News of the Week
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Materials Science: Soft Surfaces; News

Materials Science: Soft Surfaces; News

Can Sensors Make a Home in the Body?

Robert F. Service

Researchers dream of implanting sensors and other devices that interface with the body's biochemistry to treat diseases such as diabetes and even predict coming ailments. But virtually every implanted material triggers the body's defenses to wall off and isolate nonnatural materials, and even if researchers overcome that hurdle, financial and ethical obstacles are lying in wait. Even so, many researchers are optimistic that they can avoid this immune response or manipulate it to their advantage.

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News of the Week

HOMELAND SECURITY:
Congress Homes In on New Department's R&D Programs

David Malakoff

Science groups are feeling a little more secure about the role of research in the planned U.S. Department of Homeland Security. After weeks of frenzied lobbying, advocates for various research organizations are assessing their efforts to shape the mammoth agency and preparing for a final push in September when Congress returns after a monthlong recess.

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HOMELAND SECURITY:
Texas A&M Draws Flak for Plans to Nab Antiterrorism Research Center

David Malakoff

Taking advantage of legislation now before Congress (see main text) to create the Department of Homeland Security, Texas A&M University has positioned itself to snag a lucrative center to coordinate university-based research on antiterrorism technologies. But science advocates are crying foul, saying that other universities should be able to compete for such a plum.

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SOLAR PHYSICS:
Panel Shines Light on Exploring the Sun

Andrew Lawler and Charles Seife

NASA should revive plans to send a spacecraft into the solar atmosphere, concludes a National Academy of Sciences panel that this week unveiled the first-ever strategic plan for the next decade of solar and space physics. Its report recommends that NASA and other government agencies launch probes throughout the solar system to study the sun and its interaction with the planets and the interstellar medium.

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ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE:
NIEHS Toxicologist Receives a 'Gag Order'

Dan Ferber

Last month, after clashing with his supervisor, James Huff of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences received what he calls a "gag order," a proposed agreement forbidding him from criticizing NIEHS in public. The memo itself was soon circulating in e-mails, and when outsiders learned about it last week, NIEHS apparently withdrew the order.

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HIGH-ENERGY PHYSICS:
Muon Measurements Muddle a Model

Charles Seife

Scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory have confirmed earlier evidence of a discrepancy between the Standard Model of particle physics and the "magnetic moment" of the muon. Physicists are still debating just how significant the mismatch is.

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BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH:
Panel Hears Ideas for Overhaul of NIH

Jocelyn Kaiser

Last week, an Institute of Medicine panel that's begun investigating whether to trim the National Institutes of Health's 27 centers and institutes heard comments from current and former NIH directors. Two out of three said NIH would be better off if it were more centralized. But a former member of Congress who guided NIH funding injected a dose of reality, saying that it will be difficult to overcome political pressures to maintain the status quo.

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FOREST ECOLOGY:
Satellites Spy More Forest Than Expected

Jocelyn Kaiser

Experts still don't have a good handle on exactly how quickly tropical forests are disappearing. Now on page 999, scientists describe an effort to fill that data void: one of the first studies to assess humid tropical forest with satellite data rather than on-the-ground measurements and guesswork.

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News Focus

AGRICULTURE:
The Real Dirt on Rainforest Fertility

Charles C. Mann

IRANDUBA, AMAZÔNAS STATE, BRAZIL--In the past few years, a small but growing group of researchers has been investigating terra preta, a rich, black soil that is believed to have sustained large settlements in Amazonia for 2 millennia. By understanding how indigenous groups created these so-called Amazonian dark earths, these researchers hope, today's scientists might be able to transform some of the region's nutrient-poor soils into new terra preta. Indeed, experimental programs to produce "terra preta nova" have already begun.

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AGRICULTURE:
The Forgotten People of Amazonia

Charles C. Mann

For decades, few archaeologists explored the Amazon River Basin, because studies in the 1950s had concluded that the region had such intractably poor soils that it could not provide the agricultural base that researchers believed was necessary to support materially advanced cultures. Now archaeologists are beginning to explore deposits of terra preta--the Amazonian "black earth" that soil scientists believe was created by precontact indigenous settlements (see main text)--and are turning up abundant artifacts.

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STEM CELL LINES:
'Show Us the Cells,' U.S. Researchers Say

Constance Holden and Gretchen Vogel

One year after President George W. Bush announced that some 60 human embryonic stem cell lines were available, U.S. scientists have their hands on just four; practical and legal hurdles have kept most of the lines in the labs where they were derived. And because relatively few have been fully characterized, it's not clear that all of them are in fact bona fide stem cells.

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STEM CELL LINES:
Regulations Constrain Stem Cell Research Across the Globe

Gretchen Vogel

U.S. researchers aren't the only ones facing delays acquiring human embryonic stem cells (see main text). Many of their colleagues in Europe and Asia are constrained by similar government regulations, and some still face outright bans on the work, which is controversial because it entails the destruction of an embryo but promises new types of treatments for a host of diseases. Science provides a snapshot of various regulations, many of which are still in flux.

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ENVIRONMENTAL DATA:
Water Scarcity: Forecasting the Future With Spotty Data

Kathryn Brown

While global water models warn of parched days ahead, scientists worry that another pressing scarcity is information. In countries rich and poor, water data are often based on patchy estimates; along with confusion, water miscalculations have brought nasty surprises. And the knowledge gap shows little sign of improving.

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HIV/AIDS:
Malawi: A Suitable Case for Treatment

Jon Cohen

BARCELONA--Although some progress was reported at the international AIDS conference held here last month, one country's efforts to secure help in tackling its AIDS epidemic indicates the gulf between needs and the resources available to meet them. After repeated interactions with donor organizations and the newly established Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, Malawi, a country in which 16% of the adult population is infected with HIV, was forced to whittle down an ambitious plan to one that will barely make a dent in its problems.

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