Science Weekly News

Science Weekly News SCI COMMUN News at a glance In science news around the world, a severe drought in the Mekong delta sparks concerns about food security in Vietnam, the National Institutes of Health seeks more funds to combat both Zika and Ebola, a Swedish research team begins a clinical trial to assess whether a prostate cancer drug can help prevent pedophilic behavior, scientists worry about the impact of plans for logging in one of Europe's last remaining old-growth forests, the embattled head of Australia's premier research agency defends plans to shift the agency's priorities, and internet billionaire Yuri Miller teams up with physicist Stephen Hawking to announce Breakthrough Starshot, a project to send miniaturized spacecraft to the nearest stars. Also, Science talks with Hugh Possingham, a mathematical ecologist who is set to be the next chief scientist at The Nature Conservancy. And NASA announces that it has regained control of its planet-hunting spacecraft Kepler, after discovering last week that it had placed itself into "emergency mode." Neuroscience International brain projects proposed Emily Underwood Neuroscience is becoming big science, with the 2013 launches of the European Union's Human Brain Project and the United States's Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnology (BRAIN) initiative leading the way. Last week, leaders of these massive, multi-institution projects and others around the world met at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, to discuss an even loftier goal: a global neuroscience collaboration that would link their efforts and rival big science investments in astronomy and physics. More than 60 neuroscientists from 12 countries pitched diverse visions for such a project at the meeting, sponsored by the Kavli Foundation and the National Science Foundation. Fisheries Science Arctic nations eye fishing ban Eli Kintisch Delegates from nine countries and the European Union are meeting next week in Washington, D.C., to discuss a U.S. proposal to bar fishing in the central Arctic Ocean (CAO) until sufficient science is in place to inform regulation there. No commercial fishing now occurs in the CAO, but vanishing sea ice there is exposing shallow waters to vast amounts of new light, increasing primary production by 30% since 1998. That's raised the possibility that commercial fishing could move there, but regulators fear a repeat of the experience in the northern Bering Sea in the 1990s. There, unregulated factory trawlers operating in international waters basically extirpated walleye pollock before regulators had a chance to set international limits. Stocks of that fish have never recovered. Scientific Publishing Dutch push for a quantum leap in open access Martin Enserink The Netherlands is using the European Union's rotating presidency, which it currently holds, to promote open-access (OA) to the scientific literature. A 2-day meeting held last week produced an Amsterdam Call to Action that included the ambition to make all new papers published in the European Union freely available by 2020. Carlos Moedas, the European commissioner for research and innovation, favors an ambitious approach as well, and a meeting of Europe's ministers of research, innovation, and industry may adopt ambitious targets next month. The Netherlands is an OA front-runner itself, although some are critical of the country's emphatic choice for Gold OA, in which authors pay publishers to make their papers freely available. Archaeology Megaproject asks: What drove the Vikings? Andrew Lawler How did the Vikings become Vikings? A $6 million Swedish grant just awarded to Neil Price at Uppsala University in Sweden will attempt to answer that question. Price and his colleagues intend to study burials, landscapes, and artifacts to see whether the need for a captive labor force and women helped propel Vikings out of Scandinavia and as far west as Canada and as far east as Baghdad. Meteorology Obsolescence looms for balloon data Eric Hand The United States has fallen behind Europe in adopting a modern weather balloon system. Twice a day, hundreds of hydrogen- or helium-filled balloons lift off from stations around the world, carrying temperature, pressure, and humidity sensors that provide crucial information for weather forecast models. But for more than three-quarters of the world's 800 balloon stations, the information is streamed in an antiquated alphanumeric format; these stations have failed to meet a 2014 deadline to upgrade to a new, more powerful binary format. Moreover, many forecasters who use balloon data have also failed to switch over, and are now facing data gaps as nations turn off the old, alphanumeric streams. The U.S. Global Forecast System, for example, does not incorporate the new, binary data. Sociology Rural China is no country for old people Kathleen McLaughlin Worldwide, suicide rates are highest among people over 70. But in rural China, experts call the rising suicide rate among elderly people-now about 47 per 100,000 people-a public health crisis. The epidemic's roots lie in the unraveling of traditional family life in China. As economic development and urbanization lure able-bodied young people out of villages and into China's massive migrant workforce, many elderly people are left behind to fend for themselves. Beginning next year, the central government will gradually hike the official retirement age-a move that could help many seniors feel less isolated and more valuable to society. But those who study China's elderly say much more must be done.

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The savior cells? Jennifer Couzin-Frankel Researchers are designing the first clinical trials of stem cell treatments for fetuses afflicted with rare bone and blood diseases. The trials, still being planned, involve arguably the trickiest patient population there is: pregnant women and their fetuses. And although researchers once thought that the fetal immune system would readily accept foreign cells, they now know that it is not that simple. But some fetuses have already been treated on an ad hoc basis, with encouraging results. After decades of hopes raised and dashed, pediatricians, immunologists, and others are cautiously hopeful that new biological insights and a push for treatment from parents-to-be could turn the tide for prenatal stem cell therapy. Gene therapy gets a high-stakes test Jennifer Couzin-Frankel A U.K. team is designing a clinical trial even more radical than prenatal stem cell therapy: the first ever test of gene therapy in pregnancy. The treatment aims to correct fetal growth restriction, in which blood flow to the placenta falters. Gene therapy has had a checkered history in children and adults, with side effects including cancer and at least one death. So rather than introduce new genes to the fetus itself, the team is targeting a blood flow-promoting gene to the uterine arteries.