Trouble for in vitro meat researcher

Vladimir Mironov, the researcher at the forefront of developing tissue cultured meat grown in petri dishes, has been suspended from his post, and his lab at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) has been shut down for “unacceptable behavior” involving an “act of insubordination,” according to the university. Mironov’s suspension casts a pall of uncertainty on another research program in which he was heavily involved—an effort to grow human organs from stem cells for transplant, which is funded by a $20 million National Science Foundation (NSF) grant. Though details of the fracas that led to his suspension are murky, Charleston, SC, newspaper The Post and Courier reported that Mironov sent a letter to an MUSC administrator coordinating the university’s involvement in the NSF-funded project after the school’s College of Medicine dean, Etta Pisano, ordered him to refrain from doing so.

Japanese whale researchers pack up early

Researchers working aboard whaling ships for the Japanese government in waters around Antarctica have headed home ahead of schedule due to disruptions caused by an anti-whaling activist group. The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society used speed boats to harass whaling vessels and made it difficult for the researchers to secure “the lives of the crew and the safety of property and the ships,” said Michihiko Kano, Japan’s agriculture minister, at a press conference on Friday. Exploiting a loophole in the global ban on commercial whaling, Japan harvests hundreds of minke whales and other whale species every year, recording stomach contents, heavy metal concentrations in flesh, and other data before selling the meat to subsidize continued whale research. This year, Japan’s fleet aimed to take 900 whales, but was only able to capture 172. Hat tip to ScienceInsider.