News of the Week
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News of the Week

SCIENCE PHILANTHROPY:
Hughes Cuts Researcher Grants As Endowment Takes a Hit

David Malakoff

After enjoying years of soaring research spending fueled in part by an economic boom, some life scientists are being told to tighten their belts. A major blow landed last week, when the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, one of the world's largest private research philanthropies, confirmed that it will trim spending by about 10%, or $100 million, over the next 2 years.

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U.K. RESEARCH:
Courting Universities Break Off Engagement

Keri Page

LONDON--To some observers, it was shaping up as a marriage of necessity: London's two leading research universities uniting to pose a more potent challenge to the United Kingdom's academic powerhouses, Cambridge and Oxford. But mounting resistance to a plan to merge Imperial College and University College London forced administrators earlier this week to call off the wedding.

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RESEARCH MISCONDUCT:
German Inquiry Finds Flaws, Not Fraud

Adam Bostanci and Gretchen Vogel

BERLIN--A paper claiming a spectacular remission of tumors from the use of an experimental cancer vaccine is marred by shoddy scientific practices, but investigators aren't saying whether the results are also too good to be true. Last week the University of Göttingen said that its investigative committee had found evidence of sloppiness that constitutes misconduct, but not fraud, in the disputed paper. But with only a brief statement to go on, scientists following up on the work still don't know whether the data are valid.

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HOMELAND SECURITY:
New Agency Contains Strong Science Arm

David Malakoff

Congress this week put the finishing touches on legislation to create the Department of Homeland Security, which will combine 22 existing government agencies and spawn an array of new science-related programs. Much to the delight of biomedical research advocates, lawmakers rejected proposals to give the mammoth agency control of major bioterror research and regulatory programs.

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NUCLEAR PHYSICS:
TESLA Accelerates; ESS Falls Back

Gretchen Vogel

BERLIN--As anticipated, Germany's science council on 18 November backed plans for a massive new linear collider, the $3.5 billion TeV Energy Superconducting Linear Accelerator. But the council disappointed proponents of a $1.4 billion European Spallation Source, demanding a rewritten proposal before the machine would be considered for government funding.

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BANGLADESH:
Agricultural Pumping Linked to Arsenic

Erik Stokstad

In Bangladesh, millions of wells dug to provide safe drinking water are laced with arsenic from ancient sediments, endangering human health. Now a study on page 1602 suggests that pumping for irrigation might be at least partly to blame for the poisoned water, although the finding is controversial. The results could signal the need for deeper drinking-water wells.

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ENERGY RESEARCH:
Industry Invests Big in Stanford Project

Andrew Lawler

An international consortium of energy companies intends to pump up to $225 million over the next decade into a climate change and energy project led by Stanford University. Researchers say they are stunned by the size and scope of the effort to study ways to reduce global warming, which will examine everything from carbon sequestration to the economics of substituting hydrogen fuel for oil, coal, and natural gas.

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NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION:
Congress OK's Budget Doubling, At Last

Jeffrey Mervis

Some straightforward political horse-trading has paved the way for the National Science Foundation to achieve one of its most cherished goals last week: a congressional promise to double the agency's budget in 5 years.

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CELL BIOLOGY:
Chaos Reigns in RNA Transcription

Jennifer Couzin

Rather than smoothly assembling on a gene, the proteins that form a major transcription tool, called RNA polymerase I, collide without sticking and zoom off if their companions are seconds behind schedule. The research, reported on page 1623, is not without critics, who contend that the technology used in the study has not advanced enough to support such a model. But the work reflects an increasingly sophisticated effort to delineate the dance performed by transcription machinery.

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EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY:
Bacteria Shared Photosynthesis Genes

Elizabeth Pennisi

Historically, sun-loving microbes that convert solar energy to biomass, it seems, were quite promiscuous: They readily swapped DNA. Early on, these species were remarkably free, as researchers explain on page 1616, in sharing the photosynthesis genes that enable them to draw energy from sunlight--so free that it's hard to use these genes to trace the microbes' ancestry.

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WILDLIFE RESEARCH:
New Rules Ease Specimen Shipments

Philipp Weis

CAMBRIDGE, U.K.--To the relief of scientists, an international trade body has decided to eliminate much of the red tape that has hindered the shipment of biological samples for research on endangered species. Although its action last week is not binding for individual nations, scientists say it will raise awareness of the pressing need for improved handling of the material.

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News Focus

CANINE EVOLUTION:
A Shaggy Dog History

Elizabeth Pennisi

In this week's issue of Science, three research teams chase down some of the age-old issues surrounding the evolution of dogs. Using genetic studies, one offers new evidence about where dogs were first domesticated (p. 1610); another employs DNA comparisons to show that New World pooches aren't from the New World at all (p. 1613); and the third evaluates the ability of dogs to follow human cues (p. 1634). Some researchers think the results of these efforts clear up some key questions about dog evolution, but others are skeptical.

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PROFILE: HUSSAIN AL-SHAHRISTANI:
The Very Model of a Modern Iraqi Dissident

Andrew Watson

LONDON--Once Iraq's chief nuclear chemist, Hussain Al-Shahristani endured torture and 10 years of solitary confinement after refusing to work on the bomb. He now keeps close tabs on his former boss from London. Shahristani is also precisely the sort of individual whom United Nations weapons inspectors hope to contact now that they are back in Baghdad.

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NUCLEAR PHYSICS:
Accelerator Aims to Find the Source of All Elements

Charles Seife

Nuclear physicists hope that an expensive atom smasher, an $840 million machine called the Rare Isotope Accelerator (RIA), will reveal the secrets of stellar alchemy, but first they have to secure funding. RIA will smash stable atoms into fragments, producing rare, unstable nuclei that play a brief but crucial role in the creation of heavy elements. By studying these unstable nuclei--analyzing their half-lives, their ability to capture neutrons, and other properties--scientists believe they will finally be able to figure out where all the heavy elements are born.

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EVOLUTION:
A Trigger for the Cambrian Explosion?

Richard A. Kerr

At last month's annual meeting of the Geological Society of America, researchers reported that sediments in Oman provide evidence that an extinction 542 million years ago, possibly brought on when the deep sea disgorged noxious waters, set the stage for the proliferation of wild and wonderful life forms that followed. But this one page from the fossil record isn't enough to prove that a near-knockout punch to primitive life set off the Cambrian explosion.

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SCIENCE AND SECURITY:
Entering the Twilight Zone Of What Material to Censor

Martin Enserink

There is a rapidly growing category of information that the government wants to keep under wraps, even though, for one reason or another, it can't be classified. Scientific organizations are concerned about this "sensitive but unclassified" label, however, not only because it increases the administrative burden, but also because it crimps the free flow of scientific information. Its inherent murkiness can lead to arbitrary decisions and abuse, experts say.

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RESEARCH ETHICS:
Planned Misconduct Surveys Meet Stiff Resistance

Constance Holden

The government's Office of Research Integrity (ORI) has built its reputation on high-profile investigations into alleged fraud, attracting both praise and ridicule. Now ORI is trying to blaze a trail in understanding, and then preventing, scientific misconduct. But its new direction seems equally controversial: One proposed survey has already been shot down by the White House, and another is under fire from two prominent biomedical research groups.

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