RSS Feeds for Futures and Foresight

If enough eminent people stand together to condemn a controversial practice, will that make it stop?

That’s what more than 150 scientists and 75 science organisations are hoping for today, with a joint statement called the ‘San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment’ (DORA). It deplores the way some metrics – especially the notorious Journal Impact Factor (JIF) – are mis-used as quick and dirty assessments of scientists’...

Just four pathogens underpin most cases of serious diarrhea in children—the second leading killer of

Rotavirus particles
FLICKR/AJC1

young children worldwide—according to a study...

A prestigious UK medical academy has agreed to consult for venture capitalists, to inform decisions about investments in late-stage biotechnology companies.

The London-based Academy of Medical Sciences, more than 1,000 members strong, will offer its services to Park Vale Capital, a investment firm also based in London with a dedicated biotechnology fund. The Academy will facilitate initial...

The house built by Alfred Russel Wallace after he returned from his exotic travels is about to come on the market.

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A huge, lucrative, and increasingly controversial scheme to certify ‘sustainable’ fish has taken another broadside from researchers today.

The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), an international not-for-profit organization based in London, has to date awarded some 170 fisheries its coveted certification of sustainable food source. Such a seal of approval can in principle command higher prices from environmentally conscious consumers.

In recent years a number of scientists have...

If UK researchers thought they would catch a sneak glimpse of June’s hotly-anticipated multi-year spending plan for science in today’s 2013 budget, they were disappointed. In his budget speech, Chancellor George Osborne gave a tantalising hint that “existing protections” would apply for future spending – meaning that research budgets may be left undamaged – but made no specific mention of science.

The only announcement that...

Pharma giant GlaxoSmithKline will close Sirtris Pharmaceuticals, a firm intent on developing compounds that stave off age-related disease — and one of GSK’s most contentious acquisitions.

Sirtris’s research program and lead compound are to be absorbed by GSK’s drug discovery machine, with some employees relocated from Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Sirtris has been based, to GSK’s facilities in Philadelphia.

The news was first revealed yesterday by the blog...

Interpol, the international criminal investigation body, today launched a special unit to tackle illegal fishing.

The new programme, named ‘Project Scale’, aims to suppress the criminal networks and the ships they run, which by some estimates account for one in every five fish caught every year.

David Higgins, head of the environmental crime programme at Interpol, says that there are...