|
|
| A roundup of the week’s top stories in Science:
|
|
| In Brief |
|
In science news around the world, the European Parliament pushes back against a plan to siphon money from the European Union’s research budget to create a new investment fund; the United States’ new ice-capable vessel, the RV Sikuliaq, passes its ice trials and is ready for full research operations; the Australian government angers its scientists over plans to contribute funds to a new center in collaboration with controversial climate author Bjørn Lomborg; the U.S. patent office gears up to reconsider the awarding of 10 patents related to the CRISPR technique for DNA cutting; and scientists report that the increasing global demand for rubber is imperiling biodiversity in Southeast Asia. Also, former University of Michigan forestry student Doug Scott chats with Science about the 1970 teach-in he helped organize that was a precursor to the first Earth Day. And the United States’ first National Math Festival brings math-related fun, from balloon octahedra to the Ooblek Olympics, to Washington, D.C.
|
|
| In Depth |
|
Europe
Tania Rabesandratana
A battle has erupted in Brussels over the European Commission’s plan to raid funds earmarked for research, in a bid to boost Europe’s lagging economy. Announced in November, the plan involves diverting €2.7 billion from the European Union’s 2014 to 2020 research budget to create a new E.U. investment fund. Member states like the idea, and commission officials insist there is no cause for alarm. But scientists protested, and now the European Parliament appears to have heard them. Earlier this week it voted to oppose raiding the research budget, setting the stage for lengthy negotiations with the Council of Ministers, which represents member states.
Research Funding
Jeffrey Mervis and Adrian Cho
Representative Lamar Smith (R–TX) has never hidden his desire to reshape federal research policy—often over the objections of much of the scientific community—since he became chair of the House of Representatives science committee 2 years ago. Smith doesn’t have the authority to impose that vision on Congress, but his committee’s oversight of several key scientific agencies makes it an important player in any debate on the topic. Last week he introduced legislation—H.R. 1806, called the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2015—that lays out those plans in unprecedented detail for three agencies—the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy’s research activities, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, along with federal science education policy. The reaction was predictable: Although academic leaders say that some parts of the new, 189-page bill are better than previous versions, most believe it would still seriously damage the U.S. research enterprise.
Medical Research
Jennifer Couzin-Frankel
Clinical trials are in for an overhaul, if a group of experts has its way. Surprisingly, although billions of dollars are spent each year to test new drugs, the information these trials yield is often of little help to doctors trying to treat the patients right in front of them. That’s because trials often limit who can enroll—for instance, if a person has diabetes or high blood pressure, she might be excluded from a test of a new medicine. But doctors treat patients taking multiple drugs, and with multiple conditions, all the time. At a recent meeting, doctors, clinical trial experts, and statisticians made the case for a new type of experiment: pragmatic clinical trials, which focus less on basic biology and more on what doctors need to make decisions.
Ecology
Christine Mlot
For nearly 60 years, scientists have tracked the wolves of Isle Royale and their moose prey, uncovering key insights about predator-prey relations. Now the iconic study may be ending, as only three wolves remain, including a pair and what may be their pup, which may be malformed due to complications of inbreeding. The other wolves are presumed to have either died or left the island last year when a bitter winter froze the channel to the mainland, in a reverse of how carnivores originally came to Isle Royale. But even as the study on Isle Royale appears to be on its last legs, other researchers may have caught the birth of a similar natural experiment. Across the lake in Canada, three mainland wolves crossed the ice to a smaller island, Michipicoten. They seem to have settled in, hunting caribou and likely breeding. Scientists are now studying the trio, in what may be an Isle Royale redux.
Scientific Publishing
Jeffrey Mervis
The debate over whether peer review can pick out the research most worthy of funding has heated up in the past decade, as competition for federal dollars has become more intense. Two new studies support claims that peer review works at the National Institutes of Health (NIH)—that is, that it produces the desired outcome. One study, on page 434 of this week’s issue of Science, examined the outcomes of 137,215 research project grants awarded between 1980 and 2008. It found that grant proposals rated more highly by NIH study sections generated more publications and more citations than proposals that received lower scores. A second study, which will appear in the July 2015 issue of Research Policy, found that the additional proposals funded after the agency received billions of dollars from the 2009 economic stimulus package garnered fewer citations and publications. But some experts say the papers’ definition of success ignores important factors, meaning that the debate is sure to continue.
|
|
| Feature |
|
Daniel Clery
Twenty-five years after its launch, the Hubble Space Telescope is still going strong. Its instruments are fully functional, and the orbiting observatory keeps cranking out the sorts of new results that have made it famous. It has helped measure the age and expansion of the universe, shown the ubiquity of supermassive black holes at the hearts of galaxies, watched a comet crash into Jupiter, and imaged some of the first galaxies that formed after the big bang. But all good things must end. With no space shuttle to ferry astronauts up to make repairs, Hubble’s instruments are expected to fail sometime in the next decade. Meanwhile, on Earth, researchers planning a successor mission are discovering that Hubble is tough act to follow.
Daniel Clery
The Hubble Space Telescope’s images—particularly its “deep field” views of the early universe—have transformed astronomy. Now, as Hubble enters its final years, astronomers are wondering what instruments will deliver similar revelations in the future. NASA’s big plan for a follow-up space observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope, has survived a near-death experience and is now on track for launch in 3 years—but at a cost so steep, amid stagnating government funding, that it has squeezed out or delayed other missions. Casualties include the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope, the International X-ray Observatory, and the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna. Astronomers working to rescue these projects and develop new ones face hard fights to get their missions off the ground.
Govert Schilling
As the Hubble Space Telescope’s decades-long mission winds down, astronomers are worried about the future of optical and ultraviolet astronomy from space. Its designated successor, the James Webb Space Telescope, is poised for launch in 2018. But the Webb telescope sees the universe in infrared light. Some astronomers are campaigning for a new space telescope, larger than Hubble but sensitive to the same range of wavelengths—”Hubble on steroids.” Researchers are still debating designs for such a multibillion-dollar High-Definition Space Telescope, but they agree that it will need to be versatile enough to serve both astrophysics and exoplanet research—two fields with very different requirements. If the project can garner broad support, its supporters say it could reach the launch pad by the mid-2030s.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Science and the future 