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Science 23 February 2007:
Vol. 315. no. 5815, p. 1061
DOI: 10.1126/science.315.5815.1061b
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Newsmakers

Figure 1
CREDIT: AP PHOTO
BACK IN THE FOLD. After a period of self-imposed exile, Carlo Rubbia, one of Italy's best-known scientists, has made peace with the Italian government and is returning home to a new role as a special counselor to the environment ministry. "Above all, as an Italian living abroad, I do care about the future of my country," he says.

A former director of the CERN particle physics lab near Geneva, Switzerland, and joint winner of the 1984 physics Nobel, Rubbia has focused on energy research in recent years. He was made president of ENEA, Italy's energy research agency, in 1999, but in 2005, after beginning work in Sicily on a solar thermal energy project called Archimedes, funding for the project was suddenly axed by Silvio Berlusconi's conservative government. Rubbia openly criticized energy policies in the Rome daily La Repubblica and was removed from his ENEA post (Science, 22 July 2005, p. 542). Undaunted, Rubbia moved to Spain and continued work on Archimedes in Andalucia.

On 11 February, however, during an Italian TV debate about climate change and energy, Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio, Italy's environment minister in the new center-left government, asked Rubbia to accept Italy's apologies and join a government energy policy committee. On accepting his new appointment, Rubbia said: "The sun is one of Italy's great resources, and it's something we must learn to use."




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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)