Category: founder 
Most cancers are rare in people with Down syndrome, whose overall cancer mortality is below 10 percent of that in the general population. Since they have an extra copy of chromosome 21, it's been proposed that people with Down syndrome may be getting an extra dose of one or more cancer-protective genes.
A new approach to analyzing social networks, reported in the current issue of the International Journal of Services Sciences, could help homeland security find the covert connections between the people behind terrorist attacks. The approach involves revealing the nodes that act as hubs in a terrorist network and tracing back to individual planners and perpetrators.
NEW YORK (April 2, 2009) -- Getting your teenager to drink a chocolate milkshake isn't something most parents need to worry about. But this is just the approach used in one treatment for anorexia nervosa.
A frequent criticism of Jovians' proposed energy extraction from Casimir cavities using hydrogen atoms is that the energy required to push the gas into the Casimir cavity will at least equal the energy released by the photon.
Large waterfowl are not a good recipe for jet aircraft engines in flight. That much was made vividly clear by the recent “Miracle on the Hudson” in which all 155 people aboard a US Airways flight survived when the pilot made a perfect water landing after geese “fowled” both engines following a takeoff from LaGuardia.
Capt. David Williams, founder of the Deafwhale Society, has pounded the table for almost 20 years trying to tell marine mammal scientists and the entire world that pods of whales strand -- 30 days after experiencing a diving-related injury caused by potent pressure changes induce into the water when the seafloor shifts vertically during an undersea earthquake.
Every algae's got a hungry heart, and--who knew?--some algae are especially hungry for the tasty toxins in modern smog. For example, single-cell algae readily consume carbon dioxide and other power plant emissions and emit oxygen during photosynthesis. This makes single-cell algae tiny power plants in their own right--power plants that may transform toxic emissions to renewable energy, according to Isaac Berzin, 37, a former MIT postdoctoral student in chemical engineering and founder of a Cambridge-based company, GreenFuel Technologies.
United States Attorney Carol C. Lam announced that a Grand Jury sitting in the Southern District of California returned an eight-count indictment against San Diego-based corporation Metabolife International, Inc., and its founder, Michael J. Ellis. The indictment charges both defendants with six counts of making false, fictitious and fraudulent representations to the Food and Drug Administration, and two counts of corruptly endeavoring to influence, obstruct and impede proceedings concerning the regulation of dietary supplements containing ephedra being conducted by the FDA.
Dr. George E. Pake, the founder of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, passed away on March 4, 2004 after a prolonged illness. The world lost a preeminent research leader, an accomplished scientist, and an extraordinary human being. Dr. Pake is best known for leading the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) from its inception in 1970 until 1978 and overseeing Xerox Corporate Research from 1978-1986. He was responsible for fashioning an institution whose unique and enduring culture spawned such innovations as laser printing, Ethernet, the graphical user interface, client-server architecture and many of the ideas that define modern computing.
A newly described and critically endangered pygmy-owl species discovered in Brazil was named today after Intel founder Gordon Moore and his wife Betty Moore, announced Conservation International. The description of the bird appears in the most recent edition of the Brazilian Journal of Ornithology.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved the sale of a new wheelchair that enables users to operate on two wheels, allowing them to better negotiate obstacles like stairs and uneven pavement. Powered by a rechargeable battery that can operate up to a full day on a single charge, the wheelchair uses an integrated system of electronic, sensor and software components to automatically adjust itself according to the seat's movement and the user's center of gravity. These components are accompanied by a backup system to assure the safety of the user. It was invented by Dean Kamen, founder of DEKA Research and Development Corporation, best known for the two-wheeled Segway transporter.
Though not strictly a science story, the Wall Street Journal has a devastating profile this morning of Sam Waksal, founder of ImClone. It's a warning not only for directors of technology-based companies, but for investors and the media, who can be charmed by one person with a winning personality and a compelling story (in this case a promising cancer-fighting molecule). Terrific digging by reporter Geeta Anand reveals a string of research jobs from which Waksal was ousted for misleading and sometimes falsified results. Do yourself a favor and read this one through to the end. Suddenly Martha Stewart's alleged insider trading of ImClone stock seems like the least of anyone's worries about Waksal.
Today a program called Reef Check at UCLA's Institute of the Environment released the results of a massive, five-year volunteer-run survey of the planet's coral reefs -- what may be the world's most comprehensive ecological study to date. Unfortunately the study reveals that the reefs around the world are in serious decline, and that the
">situation is only getting worse. Overfishing has affected 95 percent of the more than 1,107 coral reefs monitored since 1997; at least four species of reef fish, hunted as food or for aquariums, face extinction, according to the study. So how do you monitor the coral reefs, which make up less than .09% of the area of the world's oceans and are spread around the globe? Volunteers, lots of them. Reef Check scientists taught teams of sea-worthy volunteers -- from recreational divers to village fisherman -- about reef ecology and scientific monitoring. About 5,000 scientists and volunteers contributed. According to Reef Check's founder, Gregor Hodgson, of the reefs surveyed, just one, near Madagascar, could be considered pristine. "What we have seen is coral reefs have been damaged more in the last 20 years than they have in the last 1,000," Hodgson said. "Suddenly, the pressures of overfishing and damaging types of fishing -- dynamiting fish and poisoning fish, particularly in Southeast Asia -- have taken off."
