US vaccine payout provokes confusion

The US Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) will pay over $1.5 million to the family of a child whose parents allege acquired autism after routine vaccinations in 2000. CBS called the payment to the family of Hannah Poling the “first court award in a vaccine-autism claim” (9 September 2010, CBS).

However, the payment does not acknowledge a vaccine-autism link. The payment was made for a mitochondrial disorder and encephalopathy which fall under a category of so-called “Table” injuries for which parents do not need to show proof that the vaccine aggravated the condition as long as it appeared within a certain amount of time after vaccination. The VICP, which was established in 1988 (US Court of Federal Claims), has made thousands of such payments since its establishment. The same court found no compelling evidence of a link between vaccination and autism in a ruling last year, which was upheld in a federal appeals court on the same day as the Poling payout decision, (27 August 2010, Associated Press).

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NZ top defence scientist accused of telling “big hairy lies”

bridge3.jpgNew Zealand’s defence establishment has been rocked, not by the massive earthquake that recently hit the country, but by accusations that its chief scientist is not, as he had claimed, an Olympic bobsledder, a special forces soldier, or an ex-British spook.

For five years, British-born Steven Wilce ran the country’s Defence Technology Agency, which advised the government on weapon’s systems and new technologies. His job also made him the top scientific official in the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF), and had high-level security clearances.

Wilce made himself sound like the man for the job. He claimed to be a reservist in the British Special forces and to have worked for MI-5 and MI-6. He told colleagues he had helped design the inertial guidance system for Britain’s Polaris submarine-launched nuclear missile (though that would have made him pretty old, given it was designed in the 1950s).

He was also quite the athlete, claiming to have competed on the British Olympic bobsled team in the 1980s, against the famous Jamaican “cool runnings” team. In New Zealand, Wilce has held a number of executive management roles, though he never seemed to hold a job for long.

An investigation by New Zealand’s 60 minutes reveals why: Almost everything Wilce claimed about life before New Zealand wasn’t true, including his bobsledding prowess. According to many former Kiwi colleagues, he mismanaged many of the companies he was hired to run. “I found this fellow was telling me massive porkies,” business consultant Steve Saunders told the programme.

The NZDF has now opened an investigation into how Wilce got the job. The former top scientist has meanwhile resigned from his post, according to reports.

Image: NZDF

Ruth’s Reviews: We need to talk about Kelvin

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Ruth Francis, Nature’s Head of Press, is reviewing all the entries shortlisted for the Royal Society’s science book prize. She’ll be reading one per week and is posting her thoughts on The Great Beyond every Friday between now and the prize ceremony on 21 October.

Cartoons on the cover, large font and a chatty, easy writing style belie a complex subject matter and the sheer amount of information in this volume.

In his introduction Chown says: “The idea of this book is simple: to take familiar features of the everyday world and show how […] they tell us profound truths about the ultimate nature of reality.”

Sounds simple enough? Despite the premise, this is a rather muddled investigation. Whether it’s how the everyday world is telling you about atoms, stars or the universe, the author divulges the history of the theory, the characters involved, wrong turns and layman’s examples.

Seeing both your face reflected and what’s on the other side of a window reveals something of the behaviour of light, explains the first chapter. And using a matchbox and a 40 tonne truck to illustrate the size difference between the wavelength of visible light and an atom is tangible too. But just how many examples and anecdotes are needed to get to the simple truth?

The early chapters are hard going the second half seems an easier ride – perhaps because the later chapters focus on newer subject matter with less history or because the groundwork is done and some basic concepts have been explained previously.

But it feels somewhat laboured – in last year’s Royal Society shortlist a couple of the books tackled tough subject matter in great detail but somehow more smoothly. Neil Shubin’s Your Inner Fish, took on the 3.5 billion year old history of the human body, using the famous Tiktaalik fossil as a narrative thread running through the book, bringing readers back to a familiar focus with each chapter.

Instead, Chown zips through a series of theories without one unifying narrative. They say that you should never judge a book by its cover. Don’t judge this one by its title either – there are only three pages that mention Kelvin.

NIH tells researchers to recommence stem cell work

NIH.small.JPGHours after a federal appeals court temporarily lifted an injuction blocking the National Institutes of Health (NIH) from funding human embryonic stem cell research, agency officials told grantees and staff that they can pick up where they left off when a US district court judge issued the injunction on 23 August.

“We are pleased with the Court’s interim ruling, which will allow this important, life-saving research to continue while we present further arguments to the Court in the weeks to come,” said NIH Director Francis Collins in a statement.

In an email to senior agency officials (see below), Sally Rockey, the NIH’s Deputy Director for Extramural Research, wrote that 24 existing grants due for annual funding this month should be fast-tracked, as should new human embryonic stem cell grants competing to get funded a first time.

“Given the delay in their issuance, hESC awards should be given priority including non-competing continuations, and new and renewing competing awards,” Rockey advised.

Aware that the funding could be blocked again as of September 20—after the appeals court has heard from both sides in the legal case over the matter—Rockey also gave NIH institute councils who were expecting to grant additional awards for 2010 after that date the go-ahead to expedite the approval of those awards.

She further wrote that grants that had been scheduled to be considered by councils in January 2011 could be advanced for consideration in October.

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Americans split on risks and benefits of synthetic biology

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Scientists may argue that synthetic biology could create life-saving drugs or spawn malevolent bioterrorism agents but do average Americans even care? A survey released today suggests that while awareness of the burgeoning field is growing, Americans remain divided on whether the potential benefits of synthetic biology outweigh its perceived risks.

The poll, conducted on behalf of he Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington D.C. on 9 September asked 1,000 US residents about their opinions on synthetic biology and nanotechnology. In the case of the former, the results reveal a marked change over the past two years. Whereas only 1 in 10 Americans has some familiarity with synthetic biology in 2008, 1 in 4 did this year. This is not a surprise, the Center’s researchers say, given that the J. Craig Venter Institute’s 20 May announcement of a synthetic organism made international headlines.

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Oil spill science: On the oil trail

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Scientists from the University of Texas and University of Georgia aboard the R/V Cape Hatteras have continued mapping subsurface oil this week, collecting data at eight more stations. Chief scientist Tracy Villareal says that the oil plume they are tracking in the Gulf of Mexico is like the summer cloud banks above the ship, constantly moving, expanding, and contracting.

The ship’s Conductivity Temperature Depth (CTD) device relays real-time data measuring fluorescence, beam attenuation, and oxygen levels. A classic oil signature includes a spike in fluorescence accompanied by an increase in beam attenuation and drop in oxygen (see graph). That’s because hydrocarbon particles absorb a fluorescent beam from instruments mounted on the CTD and reflect back a different frequency; the higher concentration of particles in the plume scatter more light (attenuating the beam); while lower dissolved oxygen indicates bacterial metabolism of oil.

The CTD also collects water samples at various depths, and the scientists use these to conduct tests to back up the real-time data. For example, University of Texas graduate student Ellen Knapke measures the amount of bacteria using a flow cytometer and a dye that stains their DNA. The cytometer reads the resulting pigments, counting the number of bacteria present. Although some question the bacterial activity associated with the spill, and its effects on oxygen, higher numbers of bacteria are generally correlated with a drop in oxygen levels. Knapke’s bacteria counts should correlate to the drops in oxygen shown by the CTD, and she reports that they have, consistently.

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Appeals court temporarily lifts stem cell injunction

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Responding to an emergency appeal by government lawyers, the U.S Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit temporarily reversed a lower court judge’s ruling freezing US government funding for human embryonic stem cell research.

The appeals court said on Thursday morning that the research should be allowed to resume while it considers the government’s emergency appeal, but that its action “should not be construed in any way as a ruling on the merits” of the appeal.

The stay reads in part:

09/09/2010 CLERK’S ORDER

ORDERED that the district court’s August 23, 2010 order be stayed pending further order of the court. FURTHER ORDERED that appellees file a response to the emergency motion by September 14, 2010, at 4:00 p.m. The appellants may file a reply by 4:00 p.m. on September 20, 2010.”

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South Africa misses science spending goal

Posted on behalf of Linda Nordling

South Africa’s research and development (R&D) spend shrunk as a proportion of the country’s GDP for the second year running in the 2008-09 financial year, according to data published yesterday (press release). The drop means the country has failed to reach its goal of spending 1% of GDP on R&D by 2008, adopted in 2004.

According to the data from the country’s R&D survey – prepared every year by its Human Sciences Research Council – the combined private and public sector R&D spend increased by 2.2% in real terms in 2008-09, reaching a total of 21 billion rand ($2.9bn , £1,9bn). However, as a proportion of GDP it dropped to 0.92% in 2008-09, down from 0.93% in 2007-08 and 0.95% in 2006-07—the highest figure recorded in the country since the end of apartheid.

The drop is chiefly due to flagging government and charitable investment in science, with industry R&D spend growing at a faster rate.

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Rockefeller University chooses Genentech scientist as new president

Tessier-Lavigne.1283978655.jpgThe Rockefeller University has announced the election of Marc Tessier-Lavigne, of San Francisco-based biotechnology firm Genentech, as its tenth president – the first to be chosen from industry rather than academia. He succeeds Nobel laureate Paul Nurse, president since 2003, who will return to Britain to become president of the Royal Society.

Tessier-Lavigne, an expert in brain development, is currently executive vice president and chief scientific officer at Genentech, where he directs around 1,400 researchers developing novel drugs for cancer, immune disorders, infectious diseases and neurodegenerative diseases.

Genentech is best-known as the developer or co-developer of cancer drugs Avastin, Rituxan and Herceptin. Alongside the drug development arm of the company, Genentech maintains an active basic research laboratory investigating the mechanisms of brain development and repair.

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New hope for threatened Russian berry collection

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Not that it’s nothing to get hung about, but really: The government-owned Russian Housing Development Foundation (RHDF) has postponed plans to tear down the Pavlovsk Experimental Station near St Petersburg which houses one of the world’s largest collections of rare fruit varieties. Yeah, strawberries!

Plans to sell 70 hectares of federally owned land on which the station is situated, with a view to repurpose the site for a luxury housing project, have rocked the international plant science community. The case seemed lost after Russia’s Supreme Arbitration Court in Moscow last month ruled against an appeal to preserve the unique gene bank.

But mounting pressure from scientists has now resulted in at least partial success. The RHDF has announced that it will ask an independent international expert commission to evaluate the situation at Pavlovsk before proceeding with its plans. Moreover, the Russian Accounts Chamber, a body controlling federal budgets, has said it will inspect the station on 15 September.

“We are waiting for the Accounts Chamber to start its work and for the Expert Commission to be formed,” says Sergey Alexanian, a spokesman of the Vavilov Institute of Plant Industry in St Petersburg, which runs the station. “That’s about the situation.”

Meanwhile, the Global Crop Diversity Trust and leading plant scientists worldwide continue to campaign against the closure of the station. Not in vain, apparently: The Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, last month promised via Twitter “to scrutinize” the issue.