News of the Week
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News of the Week

GENE THERAPY:
Second Child in French Trial Is Found to Have Leukemia

Eliot Marshall

For the second time in 4 months, a child has developed a leukemia-like disease after receiving gene therapy at the Necker Hospital for Sick Children in Paris. Concerned about the safety of such trials, the panel that monitors U.S. research in the field scheduled a public meeting this week to review the clinical data and weigh its next steps.

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SCIENCE AND SECURITY:
Researchers Urged to Self-Censor Sensitive Data

David Malakoff

Do it yourself--before the government does it to you. That's the advice U.S. bioscientists received last week at a workshop on developing guidelines to handle research findings that could threaten national security.

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CHEMICAL ENGINEERING:
Chemists Concoct Quick-Change Surface

Robert F. Service

A group of chemists and chemical engineers has thrown the switch on the once stagnant world of surfaces. On page 371, the researchers report the ability to make a thin gold plate alternate between attracting and repelling water by electronically twisting molecules arrayed on top.

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PHYSICS:
Confirmation of Gravity's Speed? Not So Fast

Robert Irion

SEATTLE--Last week, the media were awash with reports that astronomers had confirmed Einstein's prediction that gravity crosses space at the speed of light. Not necessarily, say some physicists. The work described at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society here, they warn, may have been nothing more than a test of the speed of light itself.

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STEM CELL RESEARCH:
Same Results, Different Interpretations

Gretchen Vogel

In the past few years, several groups have reported tantalizing progress toward one of the most sought-after goals in stem cell research: the creation of insulin-producing pancreatic b cells, which are damaged in diabetes. But now a team claims on page 363 that rather than producing insulin, the cells may instead be concentrating the hormone from their surroundings.

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EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY:
On Ant Farm, a Threesome Coevolves

Elizabeth Pennisi

Certain ants and the fungi they cultivate have evolved in synchrony for millions of years. But there is a third wheel in this relationship--a pathogen that infects the fungi. Researchers report on page 386 that, in terms of evolutionary history, this pathogen is as tightly entwined with the other two as they are with each other.

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PLANETARY EXPLORATION:
Scientists Pick Two Sweet Spots for Rovers on Mars

Richard A. Kerr

In the end, the choice of where to land NASA's two Mars Exploration Rovers next year turned out to be a no-brainer for planetary scientists. They picked two sites where water once flowed--the best place to look for possible signs of life.

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SCHOLARLY CONDUCT:
Skeptical Environmentalist Labeled 'Dishonest'

Lone Frank

COPENHAGEN--A Danish panel decided last week that Bjørn Lomborg's controversial 2001 best-selling book, The Skeptical Environmentalist, is "scientifically dishonest." The government misconduct committee also may be asked to examine whether Lomborg's views have colored the work of the environmental institute that he heads. At the same time, the Danish Research Agency plans to review the panel itself, which is under fire for its vaguely worded report.

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TOXICOLOGY:
Academy Panel Mulls Ethics of Human Pesticide Experiments

Jocelyn Kaiser

In late 2001, the Environmental Protection Agency asked the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) for advice about the ethics of so-called dosing experiments, in which human volunteers are deliberately exposed to pesticides to see how much is needed to trigger a metabolic response or even make subjects sick. Last week, the new NAS panel heard from both advocates and opponents of dosing experiments. Their vehement debate underlines the difficulty the panel faces in trying to untangle the scientific and ethical questions.

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EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY:
Uphill Dash May Have Led to Flight

Elizabeth Pennisi

Some evolutionary biologists propose that avian ancestors took wing by gliding from trees; others say early birds got a running start and lifted off the ground as they beat their feathered forelimbs. Now a new study reported on page 402 suggests that flight may have evolved in protobirds that used their wings to scale inclined objects and trees.

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News Focus

UNIVERSITY-INDUSTRY COLLABORATION:
Last of the Big-Time Spenders?

Andrew Lawler

Much-debated university research deals backed by Amgen and Novartis appear on balance to have benefited the universities involved. But as the two deals quietly dissolve, some observers predict that their kind will not be seen again. The companies themselves, facing an anemic economy, are moving to old-fashioned contracts with individual scientists or making research deals with small companies.

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UNIVERSITY-INDUSTRY COLLABORATION:
Berkeley Review Dismisses Critics' Fears

Andrew Lawler

A recently completed internal review of the University of California, Berkeley's 5-year, $25 million agreement with Novartis concludes that the only real drawback was the negative publicity generated by critics of the high-profile collaboration. But others say the study's focus is too narrow, and that negotiating the pact in secret was a big mistake that should never be repeated.

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NEUROSCIENCE:
Deconstructing Schizophrenia

Constance Holden

After decades of research, no one knows the cause of schizophrenia, many efforts to unravel the genetics behind it have ended in frustration, and no cure is in sight. But in recent years, scientists have made significant gains--not by tackling the disease head-on but by picking apart its components, especially those involved in cognition. And this has given them hope that they might finally be able to unlock some of schizophrenia's intractable secrets.

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NEUROSCIENCE:
White Matter's the Matter

Constance Holden

Scientists have long known that connections somehow go awry in the brains of people with schizophrenia. Now advances in imaging and gene technology are allowing them to trace the axons that connect from neuron to neuron and make up the brain's white matter.

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AMERICAN GEOPHYSICAL UNION:
A New Recipe for Cooking Up a 'Mini Solar System'

Richard A. Kerr

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA--A record 9300 earth, ocean, atmospheric, and planetary scientists gathered here last month for the union's fall meeting. A new theory of the origin of the four large Galilean satellites of Jupiter was among the topics discussed.

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AMERICAN GEOPHYSICAL UNION:
Volcanic Blasts Favor El Niño Warmings

Richard A. Kerr

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA--A record 9300 earth, ocean, atmospheric, and planetary scientists gathered here last month for the union's fall meeting. Talks included a discussion of a new statistical analysis of the timing of large tropical volcanic eruptions relative to ocean warmings over the past 300 years.

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AMERICAN GEOPHYSICAL UNION:
Another Way to Take the Ocean's Pulse

Richard A. Kerr

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA--A record 9300 earth, ocean, atmospheric, and planetary scientists gathered here last month for the union's fall meeting. Among the highlights: Climate change may be slowing the heart of the ocean's globe-girdling circulation system, says a new study, with possible unpleasant effects for some nations bordering the North Atlantic.

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RENEWABLE ENERGY:
Norway Goes With the Flow to Light Up Its Nights

Richard Stone

CAMBRIDGE, U.K.--Three European teams are racing to be the first in the world to harness a new source of power: underwater coastal currents driven by the tides. In early March, engineers in Hammerfest, Norway, are expected to flip the switch of a sea-floor generator that, for the first time, will feed electricity tapped from underwater tidal streams into a power grid. In addition, two U.K.-based companies are hard at work on prototypes.

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