Professor Sentenced for Providing Bacteria for Art
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Dr. Robert Ferrell, a University of Pittsburgh geneticist, has been sentenced to a year of unsupervised release and fined $500 for providing Steven Kurtz, an artist friend, with bacteria to use in his biotech-theme artwork, The Associated Press reported. Dr. Ferrell pleaded guilty in October to a misdemeanor count of âmailing an injurious article.â Mr. Kurtz, a member of the faculty of the University at Buffalo, faces trial on federal mail and wire-fraud charges. Prosecutors say Dr. Ferrell sent away for the relatively harmless bacteria for Mr. Kurtz because he could not have obtained it on his own. His defenders maintain that Mr. Kurtz was merely trying to provoke discussion through art and that government prosecution stifles debate. The case began as an antiterrorism investigation after the police saw laboratory equipment in Mr. Kurtzâs home after the death of his wife, but suspicions of terrorism were swiftly ruled out.
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A U.S. contractor who worked at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq was sentenced to more than three years in prison Friday for possessing child pornography that he obtained using the prison's computer network.
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BOSTON - A state prison official ordered a subordinate to take a little off the top. Now the state ethics board is ordering him to take a little out of his wallet.
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As a medical student, Dr. Bruce Psaty angered some professors when he refused to kill and dissect a dog. Fellow students ostracized him when he declined to attend banquets paid for by drug companies.
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A British man was sentenced Friday to 14 years in prison for infecting two young women with HIV and putting 13 more at risk of infection, reports said.
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A French court on Friday sentenced an art-loving waiter to three years in prison for stealing art works and valuable paintings from galleries and museums across Europe.
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The antibiotic-resistant germ that has infected several area teachers and some students is not just a concern for schools.
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PORTLAND, Ore. An Oregon man who tried to extort money from &quot;Doctor Seuss&#39;&quot; widow has been sentenced to three years&#39; probation.
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A world-renowned primatologistâs research of monkeys in the Amazon has led to a prison sentence of nearly 16 years in Brazil.
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Two fraternity brothers both received two-year prison terms Monday from a judge who said she wanted to send a message with the state's first prosecution under a felony hazing law.
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WHEATON, Ill. - A judge has ordered a 17-year-old to pay a $750 fine and perform 120 hours of community service for contaminating salad dressing with semen and returning it to a suburban Chicago high school's cafeteria.
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Two Moroccan men have been sentenced in connection with last year's highly-publicized Zotob outbreak.
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Arts & entertainment: Royal College of Art to get rich reward for taking in artist made homeless by fire.
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CHICAGO - "Animal Grossology," the new exhibition at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, could easily have been a lot grosser. Sure, there's plastic excrement in the exhibit room, skunk scent for spritzing, and robot animals that use cutesy terms like "barf" and "dookie" while talking about hairballs and digestive tracts...
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A Saudi court sentenced a university professor to five years in prison Sunday on charges of sowing dissent after he compared U.S. killings of Iraqi civilians to Osama bin Laden's terror attacks.
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A political science professor was convicted Monday of insulting the revered founder of modern Turkey and given a 15-month suspended prison sentence, a news report said.
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A worrisome superbug seen in prisoners and athletes is also showing up in people who get illegal tattoos, federal health officials said Thursday.