In the late 1970s, universities convinced lawmakers that if they could monetize discoveries made with taxpayer funding, they would need less taxpayer funding and better help the private sector.

Congress agreed and in 1980, the Bayh-Dole Technology Transfer Act was passed. The law made it much easier for research findings made by academics to be patented and commercialized, or licensed by companies. 

In a new commentary in the New England Journal of Medicine, Howard Markel, M.D., Ph.D., director of the  University of Michigan Center for the History of Medicine, looks at the fluke-ridden history of the Bayh-Dole Act and suggests it is time to re-examine and revise the law.

A genetic phenomenon that allows for the selection of multiple genetic mutations that all lead to a similar outcome - a 'soft selective sweep' such as the ability to digest milk- has been characterized for the first time in humans.

This soft selective sweep was described in the population of Ethiopia by a team of geneticists from University College London, University of Addis Ababa and Roskilde University and reveals that individuals from the Eastern African population have adapted to be able to digest milk, but via different mutations in their genetic material.

The sweetness of summer vacations can quickly turn sour for those affected by lupus erythematosus.

For them, absorption of the UV-light component in sunlight may cause florid inflammation and redness of the skin. Lupus erythematosus (LE) is an autoimmune disorder in which the immune system erroneously attacks the body's own tissues. Where most people merely suffer sunburn, LE prone patients may develop severe redness and inflammation in sun-exposed skin. 

Researchers have now discovered which signaling pathway of the innate immune system promotes autoimmune symptoms following sun-induced DNA damage and an immune mechanism that triggers LE skin lesions.

 Tracing the transmission of individual strains from agricultural environments to humans through the food system is difficult because of the rapid evolution of resistance patterns in these bacteria. Resistance patterns change so quickly that it has been impossible to determine where some highly resistant strains are coming from. 

Every year in the United States, the various strains of Salmonella together are responsible for an estimated 1 million illnesses, 20,000 hospitalizations and 400 deaths at an economic cost exceeding $3 billion. Salmonella Typhimurium accounts for at least 15 percent of clinically reported salmonellosis infections in humans nationally.

War is in its two-thousandth year of extinction.

It is always being declared dead, a sign of cultural progress, and certainly world wars have declined - since World War II, Europe has enjoyed its long period of peace in its history. But whether or any actual war between nations has declined is debated by political scholars.

Nations would like to wage war, they are eager, says Bear Braumoeller, author of a paper at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association and associate professor of political science at The Ohio State University, but fewer conflicts than in the past are instead because nations have an inability to fight rather than an unwillingness to do so.

Back from the beautiful Greek island of Naxos, I find myself in Venice for just a day before leaving to another Greek island - Crete. But this time for business rather than vacations: I will be giving a CMS Overview talk at the International Conference of New Frontiers in Physics, which started yesterday in Kolympari, on the north-western coast of the island.

As usual, I am lagging behind with the task of putting together my presentation slides. This time I had been working at a reasonable pace while on vacation, and I thought I was almost done, when I was notified that due to the absence of the CMS colleague who was in charge of speaking about CMS Heavy Ion Results, I was to cover in more detail that part than I would have.

Jennifer Saul, a philosopher at the University of Sheffield, published an article in Salon entitled  “Philosophy has a sexual harassment problem.” While there is much substance and nuance in the body of the article, I sincerely hope that Prof. Saul did not actually choose the title herself (editors often do that sort of thing), because the message it sends is anything but nuanced, and if taken at face value also not particularly constructive.

A common technique of activists and people who generally distrust science and want to undermine it is to clog up the discourse with sophistry, like "it depends on how you define X", or they claim that their personal belief means science is not science, but rather morality. 

It's often been said that violent video games such as ‘Mortal Kombat,’ ‘Halo’ and ‘Grand Theft Auto’ trigger teenagers with symptoms of depression or attention deficit disorder to become aggressive bullies or delinquents.

Media has power, that is why marketing is a multi-billion dollar industry and cigarette and alcohol companies can't advertise on cartoon shows. It makes sense that long-term exposure to violence could trigger violence, especially in young people with psychological conditions.

The ancient closest relatives of mammals, the cynodont therapsids, not only survived the greatest mass extinction of all time 252 million years ago, they thrived in the aftermath.

The first mammals arose in the Triassic period, more than 225 million years ago. These early fur balls include small shrew-like animals such as Morganucodon from England, Megazostrodon from South Africa and Bienotherium from China.  They had differentiated teeth - incisors, canines, molars - and large brains and were probably warm-blooded and covered in fur; all characteristics that stand them apart from their reptile ancestors, and which contribute to their huge success today.