October 8 - Martin Chalfie, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and Roger Y. Tsien, a member of the Institute of Medicine and National Academy of Sciences, will each receive a third of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein GFP. They will share the prize with Osamu Shimomura.

October 7 - National Academy of Sciences member Yoichiro Nambu has been awarded the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physics for his introduction of spontaneous broken symmetry into elementary particle physics, along with Makoto Kobayashi and Toshihide Maskawa, who will share half of the prize for their discovery of the origin of the broken symmetry. The spontaneous loss of symmetry permeates the Standard Model of physics, which unifies the smallest building blocks of all matter and three of nature's four fundamental forces into a single theory.

October 6 - This year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine recognizes the discoveries of two viruses causing severe human diseases. The 2008 prize was awarded to Harald zur Hausen, a foreign associate of the Institute of Medicine, for his discovery that human papilloma viruses cause cervical cancer, and to Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier, the discoverers of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

October 2 - The number of emergency room visits in the United States increased by 20 percent between 1995 and 2005, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics. Wait times have also been on the rise. In 2006, the average ER wait time in an emergency department was 56 minutes -- almost 10 minutes longer than it was in 2004. Meanwhile, the number of emergency departments in the nation is shrinking.

September 25 - Committed to protecting the integrity of science, AAAS, in collaboration with the National Academies, has established a Web site on scientific misconduct and research integrity. Subjects covered include conflicts of interest, plagiarism, use of research animals, and protecting human subjects, among others.