Washington & London

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The horrific events of 11 September in New York and Washington have left scientists — in common with people from all walks of life — struggling to comprehend the brutality involved, and deeply worried about the potential consequences. Although shock and grief remain the dominant emotions, scientific leaders are already asking if the political, economic and security landscape will now shift in ways that make it impossible to adopt a 'business-as-usual' approach to research.

Scientists worldwide were quick to express sympathy and solidarity with American colleagues and with the victims of the attacks. Some scientific events were cancelled or curtailed as a mark of respect, and on 13 September the US National Academies posted on their website a selection of the messages received from other research organizations. These led with an expression of “deep sympathies and condolences” to the American people from Fathi Arafat, president of the Palestine Academy for Science and Technology. “I must say we were all utterly shocked and dismayed at the terrible human loss incurred and the excruciating pain that ensues,” Arafat wrote. “May God ease your pain and grant you patience.”

Devastation: workers remove rubble after the collapse of the World Trade Center. Credit: AP

But scientific leaders must now think beyond their immediate emotional responses and consider the practical consequences of the current crisis. Today's scientific enterprise relies heavily on international collaboration, the free exchange of data, and unrestricted travel. In the current unstable geopolitical climate, it is unclear how each of these will be affected.

Given the nature of last week's attacks, concerns about the safety of air travel loom large (see below). Leading scientists, and those in senior positions in government research agencies and high-tech industry, are among the world's most frequent fliers. There is currently a strong determination — particularly on the part of US researchers — to carry on as normal. “We should take whatever means in security measures to mediate this so that we shake hands, look eye-to-eye, stand shoulder-to-shoulder,” says Robert Goldston, director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory in New Jersey — where a meeting to celebrate 50 years of plasma physics was postponed last week. “We should not allow this event to affect the way we do science.”

Even scientists who have been touched directly by last week's tragedy echo those feelings. Jan Mous, chief scientific officer with Lion Bioscience, a biotech company in Heidelberg, Germany, says that international travel will remain central to the functioning of his industry. But for Mous, such contemplation is secondary to his concern for the family of Klaus Sprockamp, Lion Bioscience's chief finance officer, who is listed among those missing at the World Trade Center in New York. “We can only pray that a miracle has happened,” says Mous.

Escalating tension

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The extent to which scientists will resume their hectic travel schedules is likely to hinge on future events, however. Any suggestion that airliners remain vulnerable to hijacking by suicide bombers is bound to dent people's resolve to keep flying. Already, carriers are reducing the number of scheduled flights. And if last week's outrage leads to war between the United States and scattered terrorist groups and the states that harbour them, as seems likely, international scientific travel could be severely curtailed. “If there is a riposte, then I stop travelling immediately and completely,” the research director of a leading European pharmaceutical company told Nature.

Such concerns are now foremost in the minds of the organizers of major scientific meetings. In the days immediately after the attacks, organizers of the largest pending conferences were optimistic that they could proceed as normal. But as events continued to unfold, some scientific societies began to reconsider their plans.

The American Society for Microbiology, for instance, which was expecting some 15,000 delegates to attend its 41st Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy in Chicago on 22–25 September, initially issued the following statement: “We believe that in response to the national tragedy that has occurred, holding this important scientific meeting is in the best interests of human health and welfare.” But by 14 September, the conference's organizers had decided to postpone the meeting until December, noting that “uncertainties concerning the availability of safe, scheduled air travel force us to take this action in the best interests of our infectious-disease community”.

While the organizers of future conferences reviewed their plans, other meetings were disrupted by last week's interruptions to air travel. The Cardiovascular Research Foundation cut short a meeting in Washington that opened on the day of the attacks, and the American Association of Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Rehabilitation's annual meeting in Minneapolis, which was due to start on 12 September, was abandoned. Across Europe and Asia, many meetings went ahead without American participants.

As concerns grow about escalating global instability and the likelihood of the United States launching a military response, the ramifications for science could run much deeper than the disruption of conferences.

An increased focus on security seems inevitable. Last week, for instance, the US Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs was told that federal agencies, including those responsible for research, have given inadequate thought to protecting their computer infrastructure against terrorist and other threats.

Research agencies may now be asked to tighten their security procedures across the board. It is also possible that policies on the exchange of scientific data will be reviewed. “At present, we distribute and share scientific information without regard to where it's going,” says Graham Cameron, joint head of the European Bioinformatics Institute in Hinxton, near Cambridge, UK. But he speculates that the US government and its allies could demand that certain countries are excluded from access to a range of scientific data — such as the genome sequences of pathogenic microorganisms.

Science officials in the regional neighbours of Afghanistan — the most likely target of US military action — are acutely aware of the potential for a security clampdown to affect international scientific collaboration. “It is too early to say in what form restriction will come,” says Ragunath Mashelkar, secretary to India's Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. “But there is bound to be some restriction on the freedom that non-Americans currently enjoy in the United States.”

More generally, the crisis could have a profound effect on the resources that are made available for research. The US federal budget will come under pressure as money is released for the immediate relief effort, for eventual rebuilding at the sites of the attacks and to finance the expected military action. Already, the US Congress has authorized the spending of $40 billion for rebuilding and to step up security. “The money has to come from somewhere,” observes Robert Eisenstein, assistant director of the mathematical and physical sciences directorate of the National Science Foundation.

Although officials such as Eisenstein are duty-bound to consider the potential implications of the crisis for their agencies' budgets, such concerns are not foremost among the scientists who spoke to Nature over the past week. “There are thousands of widows, widowers and orphans,” says Princeton University physicist William Happer, director of the Office of Energy Research in the US Department of Energy during the early 1990s. Under the circumstances, he says, most scientists will accept that fundamental research is not going to be the US government's top priority.

Reported by Alison Abbott, David Adam, Josette Chen, Rex Dalton, K. S. Jayaraman and Paul Smaglik