Category: Science

  • Nature-Asia Publishing Index

    Nature Asia-Pacific has just launched the Nature-Asia Publishing Index, which analyses the papers published in all of the Nature group of journals by researchers working at institutions in the Asia-Pacific region, including India and Australasia. The data is interesting, because the Nature journals are very important primary research journals, so they give some idea of…

  • Natural Helper Cells

    All animals have some way to fight off infections by bacteria, viruses, and parasites. If they didn’t, they would soon die. In mammals, this system is quite complex, and includes two main branches. One, the adaptive immune system, learns about infections the first time they are encountered, and then can deal with them quickly if…

  • Fossil Viruses in the Human Genome

    There is a commonly-heard idea that Japanese science is not creative, although they are very good at refining other people’s ideas. This idea is commonly heard even in Japan; I’ve had to disabuse quite a few of my students of the idea. Including some of the ones working as research scientists. It is true that…