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News and Comment

EARTHQUAKE PREDICTION:
Japan Urged to Drop Short-Term Goal

Dennis Normile

TOKYO--Last week, an ad hoc group of Japanese scientists urged the government to abandon its attempt to achieve short-term prediction of earthquakes and instead focus its $145 million a year in earthquake-related research spending on the search for underlying causes, which could help identify earthquake-prone areas years in advance. But it appears that the 35-year-old short-term prediction program is headed for another 5-year extension regardless.

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ALZHEIMER'S RESEARCH:
Allen Roses: From 'Street Fighter' to Corporate Insider

Eliot Marshall

On 17 June, the British-based pharmaceutical giant Glaxo Wellcome named controversial Duke University neurologist Allen Roses head of its worldwide genetics research efforts, making him a member of an elite group of ex-academics running big industrial genetics programs. Roses now oversees a $50 million genetics budget, part of Glaxo's $2 billion annual R&D effort. In recent interviews with Science, Roses discussed his goals for genetics research at Glaxo and his battles with skeptics about his Alzheimer's work--battles that are legendary in the field and that say a great deal about the drive and approach that Roses brings to his new job.

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ALZHEIMER'S RESEARCH:
The Alzheimer's Gene Puzzle

Eliot Marshall

After discovering the connection between the gene for apolipoprotein E (APOE) and Alzheimer's disease, Allen Roses of Duke University and a colleague proposed that "normal" APOE's function is to protect the brain. They argued that the most common of APOE's three genetic forms--the E3 allele--produces a protein that binds to another protein called tau, but the E4 allele codes for a protein that doesn't bind well with tau, causing neurons to develop the tangled fibrils found in Alzheimer's brains. Very few scientists have been persuaded, however.

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ALZHEIMER'S RESEARCH:
A Clash Over Testing for Alzheimer's Disease

Eliot Marshall

In October a bioethics panel issued a draft opinion stating that although testing for rare Alzheimer's genes--dominant mutations that almost invariably lead to early-onset disease--"may be appropriate" in the small number of families at risk, for the vast majority who get the disease later in life, "neither predictive nor diagnostic genetic testing for susceptibility genes (e.g., APOE) should be encouraged at this time." But the discoverer of the APOE-Alzheimer's connection, Duke University neurologist Allen Roses, claims that physicians correctly identify Alzheimer's in only 60% to 70% of patients and that testing APOE could raise that accuracy rate to 95%.

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SEQUENCING:
Hubris and the Human Genome

Eliot Marshall and Elizabeth Pennisi

On 9 May, nonconformist genome sequencer J. Craig Venter and the Perkin-Elmer Corp. announced that they are forming a new company to sequence the human genome in 3 years at a fraction of the cost of the government-financed Human Genome Project. Some in the genome community are skeptical that Venter can meet the promised cost and quality goals and fear that the new company will not release sequence data as quickly as the centers participating in the Human Genome Project do, while others welcome the venture as a quick way to get the most useful sequence data. For now, federal officials are polite but cautious.

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SEQUENCING:
Picking Up the Pace of Sequencing

Robert F. Service

The gene sequencing machines that will be key to a new venture to sequence the entire human genome in 3 years rely on an existing technology, known as capillary electrophoresis, but add a high level of automation. But researchers testing the new machines say they have not yet achieved the level of reliability required for a full-scale sequencing effort.

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SCIENCE AND THE MEDIA:
The Power of the Front Page of The New York Times

Eliot Marshall

Last week, a front-page story in The New York Times triggered widespread reports of a "cure" for cancer, only to be followed by articles in several major newspapers, including the Times, presenting a much more cautious take on the story. This troubling vignette illustrates the binge-and-purge dynamic of some science reporting, in which overenthusiastic initial coverage provokes a surge of negative reports. And many questions remain about the episode, among them why the Times gave such prominence to a story that had already been widely reported--including last year in the Times itself.

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CANCER:
The Roadblocks to Angiogenesis Blockers

Eliot Marshall

Although compounds that block the development of new blood vessels have shown great promise in treating cancer in mice, human clinical trials are still at least 2 years away, according to researchers, in part because it is not yet possible to produce the necessary quantities of the compounds. So experts on cancer drugs were surprised by the heated speculation last week over two of these so-called antiangiogenesis compounds, angiostatin and endostatin.

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SPACE SCIENCE:
Mars 2001 Mission Hits the Wall

Oliver Morton

PASADENA, CALIFORNIA--Last week, researchers gathered here learned that NASA's proposed $400 million Mars 2001 mission is experiencing delays and cost overruns that may cause one of its three vehicles to be dropped from the mission altogether. This has focused attention on the limits of NASA's "faster, cheaper, better" philosophy: Cost goals can be met when missions use existing technology, but not when new technologies are needed.

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U.S. FOREIGN POLICY:
State Department Sees S&T Weaknesses

Andrew Lawler

After years of rebuffing scientists' complaints about the chronic lack of concern for the role of science and technology in shaping the country's foreign policy, State Department officials have acknowledged that there are shortcomings and have asked the National Academy of Sciences for suggestions on how to raise science's visibility. But they warn that a continuing budget crisis may limit their ability to do so.

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GENOME SEQUENCING:
German Biotechs Form Gene Venture

Robert Koenig

Five German biotechnology companies recently announced that they are banding together with the aim of becoming one of the leading European commercial players in genome sequencing and bioinformatics. The collaboration, dubbed the "Gene Alliance," is offering the companies' combined services on large-scale genome analysis projects to customers in the pharmaceutical, agricultural, and food industries.

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Research News

NEUROBIOLOGY:
Probing the Biology of Emotion

Christine Mlot

Neuroscientists have begun to explore the physical basis of emotions, by recording the activity of single neurons and analyzing brain chemistry in rats and other animals, and by scanning brain activity in humans. They are finding that intense emotions, particularly at key times in early life, can trigger not only behavioral changes but also long-lasting physical changes in the brain which persist long after the emotions themselves have passed and which shape emotional responses later in life. Researchers are also gaining new insight into emotional temperaments, finding that individuals who are fearful or resilient not only have characteristic behaviors but also distinct patterns of brain activity.

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NEUROBIOLOGY:
Unmasking the Emotional Unconscious

Christine Mlot

The question of what--or where--the unconscious mind is has long been the province of psychotherapists, but now neuroscientists are exploring the nature of awareness, and emotion researchers are joining in. A handful of clever--if controversial--imaging studies offer what may be a glimpse of the elusive unconscious mind at work by revealing different patterns of brain activity when people react to conscious and unconscious emotional stimuli.

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PALEONTOLOGY:
Biggest Extinction Looks Catastrophic

Richard A. Kerr

Most paleontologists have believed that the mass extinction at the end of the Permian period 250 million years ago was long and slow and had causes such as gradual sea level fall and climate change. But last year new dates from Chinese rocks shrank the final pulse of marine extinctions to less than 1 million years. Now more dating of the same rocks squeezes the disaster even further--and suggests a catastrophic cause, perhaps even a comet or asteroid impact. The new results, reported on page 1039, show that a shift in the ratio of carbon isotopes recorded in marine rocks--an event intimately tied to the extinctions--lasted perhaps as little as 10,000 years.

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ASTRONOMY:
Exploding Stars Flash New Bulletins From Distant Universe

James Glanz

Four months after observations of distant supernovae indicated that the expansion of the universe is accelerating, new analyses of the data have added details to the picture. They have hinted that we might live in a "Hubble bubble"--a region that is expanding slightly faster than the universe as a whole--yielded clues to just what kind of energy might be filling space and causing the acceleration, and offered a preliminary assessment of the universe's total density of energy and matter.

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ATOMIC PHYSICS:
On the Trail of Supercharged Hydrogen

Alexander Hellemans

New calculations suggest that with a laser's light touch, physicists may be able to create a hydrogen atom carrying two or more extra negative charges. If the feat can be done, it would open up new research avenues, such as using exotic hydrogen ions to generate soft x-rays for probing molecular structure.

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MOLECULAR IMAGING:
New Probes Open Windows on Gene Expression, and More

Robert F. Service

Researchers around the world are furiously competing to launch a new age in medical imaging that looks beyond general anatomy into the molecular workings of tissues. By developing clever probes that give off a detectable signal when they encounter a specific molecule, scientists hope to pin down a tissue's exact metabolic state; they have already used this strategy to track the transfer of genes in gene-therapy experiments and map the distribution of an animal's own proteins. Down the road, researchers hope to be able to perform such feats as imaging the effectiveness of cancer therapy and mapping when different genes get turned on during development--all without removing tissue with a scalpel and testing it in the lab.

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