Weekly Round-up 19th May 2014

It's been a busy few weeks in science with Royal Society appointments, paper retractions and merger deals. Here's a few of the links, stories and posts from around the internet that have caught my eye.

1. Statin Safety
   
   It seems like there are a lot of studies being refuted and withdrawn at the moment. This week, portions of a paper claiming that statins maybe a high risk treatment have been withdrawn from the British Medical Journal. But is it too little too late? The paper questioning the safety of the drugs has caused confusion and worry for many patients. In many ways this situation highlights the importance of transparent research practices, rigorous review and the way the media represents research to the public. 
2. The Royal Society and Women in Science
   There has been a lot of talk over the recent wave of new appointments to the Royal Society and how the number of female members of the UK's most prestigious scientific society trails the equivalent society in the US. Prof. Athene Donald tackles the difficult subject of how we might be able to increase female membership, without resorting to tokenism. 
3. ITER Begins to Take Shape
   The question of how we're going to power our world in the future is still hanging over us and a project to help us solve that problem is finally beginning to take shape. The ITER project is aiming to meet our energy needs through nuclear fusion, the process which happens in the sun where energy is released by sticking atoms together,  which produces helium (a useful resource) and other common atoms in the process. Now, after a rather long and drawn out start up phase, some of the more complex and important parts of ITER are beginning to take shape. Although there are still substantial delays going forward, fingers crossed this international project will get a handle on how we can harness fusion power on Earth. 
4. Pfizer + AstraZeneca = ??
   After a few weeks of uncertainty it seems like the saga of whether Pfizer will take over UK based AstraZeneca and how this will effect UK science, is finally reaching a conclusion. Pfizer have faced large opposition, as there is a significant fear that Pfizer might simply take Astra's drugs portfolio and scale down drug research in the UK. However, after Pfizer's final bid for Astra was rejected this morning it looks like UK jobs and science will be protected for the foreseeable future.

And finally here's Smeagol Sings 'Empire State of Mind' for your viewing pleasure.