News of the Week
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News of the Week

EVOLUTION:
Could Poor Nutrition Have Held Life Back?

Richard A. Kerr

From about 2 billion to 1 billion years ago, the green scum of cyanobacteria and their ilk reigned supreme, changing little from eon to eon. During that long hegemony, our cellular ancestors, the eukaryotes, went nowhere evolutionarily. Why was this? A hypothesis is presented on page 1137 of this issue of Science.

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LANGUAGE EVOLUTION:
'Speech Gene' Tied to Modern Humans

Michael Balter

Last year researchers identified the first gene implicated in the ability to speak, FOXP2. This week, a research group shows that the human version of this so-called speech gene appears to date back no more than 200,000 years--about the time that anatomically modern humans emerged. The authors argue that their findings are consistent with speculation that the worldwide expansion of modern humans was driven by the emergence of language abilities.

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NUMBER THEORY:
Simple Recipe Creates Acid Test for Primes

Barry Cipra

Theorists have devised clever algorithms for telling whether a large number is prime, but none that could be proven to work quickly. Now three computer scientists in India have composed one that fills the bill. The new primality test runs in "polynomial time"--the gold standard of efficiency in computer science--and is so simple that other theorists wonder how they missed it.

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ITALIAN REFORMS:
Planned Mergers Raise Hue and Cry

Alexander Hellemans

NAPLES--Earlier this month Italian scientists were stunned to learn that their government is planning a major overhaul of the country's scientific establishment, including the axing of several institutes. Researchers are denouncing the plan as a ham-handed power grab drafted without their input.

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ANIMAL BEHAVIOR:
Birds Spy on Neighbors to Choose Nest Sites

Jay Withgott

Information is power, even for birds. Faced with tough choices, animals that know how others have fared in comparable situations can make better decisions. On page 1168, researchers report that collared flycatchers decide where to nest and whether to return the next year based in part on knowledge of their neighbors' reproductive success.

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COMPUTER SECURITY:
Congress Expands Cyberfellows Program

Jeffrey Mervis

In his 14 years at the University of Tulsa, says computer scientist Sujeet Shenoi, "I never had a student go on to work for the [U.S.] government." But this year some two dozen have promised to join the federal workforce to safeguard the nation's computing and communications infrastructure, with 30 more banging on the door. Shenoi, who sees a terrorist attack on the country's power or communications grid as a matter of "when, not if," couldn't be more pleased with his students' sudden shift in career plans: "I want them to make a difference before they make a buck."

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PATIENT RECORDS:
Researchers Welcome Revised Privacy Rules

Jocelyn Kaiser

Greater protection of patient records doesn't have to come at the expense of research. That's the message intended for scientists in final rules announced last week by the Bush Administration (www.hhs.gov/ocr/hipaa) giving patients more control over how their records are used.

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ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE:
NIH Trial to Test Chelation Therapy

Constance Holden

The National Institutes of Health is putting $30 million into a major clinical trial of a cardiovascular therapy that skeptics say has no scientific rationale. Even supporters of the trial acknowledge that they aren't sure how the therapy might work and that a successful trial will leave them no closer to understanding its mechanism.

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News Focus

BIODEFENSE:
Peering Into the Shadows: Iraq's Bioweapons Program

Richard Stone

CAMBRIDGE, U.K.--Four years after international weapons inspectors were thrown out of Iraq, they are preparing to return with more questions. The buzz of activity at a livestock vaccine facility south of Baghdad, some weapons experts say, is one of many hints that Iraq may be attempting to replenish its biological arsenal. Several U.N. weapons inspectors agreed to speak with Science, on condition of anonymity, about the inconsistencies and riddles they hope to explore.

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CLAUDIE HAIGNERÉ:
France's Highflier Comes Down to Earth

Michael Balter

PARIS--Last June, astronaut Claudie Haigneré hung up her space suit. In the new conservative government of President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, Haigneré is now minister of research and new technologies, charged with getting France's stagnating research effort off the ground.

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ASTROPHYSICS:
Gravitational Wave Hunters Take Aim at the Sky

Robert Irion

UNIVERSITY PARK, PENNSYLVANIA--European and American scientists are eager to build the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA), a 5-million-kilometer triangle of spacecraft tuned to murmurs from the biggest black hole encounters of all. Whereas the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and its brethren try to detect high-frequency bursts from sudden events, such as off-center supernova blasts or the collisions of two neutron stars or black holes with starlike masses, LISA will tune into deep gravitational murmurs that rumble for months or years. If LIGO listens for the squeaks of cosmic mice, LISA will record intricate whale songs.

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ASTROPHYSICS:
LIGO: The Shakedown Continues

Robert Irion

The $365 million Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) will begin its first "science run" on 23 August. For 17 days, physicists intend to keep their beams of light on target at LIGO's sites in Louisiana and Washington state for simultaneous data collection. Don't expect startling news, however: According to the latest estimates, LIGO's detectors are still 100 to 1000 times more jittery than their blueprints demand.

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DRUG TARGETING:
Breaking Down Barriers

Greg Miller

The brain is guarded by a nearly impenetrable cellular barrier called the blood-brain barrier. A small but growing community of predominantly academic researchers is studying this barrier with an eye to improving drug delivery to the brain. Their research ranges from trying to better understand the basic biology to creating molecular Trojan horses that sneak anything from neural growth factors to therapeutic genes into the brain.

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