The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) will honor 18 individuals in 2009 with awards recognizing extraordinary scientific achievements in the areas of biology, chemistry, geology, astronomy, social sciences, psychology, and application of science for the public good. The recipients for 2009 are: GRAHAM ALLISON, Douglas Dillon Professor of Government and director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard's John F.

Taking a hint from the text comparison methods used to detect plagiarism in books, college papers and computer programs, University of California, Berkeley, researchers have developed an improved method for comparing whole genome sequences. With nearly a thousand genomes partly or fully sequenced, scientists are jumping on comparative genomics as a way to construct evolutionary trees, trace disease susceptibility in populations, and even track down people's ancestry.

Last week, a presidential limousine shuttled Barack Obama to the most important job in his life. Scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine have now identified a protein that does much the same for the telomerase enzyme - ferrying the critically important clump of proteins around to repair the ends of chromosomes that are lost during normal replication. Without such ongoing maintenance, stem cells would soon cease dividing and embryos would fail to develop.

Scientists have uncovered an interesting connection between two important protein kinase signaling pathways that are associated with cancer. The research, published by Cell Press in the January 30th issue of the journal Molecular Cell, may direct new therapeutic strategies for multiple types of cancer. The protein kinase LKB1 is a known tumor suppressor and the LKB1-AMPK signaling pathway couples energy metabolism with cell growth, proliferation and survival.