Literature review topic suggestion?

[Haider Bangash 2.0]

Hi,
I have to do a literature review on a topic of my choosing, and I need some help choosing a topic. The topic has to be related to science. It has to deal with any of the five issues of theory, methodology, public policy, quantitative research, and qualitative research. It's for college. So if you have any ideas, please bring them forward

[PFgulalai]

Hmmmm "Science" is a very general term. What is your interest?---Applied sciences (Engineering/medicine), Mathematics, Natural sciences (biology,physics, chemistry,Astronomy,etc.), Social sciences (Sociology, Psychology, Lingusitics, Economics,Political science, etc.)????????????
OR you want to write in general about the "Science as a field of inquiry"?

[amna.]

Can you be a bit more descriptive please? I'm sure Gulalai and the other scientists we have here can assist you.

[Haider Bangash 2.0]

@Gulalai, As long as the topic addresses a scientific issue, I don't really care lol ^^; No social sciences though. And lol no not about science in general, but a specific topic.

@amna, by descriptive, you mean descriptive about what I am asking, or descriptive about what I want? But let me give you an example of what I am looking for:
For example, a while ago, one of the PF members (din) posted article about the collapse of bee colonies phenomenon. That could be an idea for a literature review, under the theory category. Like what is causing the bee collapse, what needs to happen to find the solution, etc. So I am looking for similar ideas, that fall under any of the above categories.

[PFgulalai]

Haider, off the top of my head, I can think of................

Human embryonic stem cell research and regenerative medincine
Biotechnology and Human therapeutic cloning
Genetically modified food and combating world's food shortage
Current techniques for the diagnosis of infectious agents
Highthroughput genomic sequencing in pathogen discovery and cancer genes
Genome sequencing projects (you can talk about Human genome, Drosophila, mouse and I tell ya, there is a LOTT of stuff there!!!!!)
The new Pandamic H1N1 2009 and future biosurveillance
The current and future techniques for screening/diagnosis of carcinomans and malignant tumors
Public policy and cervical cancer screening and vaccination
AntiRetroviral therapy in HIV infection
controversies (in any country or world) regarding vaccine safety
Immunosuppression in Organ transplantation
Coevolution and drug resistance of virus (e.g. HBV)
Knock-out mouse models and their role in cancer genetics and genomics
Gene Patenting/Genome patenting/Patenting of novel biotech products
Viral evolution,mutation rates (impact on drug/vaccine development)
Evolution of genetic diseases in modern humans
Polymorphisms and Pharmacogenomics

Since you did not specify any natural science field, so I took the chance and wrote some topics related to the current post-genomic/Biomedical sciences (my domain*biased*) :P
I can ALSO think of some interesting stuff in physics and chemistry and that will come later..I am in hurry now!

P.S. Let me know if you need further explanation regarding a particular topic.

[Haider Bangash 2.0]

Thanks for the list gulalai! You got some nice topics there. Will do some background research and might do one of these topics. Manana

[PFgulalai]

@Haider:
Glad you found these helpful!
I don't know the level of your courses but I would suggest visiting PUBMED http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed (the online holy bible of all biomedical publications) for any latest information on your topic. Typing your specfic query in the search box would give you gazillions of peer-reviewed publications in chronological order.On the right side of the search page, you will see "Review" and "full-text" articles. For any background information about a topic, read the review article. The difference between research publications and the random google stuff is that the former are more authentic and verifiable.

@HinduPashtun: Manana wrorkeya

[Haider Bangash 2.0]

@Haider:
Glad you found these helpful!
I don't know the level of your courses but I would suggest visiting PUBMED http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed (the online holy bible of all biomedical publications) for any latest information on your topic. Typing your specfic query in the search box would give you gazillions of peer-reviewed publications in chronological order.On the right side of the search page, you will see "Review" and "full-text" articles. For any background information about a topic, read the review article. The difference between research publications and the random google stuff is that the former are more authentic and verifiable.

Thanks for the link, I will surely check it out. My university has subscription to many different databases so I don't really have problem finding scholarly, peer reviewed references/info. BTW, what topic do you find to be the most interesting out of the above list?

[PFgulalai]

Thanks for the link, I will surely check it out. My university has subscription to many different databases so I don't really have problem finding scholarly, peer reviewed references/info. BTW, what topic do you find to be the most interesting out of the above list?

Lol...It's tough since each one of these are quite interesting. But I will vote for stem cell reserach which actually is quite fascinating science/research--there is lot of material available on various scientific and ethical issues involved in this research. Government policies and regulation has been a big issue in Stem Cell research which also has a huge impact on stem cell funding..which in turn affects the future of regenerative medicine for treating pateints of neurodegenerative disorders like Alzhiemer's disease, Parkinson's disease, Organ transplantation, cancer diagnosis,etc. I actually wrote a paper few weeks ago which primarily was focused on President Obama's stance on Federal stem cell reserach regulation versus President Bush.The latter is just one example of the several issues associated with SC research.

[Haider Bangash 2.0]

I decided to write a paper on "Immunosuppression in Organ transplantation". I am trying to find some good scholarly sources/references on this topic. So if anyone here knows of some good articles on this topic (recent, not too old), it would be appreciated if they could post it here. I am looking particularly for articles on the different methods of immunosuppression in organ transplant.
Thanks