Laboratorytalk | The news site for scientists and laboratory professionals

...from 16 articles and news releases just added to the site:

EXCLUSIVE: Keeping it in the nuclear family

Elga Process Water equipment including a LabWater Purelab Ultra Ionic helps to keep Hartlepool nuclear power station in the UK safe

Exclusive article from Elga Process Water

Apolipoproteins testing transported to next level

Randox produces high quality apolipoprotein tests for the diagnosis, monitoring and research of cardiovascular disease and related conditions

Product/Service News from Randox Laboratories ( 9 May 2008)

US patent for imaging technologies and ClonePix FL

Genetix has been granted US Patent No 7,310,147 covering important features that include the integration of imaging capabilities into Genetix robotic platforms, most notably the ClonePix FL

Company news from Genetix ( 9 May 2008)

Latest Special Report from Laboratorytalk:

Introducing Laboratorytalk TV

We went to Analytica 2008 armed with a video camera, and recorded some of the new products on display as well as general scenes at the trade fair - more information here on the products shown

» See all recent Special Reports...

Cold quantum matter given a European twist

Euroquam programme aims to provide a platform for exchange between scientists from different disciplines and countries and in particular to stimulate collaborations between experiment and theory

Background article from European Science Foundation

Optical imaging to aid tuberculosis research

Texas A+M Health Science Center Research Foundation (HSCRF) is using Ivis Spectrum imaging system from Caliper Life Sciences to speed development of effective therapeutic treatments for tuberculosis

User application article from Caliper Life Sciences ( 9 May 2008)

All 16 technical articles, news releases, and user applications today...

From the Laboratorytalk Editorial Newsletter this week

Read our new 2008 Media Pack

Russ Swan, Editor writes:

Remember when 'science' meant the systematic pursuit of knowledge in order to increase humankind's understanding of the universe? I'm not sure what today's definition should be (answers on a postcard, please) but I have to agree with the recent rant on Wired (http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/04/why-is-there-so.html) complaining about the lack of actual science in Google News's Sci/Tech section. But the problem is hardly restricted to this one news aggregator - plenty of high-profile websites, newspapers, and television channels seem to think that they can get away with calling any old drivel 'science'.

So, while Google News fills its screens with reviews of WiiStation 360 games and the latest colours of iMac laptops, the venerable BBC obsesses with hand-wringing over climate change and bird flu. Check out almost any news channel and the same is true: Fox News thinks that a software company's takeover of a search engine (or not) is a science story, and regularly delights its audience with stories of cars running on tap water. Across the media, business news involving a dotcom is paraded as a science story, the consumer wars over disk formats are labelled as sci-tech, and stories on the popularity of social networking are used to pad the otherwise inconsequential content of the science channels.

At least these outlets have a science section - unlike so many others which treat entertainment as news and report on soap opera plot twists as if they were actual events, or for whom the tribulations of overpaid sports stars take precedence over any story that might encourage viewers to actually think for themselves for a change.

The malaise is widespread. The UK TV channel Film4 has just finished a two-week season of sci-fi movies (I have previously admitted my weakness for bad sci-fi), in which at least half of the output was horror and fantasy (vampires and sorcery and other hocus-pocus), rather than any fi involving any sci. Who are these people, who mislabel everything from the iPod to Facebook to Indiana Jones as 'science'?

I'll tell you who they are. Arts graduates, every last one of them.