, October 10 /PRNewswire/ --

- Recent Expansion Follows US$20 M Intel Capital Funding

Despite the turmoil surrounding the nation's economy, Telligent today announced the opening of a new office in London, England. Along with the new international headquarters comes the announcement of domestic expansion.

Telligent, an innovative social software and solutions company headquartered in Dallas, recently received US$20 million in funding from Intel Capital and has started growing its sales team and global reach.

“Fluoridation of drinking water is scientifically untenable, and should not be part of a public health initiative or program,” says the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE) in a new published statement. CAPE is Canada’s leading voice on environmental health issues.

As promised in my previous post, I would like to bring to people’s attention one of the best reviews of scientific investigations of religion as a social phenomenon, a paper published in Science (3 October 2008) by Ara Norenzayan and Azim Shariff of the University of British Columbia. The article is chock full of fascinating, empirically based, insights into the relationship between religion and prosocial behavior, and is a must read for anyone seriously interested in this topic. Here, I will point to some of the highlights that will hopefully stimulate discussion and direct reading of Norenzayan and Shariff’s paper.

LONDON, October 10 /PRNewswire/ -- Greenstar UK, the fast-growing recycling-led waste management company, is to build one of the capital's largest materials recycling facilities (MRFs) which will process nearly 10% of north London's waste. It has acquired the 192,000 ft squared Atlas warehouse building, purpose-built on a nine acre site next to the Edmonton refuse incinerator.

Adjacent to major transport links such as the North Circular and the M25, the site will be fitted out with the most modern technology for the high quality processing of recyclable materials. It will also be a depot for up to 60 recycling vehicles which will collect commercial recyclables.

SANTA CLARA, California, October 10 /PRNewswire/ --

Finesse Solutions, LLC, Santa Clara, CA, a manufacturer of measurement and control solutions for life science process applications, announced the release of version 3.4 of its TruBio bioreactor control software. TruBio 3.4 software can automate bioreactors across a wide variety of applications, ranging from 1L bench top R&D glass to 1000L cGMP production single-use vessels. TruBio 3.4 software is optimized for DeltaV version 9.3 from Emerson Process Management in order to bring ease of use and reliability to the user.

COPENHAGEN, Denmark, October 10 /PRNewswire/ --

- Summary: Genmab has Reached the Sixth Milestone in its Ofatumumab Collaboration With GSK

Genmab A/S (OMX: GEN) announced today it has reached the sixth milestone for ofatumumab (HuMax-CD20(R)) under the terms of its collaboration with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). A milestone payment of approximately DKK 29 million (approximately USD 5.6 million) was triggered by the first patient receiving treatment in the ofatumumab Phase I study in relapsed/refractory follicular non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and chronic lymphocytic leukemia in Japan.

SANTA CLARA, California, October 10 /PRNewswire/ --

Finesse Solutions, LLC, a manufacturer of measurement and control solutions for life science process applications, is pleased to announce improvements to their E-Commerce Store that makes shopping for sensors and transmitters even easier. The E-Store can be found at the Finesse web site (http://www.finesse.com/shopfinesse). Customers can now easily purchase bioprocess sensors and accessories on-line, anywhere in the world, and at any time of the day or night.

A 20% discount is being offered on each first purchase of bioprocess sensors, including pH, DO, and cell density, and their associated transmitters, when the TRUSAVINGS Coupon code is entered at http://www.finesse.com/shopfinesse.

CHELWOOD GATE, England, October 10 /PRNewswire/ -- "Cats Protection (CP) has announced that it has become a victim, alongside many other organisations, institutions, companies and private individuals, of the collapse of the bank Kaupthing Singer and Friedlander.

A new improved gene therapy can be the first treatment for Machado-Joseph disease as  Portuguese, Swiss and French researchers show, for the first time, that is possible to inhibit in a living organism the mutated copies of a gene, without affecting any existing normal copies of the same gene. 
The research, to appear in the 8th of October edition of the journal PLoS One, describes how scientists successfully used the approach in rats to reverse the symptoms of Machado Joseph Disease (MJD), an untreatable and potentially fatal neurodegenerative disease.