News this WeekVolume 326, Number 5960, Issue of 18 December 2009 Breakthrough of the Year; NewsBreakthrough of the Year:Ardipithecus ramidusFifteen years after its discovery, Ardipithecus ramidus, the oldest known skeleton of a putative human ancestor, was finally unveiled in 11 papers in print and online in October. The discoverers of the 4.4-million-year-old fossil proposed that she was a new kind of hominin, the family that includes humans and our ancestors but not the ancestors of other living apes. They say that Ardi's unusual anatomy was unlike that of living apes or later hominins, such as Lucy. Instead, Ardi reveals the ancient anatomical changes that laid the foundation for upright walking. Not all paleoanthropologists are convinced that Ar. ramidus was our ancestor or even a hominin. But no one disputes the importance of the new evidence. Breakthrough of the Year:The Runners-UpThe torrent of recent gamma ray observations from the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope topped the list of this year's runners-up for Breakthrough of the Year. Other notable discoveries included the long-sought receptor for a key plant hormone, mock monopoles, a drug that increases life span, ice on the moon, gene-therapy successes, insights into the properties of graphene and how to use it to make novel devices, Hubble's rebirth, and the first x-ray laser. Scorecard:Rating Last Year's Areas to WatchScience's editors clearly foresaw this year's burgeoning of plant genome sequences, progress on emissions reductions in the run-up to the U.N. conference in Copenhagen, and the continued failure to spot dark matter. Last year's other predictions regarding ocean acidification, the use of functional magnetic resonance imaging in court, speciation genes, and the discovery of the Higgs boson will take more time to come to fruition.Breakdown Revisited:Trying to Stay AfloatWhen last year's financial crisis (Science's "Breakdown of the Year" for 2008) swept the globe, doomsayers predicted a calamity for research. They were partly right: 2009 has been a tough year for many U.S. academic institutions dependent on state funding or endowments. But it has also been a banner year for thousands of individual scientists, whose labs have benefited from billions of dollars in U.S. government stimulus funding. And in much of the rest of the world, research institutions so far seem to be weathering the storm. Breakthrough of the Year:Areas to WatchIn 2010, Science's editors will be watching for developments with induced pluripotent stem cells, which can be coaxed to develop into various mature cell types and promise to usher in a new wave of research; an innovative space-based particle physics experiment called the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer; "exome sequencing," in which the protein-coding DNA of thousands of people's genomes is sequenced in hopes of finding new genes underlying human diseases; beating cancer by disrupting the metabolism of tumor cells; and human space flight.Virus of the Year:The Novel H1N1 InfluenzaFor years, scientists have been warning about the potential for an influenza pandemic on the order of the 1918 Spanish flu. They imagined the culprit would surface in Asia—and, since 2003, have worried that the avian influenza strain H5N1 might be it. Health officials worldwide drafted one preparedness plan after another. But the pandemic that erupted last spring looks nothing like the one in the plans. Not only did it begin in North America, but the swine virus behind it is a novel form of an H1N1 strain already circulating in humans. And although the new H1N1 is unusually dangerous for the young and for pregnant women, in most otherwise healthy people it causes a disease no more severe than seasonal flu. Scientists have repeatedly warned that this relatively mild virus could mutate or swap genes with cousins and become deadlier. But for now, it looks as if this H1N1 will go down in history more for causing confusion than catastrophe. News of the Week2010 U.S. Budget:Congress Takes Care of Science In Quiet Finish to a Busy YearCongress has quietly passed a 2010 spending bill that gives several U.S. science agencies pretty much what they expected, including a 2.3% bump for the National Institutes of Health and a 6.7% increase for the National Science Foundation. The lack of fireworks stems in part from the lawmakers' preoccupation this year with other issues—from health care reform to the war in Afghanistan. But another factor was the $18 billion investment in research approved in February as part of the $787 billion stimulus package to revive the sagging economy. That windfall postponed until next year most of the usual battles over each agency's annual appropriations. Academic Freedom:Terrorism Charges Against Grad Student Raise QuestionsLast month a sociology graduate student at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, was charged with conspiracy under the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act after he refused to testify before a grand jury that is apparently investigating a laboratory break-in at the University of Iowa in 2004. His academic adviser and 1600 others have signed an online petition urging the government to drop the charges against him, arguing that his academic freedom is at stake. Scientific Integrity:A Dark Tale Behind Two RetractionsThe notices published in Science last month and online in the Journal of the American Chemical Society in September were brief: Two papers from a prominent chemistry lab were being retracted because the results couldn't be replicated. Part of the story behind the retractions is anything but straightforward, however. It involves an extortion attempt and a threat of suicide. U.S. Science Policy:Chair of Science Panel to Leave CongressSaying that "it's time to do something else," the chair of the House Science and Technology Committee announced this week that he will retire at the end of 2010. Ending a 26-year career in Congress, Representative Bart Gordon (D–TN) leaves Democratic Party leaders scrambling to defend a seat in a Republican-leaning district and research lobbyists wondering how his successor will take to the role of spokesperson for science. ScienceNOW.org:From Science's Online Daily News SiteScienceNOW reported this week that HIV has outwitted yet another microbicide, the discovery of a cheap way to chop up nitrogen and a way to make large amounts of an elusive type of nanotube, and that people who perceive numbered sequences as visual patterns have superior memories, among other stories.Evolution:Spineless Fish and Dark Flies Prove Gene Regulation CrucialOn page 1663 of this week's issue of Science and in last week's Science Express, two teams independently report that changes in regulatory DNA were responsible for an adaptation in natural populations of fish and insects. Each group has also pieced together details of the underlying genetic alterations in those animals. In one case, the same piece of regulatory DNA was lost in different freshwater fish populations, each time causing the loss of pelvic spines. In the other case, the darkening of a fruit fly took place through an accumulation of small mutations in regulatory DNA. Taken together with other discoveries of noncoding regions involved in evolution, researchers say there is now broad support that changes in regulatory DNA can generate morphological variation. France:Sarkozy's 'Grand Loan' Bets That Research Will Pay Off
On Monday, president Nicolas Sarkozy announced a ScienceInsider:From the Science Policy BlogThis week, ScienceInsider offers a comprehensive look at the political climate for the climate-change debate in the U.S. Senate, including interviews with the key players, analysis of the biggest issues, and a look at where the votes are, among other stories.News FocusGeology:Peril in the PamirsLake Sarez was born nearly a century ago, when a mountainside in Tajikistan crumbled during a magnitude-7.4 earthquake. The 567-meter-high landslide blocked an alpine river, forming the world's tallest dam. Since then, the valley behind it has filled with 17 billion cubic meters of snow and glacier melt. Experts fear that the natural dam could someday give way, unleashing a wall of water from the 56-kilometer-long lake on villages along the Bartang and Panj rivers and the great waterway they feed: the Amu Darya, Central Asia's largest river. Shoring up Usoi Dam is not feasible, experts concluded at a workshop last September. Rather, they agreed on the urgent need to draw down the lake, which last year reached its highest-ever water level. Several ideas have been floated for lowering the waterline. Meanwhile, researchers have proposed taking cores from Usoi. Geology:Burdened by Soviet Legacy, Nations Spar Over Water RightsAs scientists worry about the prospect of a catastrophic flood from Lake Sarez in the Pamir Mountains (see main text), agricultural communities on the plains below face a very different problem. This arid region in Central Asia has inherited a set of resource blunders made decades ago by the Soviet Union. And since the Soviet collapse in the 1990s, competition for fresh water has increased. The situation might be eased, experts say, if Lake Sarez could be tapped and its surplus water distributed. But that won't happen anytime soon. For now, regional water problems are growing more intense. Marine Sciences:U.S. Poised to Adopt National Ocean PolicyThe growth of offshore aquaculture, wind farms, and other activities has intensified the competition for ocean space and resources. This week, a White House task force took a significant step toward better planning in federal waters by describing how to balance economic growth with improved protection of federal waters. Its report lays the groundwork for implementing the country's first national ocean policy. Cancer Research:Melanoma Drug Vindicates Targeted ApproachThe only metastatic melanoma drug, dacarbazine, was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 1975 and has a 15% response rate. So when a phase I trial for a new targeted molecular therapy that binds to and inactivates the BRAF protein, which is mutated in about 60% of melanomas, reported a 70% response rate in September, it shocked the field. Mutant BRAF turns on signaling in a pathway in cells that controls proliferation, and the drug's efficacy validates the theory that targeting this pathway would destroy tumors. But how the drug works remains unclear, and whether other cancer mutations can be practically targeted remains to be seen. Genomics:Ecological Genomics Gets Down to Genes—and FunctionIn recent years, ecologists and molecular biologists have been finding common ground, to the benefit of both disciplines. Some of the results of this detente were on display last month, when about 90 researchers and students gathered to discuss progress in ecological genomics—the application of genomic techniques and resources to the study of ecology. Some are applying tools such as microarrays or RNA interference to their favorite study animal or plant. Others are developing genetic maps and databases of gene fragments for nonmodel organisms, with the goal of eventually sequencing those genomes. These efforts are pinpointing genes involved in ecologically relevant traits, and researchers are beginning to figure out the roles those genes play in an organism's function and evolution. |
35 billion investment plan that he pledged would make France's science more productive, its population smarter, its economy more competitive, and its environment cleaner. The plan was originally envisioned as an economic stimulus similar to the one passed by the United States earlier this year but has been rebranded as an investment in the "France of tomorrow" because Sarkozy is betting heavily on research, higher education, and innovation. It sets aside almost Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)
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