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Science
Weekly News
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| A roundup of the week’s top stories in Science:
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| In Brief |
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In science news around the world, the U.S. Geological Survey’s new earthquake hazards map finds new danger zones in the central United States due to oil- and gas-related wastewater injection; invasive lionfish in the Caribbean have spread to Brazil’s coral reefs; a replica of the 36,000-year-old Chauvet ave paintings opens to viewers in a nearby village in France; U.S. political parties continue to wrangle over a controversial bill to reshape U.S. science policy; and more. Also, NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft has reached the end of its mission and is poised to crash into the planet. And the final results from a clinical trial of the first malaria vaccine are in—and they are as lackluster as preliminary results suggested they would be.
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| In Depth |
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Seismology
Eric Hand and Priyanka Pulla
Geophysicists studying the rupture mechanics of the magnitude-7.8 earthquake in Nepal have made a startling discovery: that the quake extended deep into the Himalayas, into a region that many scientists had deemed incapable of explosive tearing. The rupture extended past a “lock line” where brittle rock becomes more plastic in its behavior—a region where slip was expected to creep along quietly and not contribute to the overall power of the earthquake. The discovery suggests that, as awful as the present disaster is, future earthquakes in the Himalayas could end up being mightier and more calamitous than modelers assumed.
Infectious Diseases
Martin Enserink
Ebola is on the decline in Guinea, one of three West African hit hard by the epidemic. The country’s teeming capital of 2 million, Conakry, had only a single known case last week. As part of the endgame, hundreds of local workers have gone house to house in the remaining Ebola pockets in recent weeks to explain how Ebola spreads, encourage people to report suspected cases, and try to find any hidden Ebola patients or corpses. Distrust of the government, resentment against teams raising awareness, and rumors about the origins of the epidemic are still a problem.
Bioethics
Jocelyn Kaiser and Dennis Normile
On 18 April, a Chinese team published the first-ever report on genetically altered human embryos. It ignited a firestorm of controversy and exposed a rift in the scientific community. Researchers at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou reported how they attempted to use the CRISPR-Cas9 system, a new gene-editing technology, to modify the gene that causes the blood disorder beta thalassemia in abnormal human embryos rejected for in vitro fertilization use. They had minimal success altering the gene and said the technique is not yet ready for clinical use. Although approved by an ethics review board, the research set off alarms. Scientists agree there should be a moratorium on clinical use of genome editing at present. But some also want a moratorium on fundamental experiments; others are equally adamant that basic research using human embryos is scientifically and ethically justifiable.
Nutrition
Viviane Callier
Monitoring—and modifying—diet isn’t easy, as people struggling with obesity or diabetes are well aware. Keeping track of the added sugars that lurk in foods from soft drinks to cereals is especially hard. Researchers have now come up with a blood test that could help both average people trying to stay on top of their diets and nutritionists—and they’ve shown that it is as good at monitoring added sugars as the complex diet reporting usually used in medicine and research. The test, based on the ratio of common carbon isotopes in blood serum, has shown that just one sugar-sweetened beverage is enough to produce a detectable increase in carbon-13 in the blood. Researchers hope the test will eventually be a part of standard clinical blood panels.
Funding
Edwin Cartlidge
Greece’s ongoing economic crisis and political shifts are taking a new toll on the country’s researchers, already reeling from cuts in salaries and research spending. Now, the government plans to confiscate research funding to plug a hole in the country’s ever worsening finances. As Science went to press, it remained unclear exactly how much money would be targeted and when it would be taken, but researchers expect the government to grab funds set aside to pay for research overheads. And the left-wing government, in power since January, is pushing through a reform of higher education that scientists say will make universities more politicized and less meritocratic.
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| Feature |
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Robert F. Service
In 2013, researchers around the globe published more than 15000 papers on single-layer graphite, called graphene, a number that has grown exponentially since the material was invented 11 years ago. And for good reason: Graphene is the thinnest material ever made. It’s 100 times stronger than steel, a better electrical and heat conductor than copper, flexible, and largely transparent. Investigators envision a future for it in everything from the next generation of computer chips and flexible displays to batteries and fuel cells. But graphene has drawbacks, especially its inability to act as a semiconductor. Now, chemists and materials scientists are striving to move beyond graphene. They’re synthesizing other two-dimensional sheetlike materials that promise to combine flexibility and transparency with electronic properties graphene can’t match. And they are already turning some of them into thin, flexible, speedy electronic and optical devices that they hope will form the backbone of industries of the future.
Jon Cohen
Science takes a look at the science on Jeopardy!—and the scientists who have won big on the popular TV program. This “smart person’s game show” has for many decades offered clues that require answers in the form of questions, and many of those clues explore the history of science or cutting-edge research. The show’s writers carefully research the science clues so there is no more than one correct response—but sometimes contestants prove them wrong. Among the many scientists who have won multiple times on the show are the new CEO of AAAS (publisher of Science) and a bioinformaticist who set a single game record when he won $77,000. Bonus material for the story (found at http://scim.ag/jeopaRdy) includes a science quiz, a video on one contestant’s winning strategy, and a compilation of research papers about Jeopardy!.
Time to cue the Jeopardy! theme. With help from the kind folks at the game show, we’ve compiled a quiz with 10 clues from past episodes for your entertainment. You can take quiz here or go to http://scim.ag/jeopaRdy for an interactive and timed version that provides more detailed answers. You will also find a video in which Roger Craig, a bioinformaticist who earned a record $77,000 on a single Jeopardy! game and won multiple times, explains how he analyzed an archive of past episodes to strengthen his game skills and identify smart strategic moves. Finally, we offer online a list of research papers about Jeopardy!.
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Sponsored by SLAS
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Science and the future 