Biotech proves defensive against tough 2008 market

Sharp gains in shares of biotechnology heavyweights mitigated the wider sector's decline in 2008. Biotech stocks proved to be one of the safest investments this year, as strong drug sales and the potential for large buyout deals defended the sector from broader market collapse.

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Biotech whiz Pat Brown, inventor of the DNA microarray, makes the global-warming case against animal farming. He says animal farming is an ecological disaster. He's been a vegetarian for 20 years and a vegan for five.

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People suffering from a form of incurable blindness could soon become the first patients in the world to benefit from a new and controversial transplant operation using stem cells derived from spare human embryos left over from IVF treatment.

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If Norman Borlaug was not a Monsanto Man in life, though many believe him to be the best poster boy the Biotech Brigade could produce, his legacy is cemented as a promoter of privatized seeds and genetically modified life forms, fueled by Land Grant University research.

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While it was written in the height of the summer it is even more timely as Nature sends much of our plant life to seed.

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Now, that might seem like a tautology. But it's not, not really. It's actually relevant because the antivax movement must change its story (what we skeptics call "moving the goalposts") every time they are conclusively proven wrong. That happens a lot.

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The new research field of synthetic biology will, in the medium term, open up a great deal of potential for combining novel genetic methods with engineering principles.

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EXCERPT: Genetic evidence is revealing that human populations began to expand in size in Africa during the Late Stone Age approximately 40,000 years ago. A research team led by Michael F.

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Britain's biotechnology research council the BBSRC will this week open a research centre to decode the DNA of plants and animals used in agriculture.

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For most cancer patients, treatments are exhausting, time-consuming and nauseating, but new research may change all that.

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Scientists say a natural supplement made from tomatoes, taken daily, can stave off heart disease and strokes. The tomato pill contains an active ingredient from the Mediterranean diet - lycopene - that blocks "bad" LDL cholesterol that can clog the arteries.

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Iowa State University researchers are putting flu vaccines into the genetic makeup of corn, which may someday allow pigs and humans to get a flu vaccination simply by eating corn or corn products.

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For years the biotechnology industry has trumpeted that it will feed the world, promising that its genetically engineered crops will produce higher yields.

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Middle and high school students across the country are generally falling behind in life sciences, and the nation is at risk of producing a dearth of qualified workers for the fast-growing bioscience industry, according to a report released Monday.

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The first phase of the Pentagon's plan to regrow soldiers' limbs is complete; scientists managed to turn human skin into the equivalent of a blastema — a mass of undifferentiated cells that can develop into new body parts.

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GRANADA, Spain, Nov. 3 (UPI) -- Spanish scientists say olive pits, also know as stones, can be turned into bioethanol and used as an alternative power source for gasoline or diesel.

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CSIRO scientists have joined one of the world's largest biotechnology consortia to help develop crops which produce oils to be used by the chemicals industry as sustainable alternatives to those derived from the world's non-renewable stocks of crude oil.

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The 21st century's bio-based future is called the sugar economy, or the carbohydrate economy, because industrial production will be based on biological feedstocks (agricultural crops, grasses, forest residues, plant oils, algae, etc.) whose sugars are extracted, fermented, and co …

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In a nutshell, synthetic biology is the rational engineering of biological parts, devices and systems, by programming DNA to design and re-design organisms to do what we want them to do - something like using a computer to rewire living things, and by extension, to create new one …

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George E. Palade, whose discoveries about the intricate inner workings of cells helped give birth to the field of modern cell biology and earned him a Nobel Prize, died Tuesday at his home in Del Mar, Calif., at 95.

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Biogerontechnology is stated as the most disruptive technology.

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For humans now there is the tantalizing possibility of tweaking the photosynthetic reactions of cyanobacteria to produce fuels we want such as hydrogen, alcohols or even hydrocarbons, rather than carbohydrates. Progress at the research level has been rapid, boosting prospects of …

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Totally recyclable waterproof paper and cardboard containers can be made using a new coating developed from sugarcane, say Australian researchers.

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While probably best known for her seminal sf story "Beggars In Spain" and the novel it grew into, Nancy Kress has authored twenty-three books (including thirteen sf novels), and won at least one of every short fiction award worth having in the science fiction field.

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The very nicest part of this boost in productivity, it costs nothing and does not use biotechnology, it blows biotech away!

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Regulators are cracking down on companies that sell genetic tests directly to consumers, threatening to crimp the growth of one of the hottest sectors of the biotechnology industry.

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