The Great Beyond

A former University of Tennessee professor has been sentenced to four years in prison for sharing sensitive technologies with his Chinese and Iranian graduate students.

J. Reece Roth, an emeritus professor of electrical engineering, was sentenced yesterday by U. S. District Court, Eastern District of Tennessee for violating the Arms Export Control Act. Roth and a now bankrupt company had been developing ways to reduce the drag on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (pictured right) and improve their take-off and landing capabilities. Roth employed two graduate students, a Chinese and an Iranian national, without obtaining the required license.

Roth, 71, maintained he did nothing wrong when I spoke to him in 2006, and he was unrepentant at sentencing. According to the Knoxville Sentinel he did not admit guilt or apologize for his actions. He told the judge that his wife and he both have health problems. "I would like to respectfully request the court take these into account when passing sentence, and that's all I have to say," Roth said.

He plans to appeal the verdict.

Image: USAF

Posted by Geoff Brumfiel on July 02, 2009
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US President Barack Obama controversially decided to spend a billion dollars on ‘comparative effectiveness’ research, as part of the huge stimulus package announced earlier this year. Now the Institute of Medicine has brought out the list he asked for suggesting where the money should go.

Comparing difference between different treatments is hugely controversial in the US, where some see it as an outrageous attempt to bring cost as a factor into the health system.

Others disagree. In a statement Harold Sox, co-chair of the committee behind the new IOM list, said, “Health care decisions too often are a matter of guesswork because we lack good evidence to inform them. For example, we spend a great deal on diagnostic tests for coronary heart disease in this country, but we lack sufficient evidence to determine which test is best.”

His committee whittled down 1,268 suggestions for comparative effectiveness research topics into a 100 item list. It will come as no surprise to find out that coronary heart disease is on it. The best suggestion though has to be this one:

Compare the effectiveness of dissemination and translation techniques to facilitate the use of CER [Comparative Effectiveness Research] by patients, clinicians, payers, and others.

So the committee carefully considering controversial comparisons concluded comparing clinician communication criteria could create crucial clarity? Crikey!

Stand by for more fighting. “Because the committee's work was requested by Congress and the resulting portfolio is so broad in scope, the recommendations may be more influential than they might otherwise have been, but the report is unlikely to quell the controversy surrounding CER,” opines the New England Journal of Medicine.

More coverage
Candidates Aplenty for Spending on Comparative Effectiveness – WSJ health blog
Panel Suggests U.S. Medical Priorities – NY Times

Image: Punchstock

Posted by Daniel Cressey on July 01, 2009
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The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is once again being accused of politicizing science, only this time conservatives are the ones crying foul.

At issue is a 98-page "comment" on the EPA's recent finding that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are endangering human health. The comment was authored by an EPA economist Alan Carlin, and claimed, among other things, that the EPA was relying on outdated data because it used the last assessment from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to help shape its finding. Carlin also echoes the old arguments of climate sceptics, which say that solar cycles, not human activity, are responsible for the recent increase in global temperatures.

Continue reading "Hot air and politics at the EPA" »

Posted by Geoff Brumfiel on June 29, 2009
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Biologic drugs should face the same generic competition as standard pharmaceuticals after seven years, aides of US president Barack Obama have stated.

Be they called bio-similars, bio-generics, follow-on biologics or something else, products derived from biotechnology have been a hot topic in the US recently. Obama has come down somewhere between the extremes currently proposed for these drugs.

Democratic House rep Henry Waxman proposed legislation that would give biotech drugs just five years of exclusivity before other companies could muscle in. Another rep, Republican Anna Eshoo, put forward a proposal offering 12 years.

Now Bloomberg has obtained a letter from Nancy-Ann DeParle, director of the White House Office of Health Reform, and Peter Orszag, director of the Office of Management and Budget, pushing for a “generous compromise” on seven years.

“Lengthy periods of exclusivity will harm patients by diminishing innovation and unnecessarily delaying access to affordable drugs,” they wrote.

Continue reading "Biosimilars: Obama’s seven year pitch" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on June 29, 2009
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This sweet little piece of gossip seems well suited to an old-style longform RT: The nonprofit Project on Government Oversight group points readers to an article in the June 29, 2009 issue of the Nuclear Weapons & Materials Monitor (article not available online), which describes how journalists were asked to leave the room when Deputy Energy Secretary Dan Poneman spoke to 'a group of lobbyists and private interests'.

"While no explanation was given at the time, according to those present, the move was apparently intended to ensure that journalists not only didn't cover, but couldn't even hear, a routine address on DOE's priorities under the Obama Administration and efforts to address climate change. In what one can only hope was meant with a sense of irony, Poneman reportedly also stressed the need for improved transparency at DOE in a speech closed to the news media," according to the article.

Posted by Richard Van Noorden on June 29, 2009
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Dark allegations are being muttered about the ongoing International Renewable Energy Agency meeting in Egypt.

The agency, known as IRENA, is not even up and running yet and already sources are reporting tiffs over where it should be sited and how much power (no pun intended) the nuclear industry should have.

Even before the meeting in Sharm El Sheik began today some were warning that the French government was backing a push by the United Arab Emirates to host IRENA in Abu Dhabi in order to ensure it was friendly to nuclear power.

“An IRENA located in Abu Dhabi under such circumstances would be ‘nuclear tainted’ because the negotiating process used to select a host country would be based on support for nuclear power,” Eric Martinot, of the Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies, told the Huffington Post. “Are the original goals of IRENA being co-opted so that renewables become a mere appendage to a nuclear agenda – ‘sprinkling some renewables on top of our nuclear power?’”

Continue reading "UAE and Germany fight for IRENA" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on June 29, 2009
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The legislative process wasn't pretty, but the US House of Representatives voted 219-212 on 26 June to approve the most sweeping piece of energy and environmental legislation in history. (New York Times)

The predictable result is a bill that almost nobody likes. Greenpeace's opposition illustrates a general sentiment on the left side of the political spectrum that the bill's Democratic sponsors, Henry Waxman of California and Edward Markey of Massachusetts, compromised too much. The US Chamber of Commerce says they compromised too little. And even the American Farm Bureau, whose members sought and won massive concessions in a deal that secured enough votes for passage, maintained its opposition (for a rather scathing take on this issue, see Steven Pearlstein's column in the Washington Post).

What holds the current coalition together is a core group of seasoned legislators backed by pragmatic environmentalists and businesses who understand and are willing to play by the rules on Capitol Hill. And of course a president who supports the idea. In this respect, it's hard to imagine a more concrete example of the political transformation wrought by the past two elections (whether this momentum will carry through a third election in 2010 is an open question - and one that increases pressure on Democrats to get the job done this year).

At its core, the bill would create a cap-and-trade system that would reduce covered greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050. But the legislation contains a host of initiatives meant to boost things like energy efficiency and renewable power while controlling costs on industry and consumers. Nearly every one has its critics.

Continue reading "Climate bill clears US House, faces long road ahead" »

Posted by Jeff Tollefson on June 27, 2009
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The news that New York’s stem cell research initiative will be allowed to pay $10,000 to women who donate their eggs is enjoying another round of media coverage today.

As we noted last week:

[The New York Empire State Stem Cell Board] reached the decision on 11 June. Board members noted that taxpayer funds are already used to compensate some egg donors in state-subsidized in vitro fertilization programs. They also emphasized that researchers in other states that do not allow payment for eggs – including Massachusetts and California -- have largely failed to recruit donors.

The Washington Post published a sizeable piece on the decision today, noting that it makes NY state the first to allow taxpayer-funded researchers to pay women for eggs for stem cell research.

Researchers quoted in the Post story are divided over the move.

“In a field that’s already the object of a great deal of controversy, the question is, are we at the point where we really need to go that route in order to do the science?” says Jonathan Moreno, professor of bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. “I’m not convinced.”

The NY Times notes that National Academy of Science guidelines prohibit paying women for eggs used in stem cell research.

Headline watch
$10,000 is an egg-cellent price, says stem cell panel – NY Daily News

Posted by Daniel Cressey on June 26, 2009
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ISIS, Britain’s world-class neutron and muon source, might as well be called IS – as budget cuts announced today by the Science and Technologies Facilities Council (STFC) will shut down its operations for half the year.

The STFC has had to make some £12 million in research cuts for its 2009-10 budget – a deficit it had revealed in May. ISIS lost £2.3 million, and will only run for 120 days in 2009-10. It’s a familiar tale for the facility, which last year lost a similar amount, dropping its operating time from an average 180 to 150 days. (Fully funded, it should run around 220 days, according to a National Audit Office report).

The cuts will affect a number of research programmes; ISIS is used by over 1000 scientists and has just installed a £145 million second neutron target station.

Exact budget numbers were not available from STFC’s press officers on the day it announced the cuts, but the agency said it would also reduce its allocation to the Diamond Light Source synchrotron, and dial down operations at the Central Laser Facility (along with ISIS, all at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire).

It is also cutting funding for astronomy units in Cambridge and Edinburgh, deferring spending on MoonLITE (a lunar orbiting satellite that would shoot scientific instruments below the Moon’s surface), and delaying funding for other particle physics and nuclear physics projects.

Robert Kirby-Harris, chief executive at the Institute of Physics, called the cuts an “ill omen”. He added: “The over-riding message [to young scientists] appears to still be ‘Forget science, go and make shed-loads of money in banking’. Nothing has changed.”

Other coverage:

Flagship ISIS facility to go 'part-time' in wake of funding cuts (The Times)

UK physics hit by new cuts (Physics World)

Posted by Richard Van Noorden on June 25, 2009
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Bloomsberg news agency reports this morning that 70 academics were taken into custody last night after a meeting with Mir Hossein Mousavi. Their location is unknown. Mousavi, a candidate in the 12 June presidential election, contests the results, and has since become the most prominent figure in the popular protest movement that has coalesced following the announce of the election results.

Because of restrictions on reporting imposed by the Iranian regime, media there are often unable to verify or investigate emerging news from Iran. The Bloomsberg report is based on one by the Kalemeh website which is linked to the Mousavi campaign. The website is in Persian, but Google introduced on 18 June a Persian translation facility in response to current events which you can use to read this and other Persian language sites.

I published a news article last night about efforts by the Iran scientific and academic diaspora to help their colleagues in Iran.

Posted by Declan Butler on June 25, 2009
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What price reputation? Somebody at Elsevier thought $25 gift cards would do, at least for positive reviews of its textbooks on online bookstores.

Inside Higher Education reported yesterday that an Elsevier marketing representative offered free books and $25 Amazon gift cards to authors of a recent Elsevier title--or anyone else--willing to write 5-star reviews of the book on Amazon or Barnes & Noble's websites.

According to the writer of the email, forwarded by whistleblower--and Elsevier textbook author--George Tremblay of Antioch University, in Keene, New Hampshire, "the tactics defined above have proven to dramatically increase exposure and boost sales."

Tremblay told Elsevier he would be forwarding their email to a list of professonal psychologists--the book's target audience--along with a note suggesting the psychologists "reconsider any weight you accord to those Amazon reviews."

Two Elsevier higher-ups have weighed in, telling Inside Higher Ed that compensation for book reviewers' time is normal, but that there should be "no incentives for a positive review, and that's where this particular e-mail went too far."

In unrelated events Elsevier admitted last month that it accepted payment from drugmaker Merck to pick and choose Vioxx-friendly medical articles for inclusion in a custom journal look-alike distributed to doctors in Australia. (The Great Beyond, 8 May 2009). It's not all bad news at the academic publishing giant, however. Last week the Special Library Association named Elsevier "The Most Influential Publisher of the Last 100 Years in BioMedicine and the Life Sciences."

Posted by Lucas Laursen on June 24, 2009
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Female Italian researchers are urging the first ladies of the G8 nations to abandon plans to attend the forthcoming meeting in L’Aquila in protest at Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s treatment of women.

Berlusconi, who owns much of the Italian media, has faced a series of lurid allegations since his wife announced earlier this year she was leaving him. These have included questions over his relationship with a young model, his selections for political office including a high proportion of young, attractive women with little experience, and allegations about escorts.

“As Italian women active in Academia and Culture we are profoundly indignant about the way the Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, treats women in the public sphere as well as in private,” the researchers write in a letter entitled ‘Appeal to the First Ladies’.

“These behaviours, appalling from a moral, civil, and cultural perspective, threaten the dignity of women and exert a negative impact on the self-determination and achievement of women.”

The Times calls the letter the “first sign of a public reaction” to stories about young models attending parties thrown by Berlusconi.

The prime minister has denied many of the claims about him and called the coverage of them a smear campaign (Times, Daily Telegraph).

Full list of signatories below the fold.

Continue reading "‘Boycott Berlusconi’ researchers urge" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on June 23, 2009
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It seems that everybody has a set of numbers to explain how climate legislation moving through the US House of Representatives could impact the economy, but it's the official Congressional Budget Office score that really counts. That document came out Friday, estimating net costs of the program at $22 billion annually, which translates to an average impact of $175 dollars per household.

It's a remarkably low number, ringing in around 48 cents per day (supporters of the legislation say it would cost households little more than a daily postage stamp). And it turns out even that is misleading: If you divide households up by income into five groups, the lowest quintile would actually save $40 annually while the second-lowest quintile would spend only $40 extra each year; for everybody else (those who can afford it most), the cost comes in between $235 and $340.

CBO director Douglas Elmendorf kindly provides a quick summary of how his organization arrived at these figures in his blog. Notably, although CBO's model is able to capture some savings (gross costs are higher than $22 billion), Elmendorf admits that the model doesn't pick up all of them.

Continue reading "Climate costs: What's in a number?" »

Posted by Jeff Tollefson on June 22, 2009
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Peru's Congress has overturned two laws that would have allowed foreign companies to exploit mineral resources and gain mining rights in the Amazon forest, according to BBC News. The volte-face came after weeks of protests from Indigenous groups, who say they were not consulted about the laws which would threaten their way of life.

The laws were passed 2007 and 2008 under powers Congress had granted Peruvian president, Alan Garcia, to implement a free trade agreement with the US, the BBC News report says.

Continue reading "Peru overturns laws allowing exploitation of Amazon forest " »

Posted by Natasha Gilbert on June 19, 2009
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The New York Times reported this week that the current US President's Council on Bioethics has been disbanded. Its charter had been due to expire on 30 September.

The advisory council has had a somewhat turbulent past. President George W. Bush set it up in late 2001, following his decision to permit federally funded research on human embryonic stem cells, but only on cell lines that were in existence at the time of the announcement. Its first chair, Leon Kass, drew fire for what some regarded as ideological decisions. In 2004, council member Elizabeth Blackburn was removed after speaking out against Bush's stem-cell regulations; at the time, Kass said that she was not removed because of her political views (Nature; Nature Biotechnology). The following year, Kass left and was replaced as chair by Edmund Pellegrino of Georgetown University.

This March, 10 members of the 18-member council took the unusual step of putting out a personal consensus statement criticising President Obama's lifting of Bush's restrictions on human embryonic stem cell research.

A White House spokesman told the Times that President Obama will appoint a new council with a new mandate that “offers practical policy options". Reports from the current council include such topics as ethical caregiving and the determination of death.

It remains to be seen whether Obama will fall prey to the same trap in selecting council members. One can, however, reasonably expect Jonathan Moreno, a bioethicist at the University of Pennsylvania, to be involved in the process. Moreno is also a leading bioethicist at the Center for American Progress, the Washington-based think tank that has served as a farm system for appointees in the new administration.

Posted by Alex Witze on June 19, 2009
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This is a drill, actual inventory procedures may vary.

It's a fact of lab life that stuff gets lost in the shuffle. Digging up that old data spreadsheet or lab notebook is probably not too much more than an inconvenience for most researchers. But if you happen to work at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) at Fort Detrick in Fredrick, Maryland then it's a lot more serious than that.

At a press conference yesterday Col. Mark Kortepeter, USAMRIID's deputy commander told reporters that a recent inventory had turned up some 9,300 vials of previously uncatalogued pathogens, including serum samples from patients who had contracted hemorrhagic fever during the Korean War. The inventory also turned up Ebola, plague, anthrax, and botulism. Most of the samples were left by researchers who had since retired from the laboratory.

The report was bound to get tonnes of press, in part because USAMRIID is the former employer of Bruce Ivins, a researcher who the FBI named a "person of interest" in the 2001 anthrax attacks. Ivans died of a Tylenol overdose in July of 2008. This February, it emerged that Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus at the lab had gone unaccounted for, and all work was suspended until this inventory was completed.

Officials told reporters that numerous new security measures have been installed at the lab since 2001, and they've instituted an "aggressive" inventory system to ensure that future samples don't go unnoticed. It's clear that USAMRIID hopes to use this event to draw a line under its recently troubled past.

Image: US Army/ArraySarah

Posted by Geoff Brumfiel on June 18, 2009
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The White House opened its gates to a gaggle of science reporters Tuesday as administration officials and scientists released a much-anticipated assessment of global warming's impacts on the United States. The message - global warming is upon us - was delivered clearly and forcefully, several times over.

Hardly a novel finding, but, in a sign of the times, the audience proved receptive. The report echoed over the wires (see the Washington Post, New York Times) and filled up email in-boxes as environmental groups and politicians put their seal on the document.

President Barack Obama's chief science adviser, John Holdren, called the report "the most up-to-date, comprehensive and authoritative assessment" of global warming in the United States. The document focuses on regional impacts, he added, "talking about climate where people actually experience it: in their back yards."

Continue reading "US releases assessment of climate impacts" »

Posted by Jeff Tollefson on June 16, 2009
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Britain’s science minister, Paul Drayson, has backed calls for science to have its own parliamentary committee to scrutinise the government’s funding and use of science (BBC News, THE)

After a cabinet reshuffle on 5 June, responsibility for science was absorbed into a newly created department for business from the former Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills. In the reorganisation, Drayson’s brief has also expanded to include responsibility for defence equipment at the Ministry of Defence.

Continue reading "Drayson backs committee for science scrutiny " »

Posted by Natasha Gilbert on June 16, 2009
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A fine example of the pitfalls of the “author-pays” scheme for the open access publishing of academic papers is revealed by The Scholarly Kitchen - the Society for Scholarly Publishing’s blog.

Philip Davis, a graduate student at Cornell University in the US, decided to investigate how rigorously academic articles submitted to journals owned by the Bentham Science Publishers, which uses the author-pays model, are peer reviewed.

Continue reading "Pay to publish" »

Posted by Natasha Gilbert on June 10, 2009
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Peter Mandelson, the government's new Secretary of State for Business, Innovation & Skills offered some reassurance this morning about the role of science within the newly formed Department for Business Innovations and Skills (DBIS or just BIS). Mandelson spoke at the centenary celebration of London's Science Museum.

For those in need of a catch-up, BIS was formed last Friday after a number of resignations from Gordon Brown's cabinet rocked the government. BIS took over the science brief from the short-lived Department of Innovation Universities and Skills, which is now defunct after just 20 months.

Some folks fret that moving science into BIS means that it will come second to business, but that's not going to happen according to Mandelson. "We will be operating on a budget which is ring-fenced safe and sound," he told reporters at a press conference after the event. He added that the Haldane principle, which says that government should not interfere with the research councils, should be respected.

That's not to say there won't changes. At one point Mandelson said that applied research "obviously will receive greater emphasis." But when pressed about it, he backed down: "Applied research does not operate at the expense of fundamental science. You need both," he told me.

There have also been some worries about Paul Drayson, currently the minister of state for science. Under the cabinet reshuffle, it looks like he'll also be working for the Ministry of Defence. The BBC reports that he'll be managing the Defence R&D portfolio along with some procurement (although the MoD couldn't confirm it). Will that mean less time to devote to science?

No, says Mandelson. "Lord Drayson will give the overwhelming bulk of his time to science, innovation, and technology," he says. "I think you will find that he is a spokesman for the MoD in the Lords, rather than a minister who is going to be developing the bulk of his time to that title."

Indeed, several people are feeling pretty good about the Mandelson/Drayson tag team. Jessica Bland over at Just a Theory has a nice analysis of why it might be good for science.

But many others are still adopting a wait-and-see approach, including Universities UK, the UK's largest higher education group. They're hoping to set up some face time with Mandelson later this month to find out what this will mean for higher ed.

Bill Hartnett of the Royal Society summed up the press conference rather well: "The words are reassuring," he says

Reassurance is one thing, but it's the policy that will matter in the end.

UPDATE: Drayson's duties have now been outlined by the MoD. Among other things he will be "championing new technologies" in defence.

Image: J. Sutcliffe/Science Museum

Posted by Geoff Brumfiel on June 10, 2009
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Posted on behalf of Richard Van Noorden

Lisa Jackson, new administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), won beams of approval at a Senate hearing today as she explained how the agency had changed its processes to increase scientific integrity and transparency. But more could still be done to throw off a dark eight-year blanket of political interference in environmental scientists’ work, senators heard.

“In all my years I’ve never encountered an administrator who hit the ground running the way you did,” chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-California) praised Jackson.

Continue reading "It's a Senate lovefest for the EPA" »

Posted by Alex Witze on June 09, 2009
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Lord Paul Drayson, the UK's science minister, is on Twitter. This afternoon, he hosted an impromptu question and answer session with researchers and policy-watchers. Among other things, he reassured the research community that he will be able to continue to advocate for science, even as he takes on a new job as the Ministry of Defence's defence equipment minister. As he put it in 136 characters:

"lorddrayson: @PD_Smith But, many ministers have dual roles.. it really helps departments work together better. Silos in whitehall are not helpful. "

He also said that the ring-fence around science funding was "safe and sound," following the recent reshuffling of the government.

You can read some more excerpts here.

Posted by Geoff Brumfiel on June 09, 2009
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Posted for Richard Van Noorden

A month after British scientists successfully protested against one of their research council’s policies, they’re at it again – this time, with a wider beef.

In May, researchers overturned a controversial banning policy [subscription required] from the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. An electronic petition to Downing Street kicked off that campaign, and attracted over 2,000 signatures.

Last Tuesday another scientist-backed e-petition went live – it’s garnered over 1,100 signatures so far. The petition, organized by John Allen, a biochemist at Queen Mary University of London, requests to reverse a policy applied by UK research councils that “directs funds to projects whose outcomes are specified in advance.”

Continue reading "British scientists petition research councils: round two" »

Posted by Katharine Sanderson on June 09, 2009
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Libel scorekeepers take note: campaigners have collected over 4000 signatures from the public, joining a core of 150 prominent figures in science, government and the media who signed a statement Wednesday to “Keep Libel Laws Out of Science.”

The spark for the campaign was the libel case brought by the British Chiropractic Association against science writer Simon Singh. Last month, a British judge decided that Singh’s words, published in The Guardian in 2008, made a factual allegation that the BCA dishonestly promoted medical treatments its members knew did not work. Singh maintains otherwise, and he announced last Wednesday that he is appealing the ruling.

The BCA released a statement Friday in response to the campaign, declaring that “The BCA sued Simon Singh only as an act of last resort.” The brief statement notes that “to stifle scientific debate would clearly be wrong,” but that “scientists must realise that they cannot simply publish with impunity what they know to be untrue and libellous.”

Fear of libel suits also means that web publishers must closely monitor--and sometimes remove--potentially libellous public comments from their sites, as happened with a statement by Stephen Curry last week on Nature Network. He has since commented on the removal, writing that, "This development seems to introduce a level of self-censorship that I had not been fully aware of before. If I can find a positive note, it will make us rely even more heavily that we already do on solid evidence."

The UK judge presiding over the case—who with a single previous ruling prompted legislation denying the jurisdiction of UK libel law in several US states—is unlikely to be overruled by the appeals court, Singh says. For now, then, the present ruling on meaning stands, and the score is BCA: one ruling; Simon Singh: thousands of supporters.

Previous coverage on Nature:
Science writer will appeal libel case ruling (Nature News, 3 June 2009)
Science writer waits on legal advice in libel case (The Great Beyond, 19 May 2009)
Court setback for science writer (Nature News, 13 May 2009)
Simon Singh loses first round in chiropractic fight (The Great Beyond, 8 May 2009)

Posted by Lucas Laursen on June 08, 2009
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Do they wind up in a standoff, beating their chests as the other primates stand by angry and embarrassed? Or might they initiate an inspiring public display of mutual respect and cooperation, if not affection?

The United States' lead climate negotiator, Todd Stern, is hoping for the latter and will depart for China on Saturday in search of ways to make it happen. "We're the two gorillas in the room," Stern told a crowd gathered at the Center for American Progress in Washington this week. "If we can join hands, it will truly change the world."

Among those accompanying Stern will be White House Science Adviser John Holdren and David Sandalow, assistant secretary for policy and international affairs at the Energy Department. It is only the latest in a string of delegations shuttling back and forth between the two countries, and it comes at a potentially revealing time.

The rest of the international climate community will be focusing on Bonn, where the United Nations is currently holding the latest round of global warming talks. With 184 days before Copenhagen, where the talks are scheduled to come to a close, the two countries appear to be seeking a little quiet time together.

The US-China relationship has sparked a fair bit of speculation as of late, spurred in part by an article about "secret" bilateral talks in the Guardian last month. In truth, the talks weren't all that secret, and in any case it would have been surprising if such talks weren't under way. But the sense of optimism raised plenty of eyebrows.

Continue reading "Two gorillas walk into a UN climate meeting... " »

Posted by Jeff Tollefson on June 05, 2009
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The UK government department that houses science looks likely to be broken up amidst the flailings of under-fire prime minister Gordon Brown's cabinet reshuffle.

The Department for Universities, Innovation and Skills (DIUS) was set up by Brown when he came to power in 2007, bringing together the science and higher education agendas. Its head, John Denham - who has a chemistry degree - has been promoted in today's reshuffle, with no replacement announced.

Rumours abound that the department will be taken wholesale under the wing of business secretary Peter Mandelson (in the Department for business, enterprise and regulatory reform, or BERR). Alternatively, responsibility for science may move to BERR, and another department will take on universities.

Either way, science would be back under the control of business interests, as it was before DIUS was created. The move would reinforce the government’s push to fund research that boosts the national economy - a desire which science minister Lord Drayson has expressed on a number of occasions.

The best of the blow-by-blow speculation can be found on Twitter, but in blog action, The Times points out that the opposition Conservatives wanted to abolish the DIUS experiment anyway. "We'll get no more penguin poo research with Mandelson running the show," thinks The Ethical Palaeontologist.

Posted by Richard Van Noorden on June 05, 2009
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The United States has accidentally published a top-secret, highly-classified, I'd-show-you-but -then-I'd-have-to-kill-you list of nuclear installations on the Internets.

OK, it's not quite that bad. What they've gone and done is published a "highly confidential" disclosure document that was meant for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). This document is part of the US obligation under the IAEA "additional protocol"—a set of rules that requires America to provide the agency with a list of the location and type of civilian nuclear facilities currently on its territory. You can find the whole document on Secrecy News, the excellent blog of the Federation of American Scientists website.

The key word there is civilian. This list doesn't disclose anything about the facilities in which the US handles or dismantles its nuclear weapons. But it does have the addresses, details and sometimes schematics, of every other nuclear facility in the country (click the image for an example). Not exactly the sort of thing the government may have wanted to go public with in the post-9/11 world. The government is particularly sweating the publication of detailed information about the Y-12 site at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. "That's of great concern," energy secretary Stephen Chu told a congressional committee.

Of course there's a silver lining, the document does show that the US is taking seriously its obligations to the IAEA.

UPDATE: Secrecy News has taken down the file, but nothing dies on the Internet. You can find it on WikiLeaks.

Image: Super-secret US archives/GPO

Posted by Geoff Brumfiel on June 04, 2009
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The US National Research Council put a pretty positive spin on its latest report on women in science, released earlier this week. Women in science and engineering jobs are “faring well” in hiring and tenure processes, according to the report, which was demanded by lawmakers in Congress.

Two surveys carried out by the NRC show that women who apply for tenure-track positions have a better chance of being interviewed and receiving job offers than male applicants.

“Overall the newly released data indicate important progress, and signal to both young men and especially to young women that what had been the status quo at research-intensive universities is changing,” says Sally Shaywitz, of Yale University School of Medicine (press release). “There is a movement toward more gender equity than noted in previous reports or often publicly appreciated.”

But then comes the caveat: “At the same time, the findings show that we are not there yet.”

Continue reading "Women still struggling in US science" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on June 04, 2009
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A staunch advocate for science in the Labour government has become one of the latest casualties in a scandal over the misuse of expenses by MPs.

Backbench MP, Ian Gibson, who is a member and former chairman, of the House of Commons committee that scrutinises the use and funding of science in government, has been barred from standing for Labour at the next general elections. The penalty was handed down by a disciplinary panel, following questions over his expenses, reports BBC News.

Gibson reportedly claimed for mortgage interest and bills totally nearly £80,000 for a flat that he said was his second home, but in which his daughter lived rent free ((BBC, Guardian, Telegraph). The expenses are paid for out of public funds.

BBC News reports that Gibson is said to be “very upset” at the decision.

Martin Booth, the chairman of the local Labour Party in Norwich North – Gibson’s constituency - has defended the beleaguered MP. Booth told BBC News he was “horrified” that Gibson has been barred, and accused the panel of being a “kangaroo court”.

Continue reading "Labour science advocate barred from next elections " »

Posted by Natasha Gilbert on June 03, 2009
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The Global Humanitarian Forum certainly attracted some publicity last week when it published a report suggesting that global warming kills 315,000 people each year and seriously harms another 300,000. Total price tag: $125 billion annually.

Such numbers are as appealing to journalists as they are to those who put them out, precisely because they are easy to understand and explain. They should also raise alarms, and for the very same reasons. It's not that anybody really doubts that global warming is impacting ecosystems and communities and thus affecting lives, but these are complex issues that resist quick attempts at quantification.

The New York Times published a quick story about the report while raising some basic questions about the estimations. The story quotes Roger Pielke Jr., who has been researching these issues for years, calling the report a "methodological embarrassment" that simply glosses over socioeconomic factors (like people moving into hurricane-prone coasts). For an in-depth discussion, check Pielke's blog.

Although the GHF didn't shy away from using the eye-catching estimates, the authors do explain their calculations in the report. Among other things, they cite data from Munich Re estimating that 40 percent of the increase in weather-related disasters from 1980 to present is due to climate change. As it happens, Pielke says Munich Re itself has come to the opposite conclusion when it comes to assessing the data and assigning blame.

Pielke's message appears to be getting out there. Reuters followed up its initial story with a second, more thematic piece raising various questions about this kind of research.

Posted by Jeff Tollefson on June 01, 2009
Categories: Earth, environment & ecology, Policy | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

The US Forest Service (USFS) must halt road-building in 58 million acres of national forest for one year, according to a directive issued yesterday by the US agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack. The move is a reversal of a Bush-era environmental policy, which in turn undermined a rule Clinton instated late in his presidential term.

The Clinton and Bush rulings spawned numerous lawsuits, according to today's AP report. Vilsack, who oversees the USFS, said in a statement yesterday that "this interim directive will provide consistency and clarity that will help protect our national forests until a long-term roadless policy reflecting President Obama's commitment is developed."

Continue reading "End of the roads" »

Posted by Lucas Laursen on May 29, 2009
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Posted for Declan Butler

Strong rumours abound inside the Parisian Beltway that French president Nicolas Sarkozy is considering offering the former Socialist science minister, 72-year old maverick geophysicist and climate sceptic Claude Allègre, a ministerial post in his government -- possibly a ministry of industry and innovation. (Financial Times).

Allègre has the scientific credentials. He won the 1986 Crafoord Prize, awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for outstanding basic research in disciplines not covered by the Nobel prizes. He also headed the Institut de Physique de Globe in Paris from 1976 to 1986, and was president of the French geological survey — the Bureau des Recherches Géologiques et Minières — from 1992 until 1997, as well as being a member of the European Parliament from 1989 to 1994.

But when Allègre, a former prominent Socialist, was minister for science and higher education in Lionel Jospin’s government from 1997 to 2000 he probably broke all records for unpopularity of a French science minister. He described the education system as a fat "mammoth" in need of slimming, and said that the trade unions were "chloroformed". In 1998, Nature called for Jospin to fire Allègre unless he changed his ways – which Jospin finally did in 2000. Since then Allègre has divorced himself further from many French scientists with his views that carbon dioxide is not the main cause of global warming. (see Real Climate here and here)

Continue reading "Claude Allègre back in French government? " »

Posted by Katharine Sanderson on May 28, 2009
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It wouldn't be Washington if the rumour mill weren't spinning out of control. Just days after Barack Obama finally nominated Charles Bolden, a Marine Corps general, to head NASA (Nature), media reports are buzzing yet again about another long-anticipated science nominee: Francis Collins, supposedly to head the National Institutes of Health.

The shortlist for NIH head reportedly included more than just Collins, but he has long been considered a frontrunner. The former director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, he spearheaded the publicly funded drive to sequence the human genome. Never shy, he has been outspoken about his efforts to reconcile science and religion, such as in his 2006 book The Language of God (Nature story, subscription required). Most recently he has drawn attention through his BioLogos Foundation, funded by the Templeton Foundation and meant "to address the escalating culture war between science and faith in the United States". It drew a fair amount of ire for its apparent fluffiness, for instance from blogger PZ Myers.

Obama's personnel announcements come near the end of most days on the White House listserv, often titled 'President Announces More Key Administration Posts'. For reporters, this means opening each email with baited breath to see if it will be, finally, the NIH head announcement -- or something about the chief of protocol for the state department.

Posted by Alex Witze on May 27, 2009
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The storyline is familiar by now: US President Barack Obama overturns industry-friendly policy established by Bush administration, reaping praise from environmental groups. And so it was on Thursday, when the Environmental Protection Agency announced plans to reinstate an obscure-but-important component of the scientific review process within an equally obscure-but-important component of the air quality program.

The gist is that EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has formally restored the role of its independent science advisors in producing a staff paper detailing recommendations on air quality standards. For a bit of history, check the Union of Concerned Scientists' website here and here.

The announcement even picked up some news coverage (Reuters, Philadelphia Enquirer), which is something given the flurry of energy and climate news coming out of Washington this week.

Posted by Jeff Tollefson on May 22, 2009
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The chairman and his immediate predecessor on an influential parliamentary science committee in the UK have become enmeshed in the widening scandal over politicians’ expense claims.

Liberal Democrat Phil Willis, the current chairman of the Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills Committee, reportedly claimed around £15,000 of expenses for renovating a flat in Kennington, London where his daughter, Rachel Willis, now lives. Willis says his daughter, an actress who appeared in an advertising campaign as a critically panned electronic genie for five years until 2003, was not a permanent resident in the flat (though intriguingly, a BBC report after the actress was mugged in 2002, claims she was yards away from her home… in Kennington). The MP and his daughter have received a death threat since the allegations surfaced.

Meanwhile, Ian Gibson, current member and former chairman of the IUSS committee in its former guise as the Science and Technology select committee, reportedly also claimed expenses for a flat which was the main home of his daughter, Helen Gibson. The MP has offered to resign if his constituents think he should go. Gibson was a geneticist and served as dean of the school of biological sciences at the University of East Anglia from 1991-1997.

Posted by Ananyo Bhattacharya on May 22, 2009
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A new programme to develop cures for rare or ‘orphan’ diseases has been unveiled in the US. The National Institutes of Health is putting $24 million up for work on some of the 6,600 rare diseases that impact 25 million Americans and which currently have no effective treatments.

“The federal government may be the only institution that can take the financial risks needed to jumpstart the development of treatments for these diseases, and NIH clearly has the scientific capability to do the work,” says NIH Acting Director Raynard Kington (press release).

NIH’s definition of a rare disease is “one that affects fewer than 200,000 Americans”. It also notes that it can cost $10 million to get a treatment through the pre-clinical drug trial process. Between 80 and 90% of drugs fail, leading this stage to be dubbed the ‘valley of death’.

Obviously $24 million isn’t going to go far with costs of up to $10 million per drug, but NIH’s new Therapeutics for Rare and Neglected Diseases programme will aim to improve the drug development process itself, as well as coming up with its own treatments.

”Preclinical work is hard and our resources will be limited,” Stephen Groft, director of the NHI rare diseases offices acknowledges (WSJ).

Reuters notes the TRND programme will also be reporting its failures, something not widely practised in drug development. “We are going to tell everyone what we are doing,” says Christopher Austin of the NIH Chemical Genomics Center. “That alone will be revolutionary.”

Derek Lowe, on the In the Pipeline blog, adds:

Treating rare diseases can be quite profitable in the industrialized world (ask Genzyme, among other companies), but if the conditions are localized in poorer areas no one's likely to take a crack at them. So my first reaction is ‘Good, and the best of luck to you’.

Image: Punchstock

Posted by Daniel Cressey on May 21, 2009
Categories: Chemistry, Policy | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

A Venezuelan scientist and thorn in the side of the country’s Chavez government is threatening to go to court over his dismissal from an institute he lead in the 1980s.

Biologist Jaime Requena says his removal from the Foundation Institute of Advanced Studies of Venezuela was politically motivated. He has previously criticised the government (including in this letter to Nature) and claimed scientific productivity in Venezuela is at its lowest in years.

He told SciDevNet, “Up to the moment no legal action has been taken because my attorneys are studying the options that we have.”

Luis Carbonell, chairman of the Human Rights Commission of the Venezuelan Association for the Advancement of Science, says Requena has not been told what alleged misconduct led to his sacking.

“Requena is a man internationally recognized for his work, but disagrees with the regime of President Hugo Chávez,” he says (El Nacional, via Google Translate). “The problem is that his removal has not complied with due process. He received the communication, but by law he is entitled to defend himself …”

The El Librepensador website noted that there have been other cases of researchers allegedly being dismissed for their political views. “But in Venezuela, the dismissal of researchers for meddling in politics is not a new matter,” it noted in April.

Requena was dismissed from the same institute before, but was reinstated after a previous court battle.

Image: Flag of Venezuela / Wikipedia

Posted by Daniel Cressey on May 21, 2009
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Arnold Schwarzenegger’s headache this week could soon be felt by California’s university researchers, after the state’s voters overwhelmingly terminated their governor’s suggestions for ending an ongoing budget crisis.

While the star of such movie greats as Conan and Commando will be worrying about his political future, scientists may be more concerned about their paycheques, as the state has no solution in sight for its $20 billion deficit.

On Tuesday voters rejected Schwarzenegger’s proposals to plug the hole with tax rises, borrowing and other measures and the state could soon have problems paying its bills.

Continue reading "Should scientists sweat over Schwarzenegger’s shortfall?" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on May 21, 2009
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The International Whaling Commission has yet again failed to reach an agreement between those nations that would hunt cetaceans and those that oppose all whaling. A key working group has failed to make a decision on Japan’s proposal that it phase out its controversial Antarctic hunts in return for being allowed to hunt minke whales in its own coastal waters.

The Small Working Group on the Future of the IWC is tasked with attempting to solve the issues related to Japanese coastal whaling, ‘special permit’ or ‘scientific whaling’ and sanctuaries. In the report of its 18 May meeting, it notes:

However, given the complexity and the sensitivity of the issues involved, it should not come as a surprise that it has thus far not been possible to secure agreement on key specifics ... . The inter-relatedness of the three issues singled out cannot be overemphasized; hence the importance of the principle that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.

It notes that two working group members expressed concern that too much attention is being given to Japanese coastal whaling versus the more general issues of commercial whaling bans and management issues.

Although the report does not identify these members, Australia’s environment minister Peter ‘Burning Beds’ Garrett said, “We don’t consider a solution to this particular issue to be a reduction in whaling in one area and an increase in whaling in another. Until such time as the commission is able to reach a strong view about the appropriate ways of determining matters such as scientific whaling and other measures, then we will just continue to remain in the tough negotiation.” (The Age.)

Other coverage
Decision postponed on minke hunt off Japan – UPI
IWC delays decision on coastal whaling – Kyodo

Other whaling news
“The Federal Opposition has accused the [Australian] Government of secretly dropping its election promise to take Japan to the international court over its whaling program.” - ABC News

Image: Gulf of Maine Cod Project, NOAA National Marine Sanctuaries; Courtesy of National Archives

Posted by Daniel Cressey on May 20, 2009
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Austria has stepped back from abandoning Europe’s most important particle physics lab.

Last week Johannes Hahn, the country’s science minister, said his country would withdraw from CERN, which runs the high profile Large Hadron Collider project. The decision was greeted with shock by Austrian physicists (see: Austria quits CERN after 50 years).

Now Chancellor Werner Faymann appears to have overruled Hahn, issuing a statement saying Austria will “remain a reliable partner in the CERN project”.

Reuters sees the u-turn as a spat between Faymann, a social democrat, and Hahn, a conservative. It notes that one national paper is running the story under the headline ‘CERN clash: government in a black hole’.

A petition against the pull out attracted over 30,000 signatures. Austria contributes around 20 million Euros to CERN.

Image: flags of member states fly at CERN’s Meyrin site / CERN

Posted by Daniel Cressey on May 19, 2009
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A senior official in the Obama administration held an anonymous background briefing with reporters Monday evening, confirming earlier reports that the administration plans to issue new regulations for automobiles tomorrow.

Given that the official largely confirmed everything that has already been written, it wasn't entirely clear why anonymity was required, but there you go. The new standard does indeed achieve the same requirement in 2016 as the California standard, although the ramp-up in the first three years is slightly slower. California has consequently agreed to drop its request for a separate standard, at least through 2016.

The proposed rule, to be filed jointly by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Transportation Department, would break vehicles into unspecified categories and require each category to increase in fuel-efficiency. This new system is designed to ensure that all vehicles improve, because companies can't simply make a few more fuel-efficient vehicles to offset their gas-guzzlers. Manufacturers would still be required to make sure that their entire fleet meets the average of 35.5 miles per gallon.

The official said the new proposal is expected to add $600 to the price of a new car on average, in addition to the $700 increase expected from the previous regulations. But once you factor in savings due to increased fuel efficiency, the official explained, 'it might end up being a wash."

Although the proposal must still negotiate the regular rule-making process, the administration seems confident that it will sail through as written, thanks to support from not only California but also the automobile manufacturers themselves.

Posted by Jeff Tollefson on May 19, 2009
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It is all too common to hear complaints that there are not enough women in science. Yesterday, Europe’s research commissioner warned an audience in Prague that, “It’s a little like being a magician - take a look at the upper levels of the occupational ladder in science and technology: women disappear!”

Janez Potocnik, along with many before him, points out that there is a ‘leaky pipeline’. While many women pass through universities at the lower levels, relatively few make it to lofty positions.

Potocnik was not just in Prague to re-state previous wisdom though.

Continue reading "Women in science and Europe" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on May 15, 2009
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There seems to be one easy way to get a top public health spot in the new US administration: be a leading official in the New York health department. Today, President Barack Obama announced that he had appointed the current health commissioner in New York City, Thomas Frieden, to head the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The person who was the New York health commissioner between 1992 and 1997, Peggy Hamburg, is currently awaiting confirmation as the nominee to head the Food and Drug Administration.

Friedman's background includes extensive experience in various areas of public health, from fighting tuberculosis in India to working on tobacco control in New York City. He worked for the CDC between 1990 and 2002, including a stint in its Epidemiologic Intelligence Service, the crack team that investigates emerging infectious disease worldwide. A Newsday profile published in 2002 details his workaholic habits. A 2006 Nature Medicine profile also delves into his record in New York.

He takes over an agency not exactly in crisis but somewhat limping along; some had accused the previous CDC director, Julie Geberding, of politicizing the agency's scientific work. However, many experts have praised the CDC's response to the recent swine flu outbreak. More than 4,200 cases have been confirmed within US borders, including three deaths.

Richard Besser, the acting director for the CDC who has been handling most of the swine flu press briefings, will stay on at the agency in his job running its office for terrorism preparedness and emergency response.

Some AIDS activists have challenged Frieden's potential appointment before. They oppose his efforts to drop a reporting requirement -- instituted in the early days of the AIDS epidemic -- that means potentially HIV-infected patients need to provide written consent and get counseling before getting an AIDS test. Many public health experts think this step is today unnecessary paperwork, but some activists support the mandatory counseling part of it.

The position of surgeon general is still open. Any former New York health commissioners out there interested?

Posted by Alex Witze on May 15, 2009
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Russia is banging its Arctic war drums again this week, with the release of a report warning that it cannot rule out “problems that involve the use of military force” along its borders.

The strategy document was approved on Tuesday by President Dmitry Medvedev (Reuters, CanWest News).

Other nations, including Canada and the United States, are eyeing up potential oil resources under the Arctic. Thinning sea ice and a UN convention that allows countries to claim rights to the sea floor if they can fulfil certain criteria are also raising the frequency of sabre rattling over the cold region.

“The Russians have been talking very co-operatively, but they have been backing it up with an increasingly strong military set of actions,” Rob Huebert, a University of Calgary political scientist, told CanWest. “You mix uncertain boundaries with major powers and massive amounts of oil and gas, and you always get difficult international circumstances.”

The Times opines that “Unlike the Antarctic, there is still no international treaty governing the Arctic. There should be. What the Arctic urgently needs is a fleet of lawyers, not a fleet of gunboats.”

(From the Times, see also: Kremlin keeps up James Bond theme with talk of Arctic war.)

Previous Nature coverage of this topic
Norway’s undersea dominions just got larger – 16 April 2009
Europe crashes the Arctic party – 21 November 2008
Arctic cold war gets hotter again – 13 August 2008
Arctic mapping redraws borders – 15 February 2008
Mapping the Arctic dispute – 06 August 2008
Sea floor claims madness – 21 April 2008
Climate change ‘could lead to conflict with Russia’ – 10 March 2008
Russian pole stunt’s American origin – 19 February 2008
News Feature: The next land rush – 2 January 2008

Posted by Daniel Cressey on May 14, 2009
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Australia’s new budget was announced earlier this week, bringing with it smiles for researchers. The new budget for science in 2009/10 is 8.6 billion Australian dollars (£4.3 bn).

“This is an historic budget for science, education and innovation, with a record spend in this area representing a 25% increase on last year, the highest annual increase since records began,” says Ken Baldwin, president of the Federation of Australian Science and Technological Societies (ABC News).

Continue reading "Australian scientists celebrate cash boost" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on May 14, 2009
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While Reporters Without Borders celebrates the release of Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi, Physicians for Human Rights are holding a virtual and live vigil today to draw attention to the continued imprisonment of Iranian doctors Kamiar and Arash Alaei.

The brothers’ HIV relief work landed them in an Iranian prison in June 2008. They were charged and later convicted of “communications with an enemy government” and “seeking to overthrow the Iranian government under article 508 of Iran’s Islamic Penal Code” this winter according to the vigil website.

The doctors, who studied and have attended conferences in the US, had distributed condoms and clean needles in Iranian prisons to curtail HIV transmission.

Saberi's conviction ("cooperating with a hostile state" ) was overthrown on the grounds that the United States is not hostile to Iran, according to an editorial in the Boston Globe. The reversal has diplomatic overtones, writes the Globe, which should also apply to the doctors.

Previous Nature coverage of this topic
An appeal to President Ahmadinejad - Nature Editorial, 29 January 2009
Iranian AIDS doctors' trial draws condemnation - Nature, 28 January 2009
Iran puts leading HIV scientists on trial - The Great Beyond, 07 January 2009
Iran holds AIDS doctors - Nature, 17 September 2008

Posted by Daniel Cressey on May 12, 2009
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A member of the US military’s Human Terrain programme has avoided jail time after being sentenced last week for shooting a restrained Afghan man in the head.

Don Ayala, a contractor on the controversial military social sciences programme, previously pleaded guilty to manslaughter. Although this crime would normally carry up to eight years of jail time, AP reports, he instead received a $12,500 fine and five years on probation.

Nature has previously called for the programme to be reformed or scrapped, noting, “Questions have been raised about how well the programme vets its employees. Some scientists who have joined the system have complained about inadequate training. And qualified researchers have been dismissed for seemingly trivial reasons, even though much more questionable people seem to breeze onto the payroll.”

Ayala killed Abdul Salam in Afghanistan in November 2008, minutes after an incident in which Salam attacked Human Terrain researcher Paula Loyd, setting her on fire. Loyd later died of her injuries.

On Friday, the New Orleans Times Picayune reported:

There were tears and sighs of relief from friends and supporters of Don Ayala, 46, of New Orleans, when District Court Judge Claude Hilton announced a sentence of five years probation. Hilton said he is sympathetic to the horror Ayala experienced after learning social scientist Paula Loyd had been attacked.

The Human Terrain programme has been mired in controversy. In addition to the death of Loyd and Salam, two other members have been killed in action.

Posted by Daniel Cressey on May 11, 2009
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A string of e-mails posted on the non-for-profit news site ProPublica has reignited a long-running debate on the role of psychologists in interrogation.

The e-mails relate to a 2005 document from the American Psychological Association (APA) on psychological ethics and national security. The document lays out guidelines for psychologists working for the Pentagon and other security services. Among other things the document says that psychologists must report acts of cruel or degrading treatment, but that they may consult on interrogations.

The e-mails show that psychologists actively involved with the military had a disproportionate influence on the way the guidelines were written. "These guys were writing a get out of jail free card for themselves," says Nathaniel Raymond, senior investigator at the Cambridge-based Physicians for Human Rights, which has called on the APA to investigate.

The APA calls those accusations "ill-founded". The guidelines were meant to help psychologists working in places like Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, to navigate the ethical minefield surrounding military intelligence gathering. In that context it only makes sense that the panel would consult with those who needed guidance the most. "To allege that the APA leadership engaged in unethical conduct in the development of this task force’s report is wholly without merit," the organization said in a statement.

The Boston Globe has done a really good story on the subject here.

Posted by Geoff Brumfiel on May 08, 2009
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Posted for David Cyranoski

Question: What to do with all those spare Japanese postdocs?
Answer: Sell them to industry.

Japan's science and education ministry has an unemployment problem on its hands: postdocs. Efforts in the 1990s to cultivate postdocs to fill in gaps in the research environment worked--all too well--and now there are tens of thousands without work in a university system shrinking under pressures from government streamlining and declining population (declining student bodies).

Industry traditionally has not wanted to deal with postdocs, preferring to recruit straight out of university and train its R&D staff on location.

The education ministry wants to change this.

Continue reading "Pssst. Wanna buy a posutodoku?" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on May 08, 2009
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The Obama Administration has nominated Tara O'Toole, director of the Center for Biosecurity at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, as the chief scientist for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

O'Toole is inheriting a deeply troubled programme. From its inception in 2002, the DHS S&T programme has been a bit of a mess. It's been slow to release grant money, failed to justify its spending to Congress, and lost its power to other organizations such as the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office. Morale has been low and staff turnover high.

In some sense she's perfect for the job. If confirmed, she will oversee programmes such as BioWatch, which is designed to detect biological attacks. But she's already drawing criticism over at Danger Room. Among others, George Smith, a senior fellow at GlobalSecurity.org, says that O'Toole is a scaremonger who will pander to the bio-defence industry.

We can probably look forward to some tough questions at her confirmation hearing.

Posted by Geoff Brumfiel on May 07, 2009
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Last year the European Court of Human Rights told the UK government it couldn’t keep the DNA of innocent people on its police database. Today the UK government announced how it would deal with the ruling, in a response that basically amounts to two fingers to the court.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, who has already been beset by controversy this year, wants to keep DNA profiles of innocent people arrested but not convicted of serious violent or sexual crimes for 12 years. Innocent people arrested but not convicted of other crimes would be kept for six years.

Opposition party shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling said, “The government just doesn’t get this. People in Britain should be innocent until proven guilty.” (Reuters.)

Civil liberties groups and opinion writers have also reacted with outrage to the proposals.

Continue reading "UK will retain DNA of innocent accused" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on May 07, 2009
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The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded 81 grants worth $100,000 (£65,000) each for research projects into unconventional approaches to tackle global health issues, such as HIV, malaria, tuberculosis, pneumonia and diarrheal diseases (Telegraph, AP, Baltimore Sun).

Among the grant recipients of five-year grants is Eric Lam at Rutgers University in New Jersey, who is exploring tomatoes as an antiviral drug delivery system.

Continue reading "Gates Foundation awards grants for unconventional projects " »

Posted by Natasha Gilbert on May 06, 2009
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The White House announced today that it will ask Congress to spend $63 billion on U.S. global health programs over six years. The money will be used to combat HIV/AIDS - largely though the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) – and on programs in malaria, tuberculosis, maternal and child health, family planning, and neglected tropical diseases.

President Obama will ask Congress for the money in his 2010 budget, which he is scheduled to release on 7 May.

In a statement announcing his plan, Obama cited the outbreak of H1N1 swine flu, and said, “The world is interconnected, and that demands an integrated approach to global health. [W]e have a responsibility to protect the health of our people, while saving lives, reducing suffering, and supporting the health and dignity of people everywhere.”

Continue reading "Obama to request $63 billion for global health" »

Posted by Erika Check Hayden on May 06, 2009
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Francis Collins is a geneticist who is famous not only for being the former head of the US Human Genome Project--and a widely rumoured choice to be the next director of the National Institutes of Health--but for being a devout evangelical Christian.

He sees no contradiction between those roles. In his 2006 best-seller, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, he argued that science is perfectly compatible with religious faith, properly understood--and that faith, in particular, need not be synonymous with absolute-literal-truth-of-every-word-in-the-Bible fundamentalism. God operates through natural law, Collins declared. Humankind is the product of Darwinian evolution. And the scriptural accounts are best read metaphorically.

Collins' arguments earned him howls of derision from the more stridently atheistic quarters of science, but praise from many other parts of the research community (including a complementary editorial in Nature). Now, with funding from the John Templeton Foundation, he has launched BioLogos.org: a Web site that, in the words of its mission statement, "addresses the core themes of science and religion, and emphasizes the compatibility of Christian faith with what science has discovered about the origins of the universe and life."

At the heart of the site are essays that attempt to answer 33 of the most frequently asked questions about religion and science. Examples range from the basics--"What is evolution? "--to that freshman bull-session classic, "If God created the universe, what created God?" The BioLogos.org also provides reading lists and other resources. Future plans include curriculum materials for parents who are home-schooling their children, and looking for alternatives to the abundant materials provided by creationist and intelligent-design organizations.

No word yet on whether the founding of BioLogos.org will affect Collins' chances for the NIH directorship. But if his book hasn't knocked him out of contention already, it's hard to imagine this Web site will. And besides, the choice is up to US president Barack Obama, who invited televangelist Rick Warren to give the invocation at his inauguration, and who seems to love bridging cultural divides.

Posted by Mitch Waldrop on May 05, 2009
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Every stage of the protracted movement of Europe’s new animal research legislation from proposals to statute book has attracted the ire of one group or another.

When the proposals were first announced last year researchers were outraged at what they saw as ridiculous and damaging barriers to their work. When Parliament’s agriculture committee recently amended the proposed legislation animal rights groups were outraged at what they saw as political kowtowing to business interests.

Now the full parliament has voted on the legislation. This time people on both sides get to be angry.

The majority of members of the European Parliament (MEPs) voted with the agriculture committee, backing the use of non-human primates in basic research and science-friendly approaches to the re-use of animals.

Continue reading "European animal research vote generates more anger" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on May 05, 2009
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South Korea has re-entered stem cell science, with the national committee on bioethics approving the first research proposal since the national scandal over Woo Suk Hwang’s fraudulent stem cell claims.

A new study will be undertaken at Cha Hospital in Seoul.

“The decision will help reactivate stem cell research in South Korea,” says Chung Hyung-Min, the hospital’s lead researcher (AFP). “Stem cell research has been done by scientists in Britain and other countries. But there has been no successful case yet, using human eggs.”

Reuters says the research will involve “producing human stem cells through cloning” while AFP confusingly says the project will be “using aborted human eggs to develop cures for grave human diseases”. The Korea Times says the approval is for “somatic stem cell cloning”.

A number of conditions have been placed on the research team. The Korea Times explains:

In lifting the ban, the committee called on the hospital to minimize the use of human eggs by having the research conducted primarily on lab animals. The use of human eggs will be limited to 800 for the research, lower than the 1,000 originally requested by the centre.

The hospital was also required to remove all references about stem cell research leading to 'cures' for certain diseases and improve the quality of its consent process for egg donors.

Posted by Daniel Cressey on April 30, 2009
Categories: Health and medicine, Policy | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In an earlier post, we cited third-hand information suggesting that Barack Obama will be the first sitting president since John F. Kennedy to address the National Academy of Science's annual meeting. It seemed credible enough at the time, given the sources, but it turns out that it was wrong twice over.

For a complete and detailed list, compiled (and composed) today by NAS, read on:

Continue reading "Update: Obama to address the NAS " »

Posted by Jeff Tollefson on April 24, 2009
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Barack Obama is scheduled to address the National Academy of Sciences' 146th annual meeting in Washington on Monday, 27 April, NAS spokesman Bill Kearney confirmed Friday.

The last president to address the academy was Bill Clinton, although Obama will be the first sitting president to speak at the annual meeting since John F. Kennedy (the latter bit of trivia courtesy of John Holdren, the president's science advisor, via Kearney).

The talk will take place Monday morning. Stay tuned for more.

Posted by Jeff Tollefson on April 24, 2009
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Following hot on the heels of the theft of computer data on America’s most advanced fighter plane, President Obama’s cybersecurity advisor has called for more to be done in safeguarding information.

Melissa Hathaway, acting senior director for cyberspace, is leading a review into the issue of cybersecurity which the New York Times says “is simply the opening round in what may become a bruising political battle over how much control should be exercised and over which agencies of the government will take command of computer security”.

The review will likely be made public at the end of the month but Hathaway, speaking at the RSA 2009 conference in San Francisco, said cybersecurity was “one of the most serious challenges of the 21st Century”. She called for public and private organisations to come together with individuals to secure the internet (BBC).

“A few hours south of here, there are creative Hollywood writers and actors who have imagined and produced stories that capture the essence of the problem, including: Matthew Broderick in War Games, Robert Redford in Sneakers, Sandra Bullock in The Net, and Bruce Willis in Live Free and Die Hard. These and other movies present the types of issues that we should care about and solve together,” Hathaway told the conference (remarks from The Atlantic).

Continue reading "Cybersecurity: Matthew Broderick, Robert Redford, Sandra Bullock, Bruce Willis and now … Barack Obama" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on April 23, 2009
Categories: Neat technologies, Policy | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

An animal rights activist has been added to the FBI’s Most Wanted list, ranking him among terrorists such as Osama Bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri.

Daniel Andreas San Diego is wanted for allegedly bombing two biotechnology facilities near San Francisco, says the FBI. He is the first US ‘domestic terrorist’ to make the Most Wanted list.

Both of the buildings bombed were apparently targeted for doing business with Huntingdon Life Sciences, a company that has long been targeted by animal rights extremists.

“San Diego is a known San Francisco Bay-area animal rights extremist, involved with the Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty campaign, commonly referred to as SHAC,” says Michael Heimbach, assistant director of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division (statement). “We continue to make great strides in dismantling animal rights and environmental extremists, like Daniel Andreas San Diego.”

According to Heimback, animal rights and environmental extremists have committed over 1,800 criminal acts and caused over $110 million in damages. A reward of up to $250,000 is on offer for information leading to the location and arrest of San Diego, who is considered armed and dangerous.

Coverage
Animal rights activist on FBI terror list – SF Chronicle
In defense of people – Chronicle editorial
Vegan Daniel Andreas San Diego who tried to close British animal lab is put on FBI list – (London) Times
Wanted: FBI Adds Environmental Terrorist to Most-Wanted List – WSJ Environmental Capital blog

Image: detail from FBI wanted poster

Posted by Daniel Cressey on April 22, 2009
Categories: Biology & Biotechnology, Health and medicine, Policy | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Back in the day, Chinese scientists like Wen Ho Lee had to come to the US to be accused of stealing secrets. More recently, a US researcher is awaiting sentencing in America for sharing technology with his Chinese student. But the world is changing fast, and today's Wall Street Journal has an incredible story of how the Chinese are now being accused of stealing US technology from the comfort of home.

The Journal article details how hackers have stolen terabytes (that's TERABYTES) of data on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, a US$300 billion project that is the Pentagon's costliest development programme ever. The attackers infiltrated contractor computers during 2007 and 2008 and siphoned off sensitive details about the design and electronics systems of the aircraft. The most sensitive data were kept on a secure Pentagon server and appear to be safe, but the hackers made off with mounds other stuff. It's not even clear what they managed to steal: the infiltrators encrypted the data that they siphoned off, leaving Air Force forensic teams stumped.

Like many cyber attacks, the espionage appeared to originate in China. Of course nobody knows for sure that Chinese nationals were behind the attacks, but that hasn't stopped speculation that, once again, the Chinese have gotten hold of the US's most sensitive secrets. The Chinese Embassy in Washington called those allegations "a product of the Cold War mentality" and said that they were meant to "fan up China threat sensations."

Lockheed Martin Chief Financial Officer Bruce Tanner says, via the Washington Post, "To our knowledge there's never been any classified information breach." He went on to say, "Like the government, these attacks on our systems are continuous, and we do have stringent measures in place to both detect and stop these attacks."

Image: USAF/Lockheed Martin

Posted by Geoff Brumfiel on April 21, 2009
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Alleged members of the Animal Liberation Front have been charged with conspiracy, stalking and other crimes related to a campaign against researchers in California.

The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office says Linda Faith Greene, 61, and Kevin Richard Olliff, 22, were arrested on 16 April and arraigned yesterday. Both have pleaded not guilty (press release).

University of California, Los Angeles chancellor Gene Block said in a statement, “While we respect the rights of those who hold different views on the use of animals in research, the use of criminal tactics is deplorable. We’re grateful to UCLA’s police department for working with other law enforcement agencies to gather the evidence that led to these arrests, as well as to the district attorney’s office for recognizing the seriousness of the crimes against our researchers.”

Continue reading "Animal rights activists arrested in California" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on April 21, 2009
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Further details of what is expected in the UK’s budget on Wednesday are leaking out into the press. The Independent first reported the government’s plans for a green budget on 8 April (The Great Beyond).

Alastair Darling, the chancellor, is expected to announce a £500 million green stimulus package, including £200 million for wind turbines, hydro-electric power and other renewable energy technologies, says a report in the Times

The BBC reports that the chancellor will announce two carbon capture and storage demonstration projects. It is unclear if funding will be earmarked for these projects, though.

Continue reading "Hundreds of millions for green technology expected in UK budget " »

Posted by Natasha Gilbert on April 20, 2009
Categories: Earth, environment & ecology, Energy, Financial Crisis, Policy | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Posted for David Cyranoski

The Japanese press is reporting that senior ruling party parliament member and former finance minister Shoichi Nakagawa called for Japan to develop a nuclear weapons program yesterday [Sunday].

Reports of nuclear bomb ambitions aren't new in Japan, but they are always controversial.

Japan, the only country to suffer a nuclear strike, has long held a no-nuke position, and most of its populace take great pride in it. Most Japanese get nervous about nuclear energy, and power companies have been defeated often by local initiatives rejecting new nuclear plants. Observers here refer to it as a "nuclear allergy" among the populace (Referendum stalls Japanese nuclear power strategy - June 2001).

Continue reading "Japan facing nuclear future?" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on April 20, 2009
Categories: Energy, Policy | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

25 March, 2009
A job advert for “Chief Scientific Adviser - Security Service MI5” goes live on the Nature Jobs website.

01 April, 2009
Policy newspaper Research Fortnight comments on job advert. Job advert is also noted here, on The Great Beyond.

17 April, 2009
“MI5 is to appoint a chief scientific adviser, BBC News has learned.”

Image: detail from MI5 website

Posted by Daniel Cressey on April 17, 2009
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As if the White House wasn’t enough, US President Barack Obama now has a lichen of his own. Kerry Knudsen, the lichen curator at the University of California, Riverside Herbarium, has named a newly discovered species Caloplaca obamae.

In his paper in Opuscula Philolichenum, Knudsen writes:

The species is named in honor of Barack Obama, President of the United States. The final collections of this species were made during the suspenseful final weeks of Obama’s campaign for president and this paper was written during the international jubilation over his election. The final draft was completed on the day of his inauguration. He is honored for his support of science and scientific education.

C. obamae was discovered in 2007 on Santa Rosa Island in California. Knudsen says it was nearly wiped out by cattle ranching on the island, but is now recovering (press release).

Image: J. C. Lendemer / UCR

Posted by Daniel Cressey on April 16, 2009
Categories: Earth, environment & ecology, Policy | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Norway has successfully claimed a huge swathe of seabed in the North Sea.

The United Nations has gifted the country the rights to an additional 235,000 square kilometres of seabed – potentially including lucrative oil reserves.

Under rules set down in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea countries can claim seabed beyond the standard 200 nautical mile range if this is a natural extension of their territory. The Arctic has been a controversial area for such claims, with Russia and Canada also seeking seabed rights (see Nature’s 2008 feature ‘The next land rush’ for more on this).

Now the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, which is responsible for assessing such claims, has accepted Norway’s rights to an area that extends nearly to the North Pole (UN pdf).

Continue reading "Norway’s undersea dominions just got larger" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on April 16, 2009
Categories: Earth, environment & ecology, Policy | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

North Korea's April 5 rocket launch has been the cause of much speculation: Was it an attempt to put a satellite into orbit or a test of a ballistic missile? Did it work or didn't it?

The answers to these questions matter, and not just to the analysts over at Arms Control Wonk. Diplomats trying to determine what to do about the Hermit Kingdom must figure out the North's intentions. If the launch was a military test, it would violate a 2006 resolution that was put in place after North Korea tested (kinda) its first nuclear weapon.

Yesterday, the UN Security Council decided that the North's actions were provocative enough to merit condemnation. Today, in an awesomely worded statement, the North announced that it would walk away from six party talks on nuclear disarmament and "bolster its nuclear deterrent for self-defence in every way."

They also referred to the UN's statement as "brigandish". I'd like to get a gig writing for these guys…

Image: satellite image featuring the rocket launch courtesy of DigitalGlobe

Posted by Geoff Brumfiel on April 14, 2009
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President Obama’s new science adviser John Holdren has been talking to Nature reporter Jeff Tollefson about his new role. If that interview only left you hungry for more, the rest of the world’s press have also been grilling the man.

Here are some highlights.

Science Magazine has an interview on their ScienceInsider blog, where Holdren “discussed why he thinks the United States doesn't need new nuclear weapons. He warned of likely delays beyond 2015 in replacing the space shuttle and the possibility that China would launch U.S. astronauts during the interim.”

Holdren also warned that moves in Texas that could undermine the teaching of evolution were a “step backwards”.

AP focuses on the possibility that the Obama administration might look to geo-engineering to solve the climate change problem. “It’s got to be looked at,” Holdren told the news service. “We don’t have the luxury of taking any approach off the table.”

The Washington Post looks at Holdren’s approach to another possible solution to climate change: cap and trade. The paper says Obama may chose to auction some carbon emission permits and give the rest away to industry, a move that might annoy environmental groups who want 100% of permits auctioned.

Holdren told the post that “whether you get to start with [a 100% auction] or get there over a period of time is something that’s being discussed”.

Posted by Daniel Cressey on April 09, 2009
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British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, says the UK budget to be announced on 22 April will kick start a “green” route to economic recovery.

In an interview with the Independent, Brown outlined a flurry of environmentally friendly measures, including plans to create the UK’s first green cities, and to make Britain "a world leader" in producing and exporting electric cars, hybrid petrol-electric vehicles and lighter cars using less petrol.

He said that trials for electric cars in two or three cities will begin next year, and that the government will open talks with power companies to ensure the vehicles can recharge their batteries at a national network of roadside power points.

Brown says the green initiatives are “a major part of [the UK’s] plan for recovery in the budget”.

Continue reading "Gordon Brown to announce green budget" »

Posted by Natasha Gilbert on April 08, 2009
Categories: Earth, environment & ecology, Financial Crisis, Policy | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Expert witnesses in UK trials could soon have to prove just how expert they actually are.

The government’s independent legal advisory commission has published a set of proposals to reform the current “unsatisfactory” provision of expert evidence, following a series of scandals.

The Law Commission’s consultation paper warns that there is a danger juries may simply defer to ‘experts’ when there are legitimate questions about the reliability of their evidence (paper pdf).

“Expert evidence, particularly scientific evidence, can have a very persuasive effect on juries,” says Jeremy Horder, the commissioner leading the project (Indepdendent, Telegraph).

“There have been miscarriages of justice in recent years where prosecution expert evidence of doubtful reliability has been placed before Crown Court juries. There may also have been unwarranted acquittals attributable to such evidence.”

Continue reading "Judging science in court" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on April 07, 2009
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The controversial ‘Human Terrain’ program that sees social scientists integrated with US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan has hit more trouble, according to Wired.

The Danger Room blog says at least a third of the programme’s employees have quit:

In February, the program's managers gave everyone in the 27 Human Terrain Teams (HTT) stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan a choice. Either they could choose to be converted from a generously-paid contractor to a less-well-compensated government employee. Or they could step down.

So far, 82 overseas Human Terrain employees have agreed to make the switch. Many others did not. As of February, there were between 135 and 243 HTT members.

Danger Room also highlights a recent Boston Globe story, which suggests Obama would like to see an expansion of the Human Terrain programme.

Controversy has followed the programme since its inception. A number of employees have died and one has pleaded guilty to manslaughter. In December a Nature editorial said, “Unless the programme can be reborn in a format less plagued by deadly mistakes, it needs to be closed down.”

Image: a Human Terrain Team take notes while speaking with locals in Afghanistan / US Army photo by Staff Sgt. Michael L. Casteel

Posted by Daniel Cressey on April 06, 2009
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The NASA inspector general, Robert "Moose" Cobb, has resigned, effective 11 April, succumbing to calls for his head from the halls of Congress. “Mr. Cobb was not up to the job," said the chairman of the House science committee, Bart Gordon, Democrat from Tennessee. It's rare for an agency inspector general to draw attention at all -- they're in the business of pointing out problems, not being a problem -- but Cobb had drawn intense criticism from the GAO, and both sides of the aisle. According to the AP, an ethics council formed during the administration of George W. Bush issued a report saying Cobb abused his authority and didn't appear independent enough. Bush appointed Cobb to his office in 2002, when he had handled ethics issues for the White House.

Posted by Eric Hand on April 03, 2009
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Two hundred and twenty-nine scientists will be barred from making grant applications to the UK's Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) for a year, from 1 June.

The exclusion policy for serially unsuccessful applicants, announced by EPSRC on 12 March, aims to relieve the pressure on an overloaded system that currently peer reviews all grant applications.

An online petition protesting against the ban has attracted almost 1700 signatures as of 3 April. Some scientists thought many more than EPSRC's ballpark estimate of 250 researchers would be affected.

EPSRC has now confirmed the exact number and tells Nature News it intends to send letters to individuals next week.

Posted by Richard Van Noorden on April 03, 2009
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The rights and wrongs of ‘dwarf tossing’, where a large human attempts to hurl a smaller human as far as they can, have been debated by bodies as august as the United Nations. However, according to a paper published this week, careful consideration of the issue can also help us deal with ethical issues in science.

“While admittedly unusual, the case of dwarf tossing illuminates several themes central to the field of bioethics including the issues of human dignity, autonomy, and the protection of vulnerable people,” write Carlo Leget, Pascal Borry and Raymond De Vries in the latest edition of Bioethics.

Their paper explores the relationship between empirical approaches to ethics (assessing how things are) and normative approaches (assessing how things ought to be).

Paper author Raymond De Vries, of the University of Michigan Bioethics Program told Nature, “I assure you that we are serious about dwarf tossing, and if you can’t have fun while being serious, well then, count me out of this business.”

Continue reading "‘Nobody tosses a dwarf!’" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on April 01, 2009
Categories: Biology & Biotechnology, Policy | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

This year's battle over climate legislation has begun in the US Congress, with the introduction today of draft legislation to control greenhouse gases through a cap-and-trade system.

The bill, introduced by Henry Waxman (Democrat, California) and Edward Markey (Democrat, Massachusetts) in the House of Representatives, would among other things cut greenhouse emissions 20 percent from 2005 levels by 2020. That's more ambitious than President Barack Obama's stated goal of a 14 percent cut -- though both bills would target an 80 percent cut by 2050. (New York Times)

It's the first entry in what could be several competing bills to set up cap-and-trade systems prior to international climate negotiations in Copenhagen this December (Nature).

Posted by Alex Witze on March 31, 2009
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North Korea is gearing up to launch its first satellite atop its brand new Unha-2, a three-stage rocket based on earlier technology. Nobody knows exactly when the launch will happen, but it will likely be soon: satellite images released by the always useful Institute for Science and International Security show that there's something big on the pad at the North Korean's launch site in Musudan-ri.

What, exactly, that something might be has proved a really fun guessing game for the folks over at Arms Control Wonk. They've been speculating about the blurry stick, but so far, about all they've figured out is that it is definitely a three-stage vehicle. A nice analysis by David Wright over at the Union of Concerned Scientists, sums up what little else can be said about the Unha-2: It's probably capable of carrying 100kg into orbit, and it is based on the North Korean's earlier missile, the TaepoDong-2. The TD-2 was only flight tested once before in July of 2006, and on that occasion it failed spectacularly and wound up in the Pacific Ocean.

That is unlikely to happen this time around in part because the US and Japan are vowing to shoot down any debris using their own missile defence technology. Aegis destroyers are moving into positions where they could intercept the launch with a Standard Missile 3 (see right), and the Japanese have even deployed Patriot missile batteries around Tokyo. All this has really ticked off the Norks, who, with characteristic hyperbolae have warned that shooting down their rocket "precisely means a war." Stay tuned, the next few weeks promise to be interesting to say the least.

Image: U.S. Navy

Posted by Geoff Brumfiel on March 31, 2009
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Things are heating up in London as some of the world’s most important political leaders get ready for the G20 meeting. Amid discussions of economic woe, fireworks, meals cooked by celebrity chefs and threats to walk out if they don’t get what they want, they may spare some time to discuss scientific issues.

There are certainly some who would like them to consider climate change. Leading climate experts want economic stimulus measures tied in to green issues (see yesterday’s Nature story: Stern message for G20 summit).

Continue reading "G20 Watch: it’s getting hot in here" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on March 31, 2009
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The US military could become a major player on the green-energy scene, says AFP. According to the news service, the Pentagon is actively seeking ways to save energy and to switch to renewable sources.

The Pentagon, says AFP, is already trying to reach a target of obtaining 25% of its electricity from renewables by 2025. There are strong reasons to go green beyond climate change too: a 1% decrease in fuel consumption would mean 6,400 fewer soldiers in fuel convoys at risk of insurgent attacks.

“When you don’t use as much fuel, not only does it not cost you as much, but it also saves lives and injuries of those people who would have to deliver fuel through hostile territory,” says Keith Eastin, assistant army secretary for Installations and the Environment.

AFP also notes that Obama’s stimulus package earmarked $300 million for Defense Department research on renewable energy. Some of the research from this may eventually lead to clean-tech in the non-military sector.

“Just by nature of the fact that we are big, we can be a test bed for a whole lot of things that normally wouldn't seem to make a lot of powerful economic sense,” says Eastin.

Full article: Gas-guzzling Pentagon going green.

Image: modified from aerial photograph of the Pentagon by Tech. Sgt. Andy Dunaway, U.S. Air Force / DoD

Posted by Daniel Cressey on March 30, 2009
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The seemingly endless attempts by certain elements of America to caveat the teaching of evolution continued last week. As we noted:

Half of Texas's Board of Education voted [Thursday] to support the teaching of "strengths and weaknesses" of evolution in high school classrooms. But because the vote was a tie, an earlier decision to leave out the evolution-doubting component stands.

Then on Friday, The Dallas Morning News notes, “social conservatives lost another skirmish over evolution”:

In identical 8-7 votes, board members removed two sections written by Chairman Don McLeroy that would have required students in high school biology classes to study the "sufficiency or insufficiency" of common ancestry and natural selection of species. Both are key principles of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.

However the board also voted to encourage scrutiny of “all sides” of scientific theories. This didn’t go down well with Eugenie Scott, executive director of the California-based National Center for Science Education, who said, “I think we’ve seen some classic examples of politics interfering with science education.” (AP.)

Continue reading "Texas creationism: losers win?" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on March 30, 2009
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Ten members of the 18-member President's Council on Bioethics have criticised US President Barack Obama's recent executive order lifting the restrictions on federal funding for human embryonic stem-cell research.

In their statement, the ten say Obama's order is "a step backward" with regards to "the progress that had been made in reconciling the needs of research and the moral concerns of many Americans". Obama's order reversed a policy put in place by George W. Bush in August 2001, which permitted federal funding for research on human embryonic stem cells, but only on cell lines that had been derived by the date of his speech.

Much of the dispute centers on the source of the embryos that could be used for such research. Obama's order does not specify the source of the embryos: whether they are leftover embryos from in-vitro fertilisation clinics, or are created for the purpose of research. This is the source of much of the council criticism. The story has been picked up predominantly by the conservative press (Weekly Standard).

The statement did not come from the council itself, but rather from ten of its members speaking out on their personal beliefs. The council, created in its current form by Bush in 2001, has come under fire before, for instance in 2004 when one of its members was dismissed after speaking out against Bush's stance on stem-cell research (Nature). The council in its current form is constituted through 30 September 2009.

Posted by Alex Witze on March 27, 2009
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Half of Texas's Board of Education voted today to support the teaching of "strengths and weaknesses" of evolution in high school classrooms. But because the vote was a tie, an earlier decision to leave out the evolution-doubting component stands.

Social conservatives had argued that the state curriculum should contain qualifications about the acceptance of evolution. Seven Republicans voted in favour of the proposal, and three Republicans and four Democrats against it. The dramatic vote included a video vote from a board member who had heart surgery last month (Dallas Morning News).

Final votes are expected Friday on a number of amendments to the state textbook standards, including one that would require students to "analyze and evaluate the sufficiency or insufficiency of natural selection to explain the complexity of the cell" (Associated Press). Texas Citizens for Science, an activist group, has a good round-up on its website.

Because Texas is such a large textbook market, decisions by its board of education tend to resonate nationwide (New York Times story from last summer).

Posted by Alex Witze on March 27, 2009
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Posted for Ananyo Bhattacharya

Hopes for a £1 billion science stimulus in the next UK budget are dimming, the country’s chief scientific adviser says. John Beddington was speaking at a panel discussion yesterday at the UK’s Royal Society, along with Harold Varmus, co-chair of the US President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology - there in part to plug his new book, 'The Art and Politics of Science'.

Beddington says the government cannot ignore warnings by Mervyn King, the governor of the Bank of England, that the UK cannot afford (Guardian, Times) an expensive package of measures to boost the economy in its budget announcement on 22 April. “I’m not confident that it will definitely happen,” he said – adding that if there was going to be a stimulus, science should be prioritized. Beddington also criticized the quality of government scientific advice in Europe, pointing out that only Ireland and the United Kingdom have chief scientific advisers and that both the European Council Presidency and the European Commission’s various directorates lacked a similar post.

Varmus too warned against expecting big boosts to the base budgets of US scientific institutions such as the National Institutes of Health in future. “We do have an economic catastrophe on our hands,” he said. “Base budgets may not see the sort of increases we’d like to see.” He also urged scientists to think big to capitalize on the current stimulus funds. The NIH has recently asked for applications for “Grand Opportunities” – grants for projects costing no less than $500,000 per year, funded with the stimulus money. Varmus said he would suggest one of these grants to go towards building up a complete database of monoclonal antibodies for mice and humans. Mark Walport, director of the UK medical charity the Wellcome Trust – who was also sharing the panel with Varmus and Beddington – said that he would like to see stimulus cash used to sequence the genomes of all known cancers.

During his speech – centered on Obama’s pledge “ to restrore science to its rightful place” - Varmus revealed that early on in the campaign that, Obama had told him, “I expect science to be the centerpiece of my administration”.

Asked about the teaching of evolution in schools Varmus said that Obama would be addressing the issue is considering addressing science more generally in a future speech. He also said that the Office of Technology Assessment, which provided Congress with non-partisan science advice between 1972 and 1995, would likely be brought back.

Posted by Mark Peplow on March 26, 2009
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Europe’s proposed new rules on animal experiments have come under renewed fire today.

When they were first proposed last year many researchers complained that they could stifle vital work, especially on non-human primates. They also warned the proposed rules could drastically increase the cost of experiments, without increasing animal welfare.

Now the umbrella group European Medical Research Councils and the European Science Foundation have issued a report detailing the changes they believe are needed to the draft rules (pdf).

“We certainly welcome the opportunity to standardize animal care on a Europe-wide basis,” says Roger Lemon, a researcher University College London and chair of the ESF’s animal research expert group (The Scientist). “But where we have some difficulty is where some types of research would just be stopped all together.”

Continue reading "European animal research ‘threatened by new rules’ " »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on March 26, 2009
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Posted for Declan Butler

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), the world's second-largest pharmaceutical company by sales, has put a bit more flesh on proposals outlined last month by Andrew Witty, its chief executive to share some of its patents to boost research into neglected diseases, and to making its drugs available more cheaply in the very poorest countries.

The company's 2008 Corporate Responsibility Report, released on Tuesday, says it will put some 500 granted patents and 300 pending applications into the pool (press release, report).

The report also confirms the company will also introduce differential pricing: “Secondly, on 1 April 2009 we will reduce our prices for patented medicines in the 50 poorest countries in the world, the LDCs [least developed countries], so they are no higher than 25 per cent of the developed world price. Where possible we will reduce our prices further while ensuring we cover our manufacturing costs so this offer is sustainable.”

Continue reading "GSK’s pledge to the developing world, Part 2" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on March 25, 2009
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The United States’ Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) told the White House on Friday that it considers greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, a danger to the public’s health and welfare, according the Washington Post.

The EPA’s finding could pave the way for federal regulation limiting greenhouse gas emissions under the nearly 40-year-old Clean Air Act.

The long-awaited finding, sent to the Office of Management and Budget, stems from a 2007 Supreme Court ruling that the agency must review whether greenhouse gas emissions pose a threat to public health or welfare.

Continue reading "Carbon emissions a danger to public health, EPA finds" »

Posted by Natasha Gilbert on March 24, 2009
Categories: Earth, environment & ecology, Policy | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Not to be out done by their neighbours at Harvard, MIT has moved to make all research papers from its faculty open access.

“The vote is a signal to the world that we speak in a unified voice; that what we value is the free flow of ideas,” says Bish Sinyal, chair of the MIT Faculty (press release).

Continue reading "MIT goes open access" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on March 24, 2009
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Medical research in the UK could face a bout of belt-tightening, after the country’s major research charities warned they have been hit hard by the financial crisis.

The Independent is reporting that the Wellcome Trust, Cancer Research UK, the British Heart Foundation and Leukaemia Research may cut their research spending after losing billions in the credit crunch.

For the first time in its history Cancer Research UK’s fundraising income has dropped, and is £17 million down in the last 12 months, says the paper. The British Heart Foundation is down £10 million and Leukaemia Research and the Wellcome Trust have both seen their investments fall as a result of stock market fluctuations.

“In common with most other UK charities, the BHF has been affected by the recent financial turmoil,” says the British Heart Foundation’s chief executive, Peter Hollins. “The year ahead will be characterised by a cautious approach to maintaining investment across our prevention, care and research activities.”

See also
Nature News: Recession Watch special

Posted by Daniel Cressey on March 23, 2009
Categories: Financial Crisis, Policy | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Steve Koonin, the former provost of Caltech and current chief scientist of BP, has been tapped by President Obama to serve as undersecretary of science at the Department of Energy. He would replace Ray Orbach in a position that oversees the department's science portfolio, including running the national laboratory system. The position requires Senate confirmation.

The appointment had been rumoured in Washington for some time and comes as little surprise; Koonin is a longtime colleague of Steve Chu, the new secretary of energy. Both Koonin and Chu played major roles in setting up a $500-million industry-university alliance between BP, the University of California at Berkeley, and the University of Illinois. That agreement, inked in 2007, brought some unease over the industry partnership with the traditionally left-leaning academic enclave of Berkeley (see Nature story here). So far, though, the Energy Biosciences Institute has shown little evidence of nefarious industry tampering in its work on next-generation biofuels.

The Obama announcement also included the line: "President Obama also announced that Steve Isakowitz, the Chief Financial Officer at the Department of Energy, will continue serving in his current role." No doubt this was to squash down persistent rumours that Isakowitz, a former top budget officer at NASA, might get tapped for the post of NASA administrator -- one Obama has yet to fill.

It's a plenty busy time to be at DOE in any job; Isakowitz is scrambling to help figure out how to spend the nearly $40 billion allocated in stimulus funding for the agency.

Posted by Alex Witze on March 20, 2009
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Posted on behalf of Roberta Kwok

Stimulus package dollars have barely begun to flow out of US science agencies, but agency representatives are already being pressed to pledge that they will closely monitor spending for waste and fraud.

At a hearing today, members of the US House Committee on Science and Technology asked "accountability officers" from four science-funding agencies how they would guard against mismanagement of Recovery Act money.

"None of our witnesses today have done wrong," said Rep. Brad Miller (Democrat, North Carolina), chairman of the Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight. "But we want to hear from you how you're going to do right."

Continue reading "Making sure NSF isn't the next AIG" »

Posted by Alex Witze on March 20, 2009
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Barack Obama's top science appointments so far have been confirmed by the Senate. John Holdren is now the director for the Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Jane Lubchenco the head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Jay Rockfeller (Democrat, West Virginia), chair of the Senate committee on commerce, science and transportation, praised the confirmations. The Associated Press reports that Holdren celebrated at his office this evening.

Obama's nomination of Peggy Hamburg as FDA commissioner is pending confirmation. Appointments for NASA administrator and head of the National Institutes of Health have yet to be named.

Posted by Alex Witze on March 20, 2009
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A “perfect storm” of food, energy and water shortages could hit by 2030, the UK government’s chief scientific advisor is warning.

John Beddington told the Sustainable Development UK 09 conference in London, that the world’s growing population could push up demand for food and energy by 50% and water by 30 to 40% in 11 years (BBC, Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph).

“It’s a perfect storm. There’s not going to be a complete collapse, but things will start getting really worrying if we don't tackle these problems,” he says.

There is still hope though, says Beddington. “The reason for actually raising this issue now is that now is the time to think very seriously about how we address this combination of problems,” he told the BBC.

Image: I couldn’t find a photo of Beddington, so here’s Nostradamus, via Wikipedia

Posted by Daniel Cressey on March 19, 2009
Categories: Earth, environment & ecology, Policy | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Pharma company AstraZeneca buried a clinical study that was unfavourable to one of its drugs, leaving an 8 year gap until the same results were revealed by another study, according to information released in US lawsuits.

Antipsychotic Seroquel was thought to be better than older drugs for years, while results from ‘Study 15’ were kept out of the public domain, the Washington Post reports. According to documents released as part of lawsuits against AstraZeneca, a company strategist praised efforts to put “positive spin” on “this cursed study”.

AstraZeneca notes that the US Food and Drug Administration had access to Study 15 when it approved Seroquel. A spokesman defended the Seroquel research to the Post, saying that the drug’s labelling noted the weight gain and diabetes.

Fierce Pharma says:

Stories about "buried" drug data have become shockingly common--or, we should say, so common that they're no longer shocking. … On the heels of study-burying allegations against many of AstraZeneca's rivals--Eli Lilly (Zyprexa), Pfizer (Neurontin), GlaxoSmithKline (Paxil), among others--the never-publicized, filed-away Study 15 seems like just one of a crowd.

That fact says more about jaded attitudes than it does about Study 15 itself…

See also
Previous Washington Post stories on Seroquel
A University of Minnesota psychiatrist’s role in the Seroquel story, in the Pioneer Press
The Great Beyond’s 2008 Interactive Pharma Scandal Story

Posted by Daniel Cressey on March 19, 2009
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A billion pound ‘boffin bailout’ is on the cards in the UK, with the government department in charge of research apparently seeking a cash injection to keep academics happy and boost the economy.

According to the BBC, the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills is lobbying the UK Treasury to fund a wish list of proposals drawn up by funding bodies to the tune of £1 billion. These proposals might include research funding, new laboratories, and funding for young scientists, and would mirror to some extent the US bailout’s cash injection for science.

The BBC says no one in an official position would comment while negotiations with the Treasury were ongoing, so this one should be firmly stamped ‘speculation’.

However the BBC notes that, “Privately, many research leaders are determined to ensure highly trained scientists and engineers don't get lost during the downturn. They are telling ministers and officials at Dius that additional spending on research grants or post-doctoral fellowships could help ensure that the UK retains talent for when the economy picks up.”

News of the attempt to bring about a boffin bailout come just a week after the Guardian announced that a group of British research universities were trying to get ministers to create a “£1bn fund to finance the early stages of university spin-outs”.

Surely a bloggers bailout is only a matter of time now?

Image: Alamy

Posted by Daniel Cressey on March 18, 2009
Categories: Financial Crisis, Policy | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Obama administration continues to have a hard time finding people pure enough for appointment to federal office.

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson raised an early warning flag before the new president was even inaugurated, when he asked in early January that his name be withdrawn from consideration as Commerce Secretary--not because he, Richardson, did anything wrong (he said), but because the feds were investigating how one of his political donors got a lucrative state contract. Then came the flap over the relatively small-scale errors in Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's tax returns--soon followed by the uproar over the considerably larger tax errors made by former Senator Tom Daschle, who in early February was forced to withdraw his nomination as Secretary of Health and Human Services.

And so it has gone, leading an embarrassed White House to tighten and re-tighten its nominee vetting procedures to the point of paralysis. (Geithner is still battling a global financial meltdown solo, without any of his presidentially appointed deputies in place at Treasury.)

Now comes the latest embarrassment: on 12 March Vivek Kundra took a leave of absence from the White House staff just a week after being appointed to the newly created post of US Chief Information Officer (Nature 458, 136; 12 March 2009). It seems that at the office of the District of Columbia's Chief Technology Officer--Kundra's previous job--the FBI had caught a mid-level manager with his hand in the till. The Washington Post has the story.

There was no suggestion by the FBI or anyone else that Kundra had had anything to do with the pilfering, or that he ever had knowledge of it. But the now gun-shy White House was taking no chances: according to an administration spokesman, Kundra is 'on leave until further details become known.'

It's easy to understand why the administration is being ultra-careful: the press, pundits and politicians of Washington love to play 'gotcha!' with stuff like this, happily letting 'unanswered questions' consume all the the capital's available attention. The game is much more fun that dealing with actual problems. It remains to be seen whether Kundra, like other talented individuals before him, will be forced to step aside rather than become 'a distraction' to the administration. And it likewise remains to be seen whether the US government--a government facing multiple world crises simultaneously--has any room for actual human beings who have lived their lives on the real, messy planet Earth.

Posted by Mitch Waldrop on March 13, 2009
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Posted on behalf of Meredith Wadman

After weeks of rumours, the White House has reportedly settled on a nominee to head the embattled US Food and Drug Administration.

The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and The New York Times, among others, are reporting today that she is Margaret (Peggy) Hamburg, 53, a physician and former health commissioner in New York City who used her bioterrorism expertise when she served as a key deputy in the US Department of Health and Human Services during the Clinton Administration. Earlier, in the late 1980s, she was an assistant director at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Most recently, she has been serving as a senior scientist at a Washington-based foundation called the Nuclear Threat Initiative, where she is in charge of a global health and security initiative.

While Hamburg’s resume – she boosted childhood immunization rates and launched a tuberculosis control program that led to dramatic declines in new cases of the disease in New York – would seem to make her a more obvious pick to head the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the wisdom inside Washington has it that her selection treads a careful political line aimed at alienating neither the drug industry nor consumer advocates, who charge that the agency has been lax in its drug safety policing and is too beholden to the industry it regulates. Other candidates like Steve Nissen of the Cleveland Clinic and Robert Califf, a Duke University cardiologist, could have galvanized serious opposition.

The reports also say that the Obama administration has settled on Joshua Sharfstein, the health commissioner in Baltimore, to be Hamburg’s chief deputy at FDA. Sharfstein, a 39-year-old physician who once worked for liberal Democrat Henry Waxman on Capitol Hill, put himself on the map in 2007 by successfully petitioning FDA to oppose the use of over-the-counter cold and cough medicines in children under two years old.

The FDA’s 11,000 employees are responsible for overseeing the safety of food, drugs and cosmetics that comprise roughly one-quarter of US consumer spending. Its newly-approved 2009 budget of $2.6 billion includes over $500 million in user fees paid by the drug industry.

Image credit: Nuclear Threat Initiative

Posted by Richard Van Noorden on March 12, 2009
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Europe needs better and more “brutal” scientific advice, the UK government's chief scientist, John Beddington, told BBC news.

Beddington says that Europe should follow the lead of Barack Obama, the US president, who has appointed a "dream team" of scientists to senior positions in his administration to advise him on policy.

"Compared with the new Washington line-up, European science advice looks very deficient," he says.

Continue reading "European science advice is “deficient” " »

Posted by Natasha Gilbert on March 12, 2009
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Posted on behalf of Erika Check Hayden

Stem cell researchers may have to wait no longer: President Barack Obama appears ready to lift the ban on U.S. federal funding for research on human embryonic stem cell lines created after August 9, 2001.

The ban was put in place by President George W. Bush, who was responding to concerns among abortion opponents that research on human embryonic stem cells is morally problematic because it involves destruction of embryos. Obama will reportedly sign an executive order overturning the ban on Monday, 9 March. The Washington Post also reported that Obama will likely “simply lift the restriction without caveats and let the [U.S. National Institutes of Health] work out the details.” The NIH is currently formulating ethical guidelines and policies that scientists for scientists who want to apply for federal grants to work with human embryonic stem cells.

Obama’s action comes after research advocates had expressed concern over what they considered Obama’s delay in meeting his campaign promise to overturn the ban. “Obviously, we have concerns and would like to see this done,” Tony Mazzaschi, interim chief scientific officer at the Association of American Medical Colleges in Washington DC told Nature last month.

There has also been extensive discussion about whether the ban should simply be overturned by executive order, or whether the job should be done through legislation that would prevent more flip-flops on stem cell policy under future presidents. Now it appears the ban will be overturned both through Obama’s expected executive order and through legislation, as lawmakers have already introduced bills to undo the ban. Similar bills have previously been passed by Congress, but were vetoed twice by Bush; they would likely be signed into law by Obama if Congress passed them again.

Now, scientists are excited at the chance to undo what they see as political interference that has slowed a promising area of research. Human embryonic stem cells can turn into any cell type in the body, making them potentially powerful tools for investigating disease, and possibly treating it. “I feel vindicated after eight years of struggle, and I know it's going to energize my research team,” George Daley of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute and Children's Hospital of Boston told the Associated Press.

Daley and other researchers have been excited by the development of human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells), which have many of the properties of stem cells yet seem less ethically problematic because they are made from adult cells, such as skin cells. Yet they have also cautioned that the cells are not exactly the same as embryonic (ES) stem cells, so there is still a need to continue both lines of research.

“At this point we clearly still need ES cells,” Konrad Hochedlinger of Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, told Nature last fall. “It is unclear to what extent ES cells and iPS cells are really equivalent to each other, and showing this will require much more work.”

More stories: New York Times, BBC, and many others. And stay tuned to nature.com/news for more in-depth coverage from Nature.

Posted by Alex Witze on March 07, 2009
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