News of the Week
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News of the Week

HIGH-ENERGY PHYSICS:
Wayward Particles Collide With Physicists' Expectations

Charles Seife

EAST LANSING, MICHIGAN--At a meeting here last week, researchers announced results that, so far, nobody can explain. By slamming gold atoms together at nearly the speed of light, the physicists hoped to make gold nuclei melt into a novel phase of matter called a quark-gluon plasma. But although the experiment produced encouraging evidence that they had succeeded, it also left them struggling to account for the behavior of the particles that shoot away from the tremendously energetic smashups.

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NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION:
White House Concerns Block Doubling Bill

Jeffrey Mervis

A last-minute objection from the White House sent lawmakers home last week with nothing to show for their efforts to authorize a 5-year doubling of the National Science Foundation budget. Angry legislators from both parties accuse the Office of Management and Budget of sabotaging the long-awaited agreement, which lobbyists hope can be salvaged when Congress returns after the 5 November elections.

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EVOLUTIONARY GENETICS:
Jumbled DNA Separates Chimps and Humans

Elizabeth Pennisi

BALTIMORE, MARYLAND--New research reported here last week at the American Society for Human Genetics meeting suggests that the DNA of humans and chimps might not be quite as similar as researchers have believed it to be for the last 30 years. A closer look has uncovered nips and tucks in homologous sections of DNA that weren't noticed in previous studies.

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PROTECTING HUMAN SUBJECTS:
Koski Steps Down After Bumpy Ride

Jocelyn Kaiser

Greg Koski, a Harvard anesthesiologist, says his decision to step down as director of the federal Office for Human Research Protections after 2 years is not related to the political winds blowing through his office, including a recent decision to dismantle its advisory committee. But sources say that a lack of support from his bosses might have helped speed his return to academe.

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SEISMOLOGY:
Suit Ties Whale Deaths to Research Cruise

David Malakoff

Last week an environmental group asked a federal judge to suspend a National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded sea-floor mapping expedition off Mexico that it claims led to the deaths of two whales. NSF rejects a link between the deaths and the air guns used by shipboard researchers to generate sound waves, but the incident has nonetheless reignited controversy over the impact of noise on marine mammals.

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ENDOCRINOLOGY:
Divorcing Estrogen's Bright and Dark Sides

Greg Miller

A study on page 843 suggests that it might be possible to tease apart the various effects of estrogen, maintaining its benefits while reducing its risks. A synthetic hormone has been shown to boost bone strength in mice without affecting reproductive organs.

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PALEONTOLOGY:
Cuts at Dino Monument Anger Researchers

Erik Stokstad

Vertebrate paleontologists are up in arms about a plan to cut back on research at Dinosaur National Monument. Although monument officials say the move will benefit paleontology in the long run, some scientists charge that the plan is misguided.

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EUROPEAN RESEARCH:
Directive Could Give Postdocs Permanency

Kirstie Urquhart

CAMBRIDGE, U.K.--A new directive from the European Commission (EC) could lead to radical changes in how contract researchers, mainly postdocs, are employed. The EC's Directive on Fixed-Term Work mandates that E.U. nations "prevent the abuse of fixed-term contracts through their continuous use." Precisely how the rule is implemented is up to each country, however.

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LOW-DOSE RADIATION:
U.N. Faces Tough Sell on Chornobyl Research

Paul Webster

MOSCOW--The United Nations' Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) is mounting a last-ditch effort to reinvigorate flagging interest in the long-term health consequences of the Chornobyl disaster. Prospects for the new initiative are unclear, however. OCHA itself has no money to launch new research projects, and expert opinion is split on the initiative's scientific potential.

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PUBLIC HEALTH:
Creeping Consensus on SV40 and Polio Vaccine

Dan Ferber

Since a virus was discovered in the monkey kidney extracts used to make the Salk vaccine some 40 years ago, concern has risen that the vaccine might have triggered an epidemic of cancer. Now, the U.S. Institute of Medicine has allayed most--but not all--of those fears. The virus, known as SV40, has not caused a wave of cancer, the panel concluded, but it might be causing some rare cancers.

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ATTOPHYSICS:
X-ray Flashes Provide Peek Into Atom Core

Adrian Cho

Using ultrashort pulses of x-rays, physicists have taken a "movie" of electrons frenetically rearranging themselves deep inside an atom. The technique opens the way for a new class of experiments in which researchers should be able to trace and control changes within atoms that take place in billionths of a billionth of a second, or attoseconds.

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News Focus

BACTERIOPHAGE THERAPY:
Stalin's Forgotten Cure

Richard Stone

TBILISI--Bacteriophage therapy, pioneered in Stalin-era Russia, is attracting renewed attention in the West as a potential weapon against drug-resistant bugs and hard-to-treat infections. Phages--viruses that infect bacteria--could soon find a role as a treatment for burns, diabetic ulcers, and other open wounds, although experts concur that these viral breeds are unlikely to knock antibiotics off their pedestal for most infections.

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BACTERIOPHAGE THERAPY:
Food and Agriculture: Testing Grounds for Phage Therapy

Richard Stone

Last month, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration aired draft regulations requiring manufacturers to test potential livestock pharmaceuticals for their ability to help pathogens acquire resistance to human drugs. But farmers are concerned that they could be left with fewer weapons to combat food-borne pathogens. Some advocates believe that phages--viruses that attack bacteria--could offer a solution.

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TOXICOLOGY:
Overhaul of CDC Panel Revives Lead Safety Debate

Dan Ferber

Public health advocates and a group of Democrats in Congress are accusing the Bush Administration of trying to load an influential advisory panel with friends of the lead industry. They suspect that the Administration wants to head off an effort to tighten the definition of lead poisoning. A government spokesperson denies that the Administration has any policy in mind and says that the new panelists are well qualified.

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INDIA:
Missing Generation Leaves Hole in Fabric of Research

Pallava Bagla

NEW DELHI--Top fellowships go begging for worthy candidates and outside hires stir controversy as India wrestles with a shortage of talent for leadership positions, a problem triggered by brain drain to the West and compounded in recent years by talented students bypassing science for better paying fields. The phenomenon has also contributed to a graying at the top of the scientific hierarchy.

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THE INSTITUTE FOR GENOMIC RESEARCH MEETING:
Gene Researchers Hunt Bargains, Fixer-Uppers

Elizabeth Pennisi

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS--Technology buffs, bioinformaticists, and hardcore experimentalists rubbed elbows here 2 to 5 October at TIGR's 14th International Genome Sequencing and Analysis Conference. They met to discuss better ways to gather and use genomic information, a vast array of which is now at their fingertips. Highlights included discussions of chromosome evolution and new low-cost sequencing approaches.

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BIOINFORMATICS:
The Human Genome in 3D, at Your Fingertips

John Bohannon

AMSTERDAM--Even the most seasoned experts are daunted by the mountains of human genome data churned out by sequencing and microarray technologies. Now swishing through thickets of genes with a "light saber" in a virtual-reality room called Saragene could become a straightforward--and fun--way to make sense of the flood of genome data. The system could become available widely within a year.

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