News of the Week
News Focus

News of the Week

SPACE SCIENCE:
Human Flight Is Next Step for China's Space Program

Ding Yimin and Dennis Normile

BEIJING--China is poised to become the third country to launch humans into space after the safe return of its latest craft, which carried instrumented dummies. The recovery of the Shenzhou 4 capsule sets the stage for a flight later this year by one or two members of China's 12-person corps of "taikonauts."

[Full Text] [PDF]

RESEARCH FUNDING:
Expert Panel Urges a Boost for Smithsonian Science

Jennifer Couzin

A special commission told the Smithsonian Institution this week that it needs to bolster its science budget and improve its oversight of basic research. The report, assembled by an independent 18-member group that included six institution scientists, was requested in May 2001 by the Smithsonian's Board of Regents after the institution's new secretary, Lawrence Small, advocated sweeping changes in research programs.

[Full Text] [PDF]

BIOTERRORISM:
New Look at Old Data Irks Smallpox-Eradication Experts

Martin Enserink

Yale University mathematician Edward Kaplan has been arguing that the architects of the U.S. bioterrorism policy are placing too much faith in a strategy called ring vaccination to contain a smallpox epidemic. Now, Kaplan has published a paper that he says deals another blow to that strategy--further raising the ire of his opponents, some of whom are veterans of the global smallpox-eradication effort in which the strategy was introduced and tested.

[Full Text] [PDF]

ASTRONOMY:
Surveys Spot Ring Around the Milky Way

Robert Irion

SEATTLE--Two teams of astronomers have announced that our galaxy--like Saturn and a certain hobbit--possesses a grand ring of its own. The thick torus of stars, about twice as far from the center of the galaxy as our sun, probably arose after the Milky Way shredded a much smaller neighbor billions of years ago.

[Full Text] [PDF]

PALEOCLIMATE:
Tropical Pacific a Key to Deglaciation

Richard A. Kerr

In this week's issue of Nature, paleoceanographers present the latest and most persuasive evidence yet that the tropical Pacific did not stand idly by as the world melted out of its latest ice age 18,000 years ago. Instead, the tropical Pacific was a participant, if not the dominant driver, in one of the biggest climate shifts of the past half-billion years.

[Full Text] [PDF]

NATIONAL LABORATORIES:
UC Ties at Stake in Los Alamos Shakeup

David Malakoff

Top officials of the troubled Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico stepped down this week amid a fraud scandal, stoking rumors that the Department of Energy may end the lab's 60-year relationship with the University of California. Lab chief John Browne announced last week that he and top deputy Joseph Salgado were resigning after deciding that "only a change in leadership" could "restore [the government's] confidence" in managers of the lab.

[Full Text] [PDF]

PHYSICS:
Relativity Goes Where Einstein Sneered to Tread

Charles Seife

In the 30 December 2002 issue of Physical Review Letters, two physicists show that quantum entanglement, a notion that Einstein loathed, can be deeply affected by the laws of relativity. In fact, when particles are sped up to near the speed of light, entanglement can appear seemingly out of nowhere.

[Full Text] [PDF]

NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH:
Clinical Recruitment Stumbles on a Logo

Jocelyn Kaiser and Jon Cohen

A push by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to approve all publications centrally has got clinical researchers hopping mad at one HHS agency, the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Since last fall, according to government scientists, NIH has canceled patient recruitment ads, costing an extra $81,000 and triggering a significant drop in calls from people interested in volunteering.

[Full Text] [PDF]

RESEARCH POLICY:
A New Road for Indian Science

Pallava Bagla

BANGALORE--Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee has laid out a new road map for science and technology that would double the country's spending on research over 5 years, improve training, and streamline bureaucracy. Vajpayee also proposed "a new funding mechanism for basic research" that observers likened to the U.S. National Science Foundation.

[Full Text] [PDF]
News Focus

ASIAN MEDICINE:
The New Face of Traditional Chinese Medicine

Dennis Normile

TOKYO--This year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a phase II trial to test the efficacy of Kanglaite in treating non-small-cell lung cancer, making Kanglaite the first drug derived from a traditional Chinese herbal remedy to go into clinical trials in the United States. Asian governments are hoping that high-volume screening and rigorous clinical trials will unlock the secrets of ancient herbal remedies--and that the results will pass muster with Western scientists.

[Full Text] [PDF]

NEW PERSPECTIVES FOR PRION THERAPEUTICS MEETING:
Prion Disease Treatment's Early Promise Unravels

Peter Follette

PARIS--More than 200 researchers met at a Left Bank hotel in December for the first international conference dedicated exclusively to therapeutics for prion diseases. Their reports, however, dampened hopes of an imminent solution.

[Full Text] [PDF]

INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR INTELLIGENCE RESEARCH MEETING:
The Practical Benefits of General Intelligence

Constance Holden

NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE--About 60 psychologists, cognitive scientists, and psychometricians gathered here last month for the society's third annual meeting. Researchers defended the traditional IQ test and discussed differences in brain activity between people with high IQs and those with low ones.

[Full Text] [PDF]

BIOMEDICAL POLICY:
Shrugging Off Doubters, NIH Launches a New Institute

Jocelyn Kaiser

When Congress created the National Institute for Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) 2 years ago, there were arguments that it would balkanize research at the National Institutes of Health. Now NIBIB has a permanent director, and its first advisory board is meeting next week. But NIBIB is still struggling to win over critics, define its priorities, and reassure jittery scientists that their grant proposals won't fall in the cracks between institutes.

[Full Text] [PDF]

DEEP-SEA SCIENCE:
Cool Corals Become Hot Topic

David Malakoff

Researchers probing the cold, dark waters of the deep ocean have found remarkably vibrant coral gardens whose size confounds conventional scientific wisdom. Next week, cool-coral experts from Europe, the United States, and Canada will gather in Ireland to begin crafting an international research plan. They also hope to strengthen efforts to protect deep-water corals from fishing practices that threaten to reduce some ancient reefs to rubble.

[Full Text] [PDF]