News of the Week
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News of the Week

PUBLIC HEALTH:
Agreement Unlocks Loan for TB and AIDS Treatment in Russia

Paul Webster

MOSCOW--After more than 3 years of wrangling and delay, a $150 million loan from the World Bank designed to tackle Russia's burgeoning AIDS and tuberculosis epidemics might at last be on the verge of approval. It has been held up because Russian officials have refused to accept the TB treatment scheme prescribed by Western agencies. But in the past few weeks, negotiators from the World Bank, the World Health Organization, and the Russian Ministry of Health have apparently settled their differences.

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CANCER RISK:
Nudge From Congress Prompts NCI Review

Jocelyn Kaiser

After receiving a complaint from Congress, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) has removed a fact sheet from its Web site indicating that having an abortion does not appear to increase a woman's risk of developing breast cancer, pending a scientific review of the information it contained. The controversy concerns antiabortion politics and a murky issue in epidemiology.

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PALEOANTHROPOLOGY:
First Member of Human Family Uncovered

Ann Gibbons

At the dawn of human evolution, 6 million years ago and more, there is a crucial gap when next to nothing is known. Now in this week's issue of Nature, paleontologists fill the gap with a partial skull, dated to 6 million to 7 million years ago, that is the oldest known hominid, the lineage that includes humans but not other apes. The next oldest published hominid skull is almost 3 million years younger.

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PUBLIC HEALTH:
AIDS Researcher Named CDC Chief

Eliot Marshall

Julie Gerberding, an infectious-disease researcher who rose to public prominence last fall as a spokesperson for the U.S. government's response to the anthrax crisis, has been named director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta. Gerberding, 46, was promoted to her new job from acting deputy director for science.

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MATHEMATICS:
NSF to Double Number of Math Institutes

Barry Cipra

American mathematics just multiplied itself by two. On 1 July, the Division of Mathematical Sciences at the National Science Foundation (NSF) announced the creation of three new mathematical sciences research institutes, bringing the total number of such NSF-funded institutes to six.

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VIROLOGY:
Active Poliovirus Baked From Scratch

Jennifer Couzin

With mail-order DNA and more than 2 years of painstaking work, researchers for the first time have assembled a virus from its chemical code. The lab-built poliovirus, described online this week by Science, killed mice and was almost indistinguishable from the original. Biologists disagree on how difficult it would be to construct far bulkier viruses such as smallpox to create bioweapons.

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EMBRYONIC STEM CELLS:
Stem Cells Not So Stealthy After All

Gretchen Vogel

As human embryonic stem (ES) cells differentiate, they express increasing levels of the telltale tags the body uses to distinguish between native and foreign cells. The findings, published online this week by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, confirm that a patient's immune system would be likely to reject transplanted tissues derived from ES cells. Scientists will therefore have to find ways to reconcile the body's defense system with the transplanted cells.

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SOLAR SYSTEM ORIGINS:
Diamond Dust Dearth Raises Doubts

Richard A. Kerr

Most experts agree that the solar system's most ancient rocks from asteroids and comets should be sprinkled with microscopic diamond dust, a remnant of ancient stars. But a group of researchers reported this week that at least some of the most primitive, unaltered rock in the solar system contains no diamond star dust at all. The finding raises questions about just how star stuff came to form the solar system.

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NEUROSCIENCE:
Animal Studies Raise Hopes for Spinal Cord Repair

Ingrid Wickelgren

In the past few years, scientists have proved that they can regenerate damaged spinal nerves, at least in rodents, enabling the animals to walk more normally and regain some primitive forms of sensation. Aided by a much better understanding of the mechanisms that normally block neuronal regrowth, nearly a dozen research teams have recently reported in prominent journals ways of promoting such regeneration. Indeed, neurobiologists hope to take the next step--moving their findings to the clinic--although they caution that, with possibly one or two exceptions, it will be at least a few years before these therapies are tested in human patients.

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NEUROSCIENCE:
NINDS Delves Into Drug Development

Ingrid Wickelgren

The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) has traditionally left development of drugs for treating stroke, spinal cord injuries, and other neurological conditions largely up to the private sector. But NINDS will soon announce a dramatic departure from that policy: a new type of "translational" grant designed to bridge the gap between basic research and clinical trials.

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GEOSCIENCE:
Data Dilemma: Stow It, Or Kiss It Goodbye

Erik Stokstad

Across the United States, many collections of rock cores and other geological samples are threatened by improper storage or simply being sent to the dump. Much of the data would be expensive or impossible to replace. Now a National Research Council report recommends three new $50 million government-funded centers that would rely on scientific advisory committees to figure out what should be kept.

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RESEARCH MANAGEMENT:
Big Facilities Account Is Big Headache for NSF

Jeffrey Mervis

Big facilities have become a big headache for the National Science Foundation (NSF). Some researchers whose projects have been approved but haven't made it into the agency's budget have convinced members of Congress to order NSF to fund specific experiments, and last month several influential U.S. senators asked the National Academy of Sciences to review how NSF decides which projects to fund. If that were not enough, NSF's own inspector general recently issued a report questioning how the agency manages existing projects.

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HIGH-ENERGY PHYSICS:
Shadowy 'Weak Force' Steps Into the Light

Charles Seife

The weak force, the most mysterious of the fundamental forces of nature, is poised to come into much sharper focus. For more than 3 decades physicists have studied how the force interacts with quarks, the fundamental particles that make up most of the ordinary matter in the universe. Now, they are gearing up to continue the exploration with a radically different class of particles--neutrinos--in hopes of understanding the full nature of the weak force.

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