Supreme Court rules natural genes not patentable
ESA Policy News: June 14
ESA2013 Science Cafe Prize — call for submissions!
Water for the trees
EU reforms fishing policies

Supreme Court rules natural genes not patentable

breast cancer families - from Hall et al (1990) Linkage of early onset familial breast cancer to chromosome 17q21. Science 250, 1684.

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously on Thursday, June 13th, that Myriad Genomics Inc. may not retain exclusive rights to the use of DNA sequence information for breast cancer associated genes BRCA1 and BRCA2, stating that Myriad had not created anything new in identifying the genes. Continue reading

ESA Policy News: June 14

Policy News

Here are some highlights from the latest ESA Policy News by Science Policy Analyst Terence Houston.  Read the full Policy News here. EDUCATION: STEM REORGANIZATION EFFORT MEETS BIPARTISAN CRITICISM On June 4, the House Science, Space and Technology Committee convened for Continue reading

Geothermal engineering in Newberry volcano

Newberry Caldera. USGS photo by Lyn Topinka

By Peter Janetos, ESA public affairs intern In the quest for cleaner, greener, and cheaper energy some are looking 10,000 feet below central Oregon where temperatures exceed 600 degrees Fahrenheit in Newberry Volcano.  A recent Popular Science article takes a Continue reading

Water for the trees

The 2001-2002 drought in the Southern Rocky Mountains turned a bark beetle outbreak into an epidemic, withering the lodgepole pines, according to a University of Colorado study published in the October 2012 issue of Ecology

Saving forests from drought as the climate warms.

Drought complicates the big problems afflicting modern forests. Gordon Grant, Christina Tague, and Craig Allen think that mitigating drought stress should be an active priority for management of US public forests – in keeping with the US Forest Service mission to “improve and protect the forest” and “secure favorable conditions of water flows”. Continue reading