Academic science has been in a bit of a cultural schism; groups like the National Science Foundation and universities have spent billions of dollars promoting the idea that academic science is the only real science - discovery - which has led to a glut of PhDs who want to stay at universities.But when it comes to diversity and fairness, the corporate world is way ahead.

A professor with a company and the idea of commercial success with something they developed is very common, in everything from biotechnology to software. But the 'Valley of Death' between the lab and a company is daunting.  

In Physics World, James Dacey
notes that the challenges facing all start-up companies as they move from prototype to product are somewhat harder for physicists because of two factors: physics-based inventions are usually far less market-ready than academics think and the corporate world is more complicated.

If one believes the backers of mandatory labeling initiatives in Colorado and Oregon, Tuesday’s vote is simple common sense: It’s about the “right to know” what’s in our food.

This is the beguiling message pushed by a myriad of activists linked to such organizations as Right to Know GMO, Label GMOs and Just Label It. It’s powerful and superficially persuasive.

Natural pollen makes honey bees significantly more resistant to pesticides than an artificial diet and pesticide exposure causes changes in gene expression related to diet and nutrition, according to a new study.

Abraham Lincoln. Wikipedia

By Joanna Cohen, Queen Mary University of London

Improve your eating habits and will improve your health, common medical wisdom goes.

A new article in the Journal of Leukocyte Biology finds that we might as well keep eating poorly. They contend that the effects of poor eating habits persist after dietary habits are improved. In their mouse study, even after successful treatment of atherosclerosis (including lowering of blood cholesterol and a change in dietary habits) the effects of an unhealthy lifestyle still affected the way the immune system functions.

A new test may help eliminate onchocerciasis, commonly known as river blindness, which is a leading cause of preventable blindness in Africa. The SD BIOLINE Onchocerciasis IgG4 antibody-based test
is manufactured and distributed by Standard Diagnostics, Inc. and designed for use in disease surveillance.

Modern biology has a problem - how to find meaning in the rising oceans of genomic data, such as the reams of cancer mutations that genome-wide studies are publishing every week. The challenge is finding efficient ways to parse the signals from the noise.

There are efforts to fuse statistical mechanics and a learning algorithm into a mathematical toolkit that can turn cancer-mutation data into multidimensional models that show how specific mutations alter the social networks of proteins in cells. From this, biologists can deduce which mutations among the myriad mutations present in cancer cells might actually play a role in driving disease.

Statistical mechanics describes large phenomena by predicting the macroscopic properties of  microscopic components.

William Murphy/flickr 

By: Alexander Hellemans, Inside Science

(Inside Science) -- Researchers around the world are studying how to destroy chemical and biological warfare agents without anyone getting hurt. A research group at the University of California, San Diego has demonstrated the ability to destroy dangerous agents, such as nerve gas and anthrax spores, with a recent new invention: self-propelled micromotors.

Antibodies that recognize and home in on molecular targets are among the most useful tools in biology and medicine - now those kinds of techniques are getting smaller and easier to produce in the form of nanobodies.