People | Events | Policy | Research | Business | Trend watch | Coming up

PEOPLE

Forensics clash Senior forensic scientist Wang Xuemei has resigned as vice-president of the Chinese Forensic Medicine Association, it was reported on 18 August. In an online resignation video, she said that she could no longer be associated with the academic organization behind “ridiculous and irresponsible conclusions”, referring to her doubts over the association’s determination that a man died accidentally in 2010 by falling on to electrified subway tracks in Beijing. She added that she had resolved to quit the forensic system in China. Wang is well known for criticizing last year’s conviction of Gu Kailai for poisoning a British businessman, although Wang’s video did not refer to this. Gu is the wife of ousted Chinese politician Bo Xilai, whose corruption trial begins this week.

Research fraud A researcher at Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands has been fired for committing scientific fraud, the centre announced on 14 August. Annemie Schuerwegh, who worked in the rheumatology department, admitted manipulating data included in a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2010, says a report from the centre. She went into the laboratory outside office hours and added mouse antibodies to tubes of human blood samples. The centre will withdraw the article and another paper, and has halted a clinical trial based in part on the fraudulent data.

Credit: Juan Rendon

EVENTS

Carnivore misidentified for decades A nocturnal, tree-dwelling mammal with a bushy tail and teddy-bear-like face is the first new carnivore species to be identified in the Western Hemisphere in 35 years. Dubbed the olinguito (Bassaricyon neblina, infant pictured), the 75-centimetre-long inhabitant of the Andean cloud forests had been mistaken in museums and zoos for a close relative — the olingo — for more than a century. Zoologists who reported the finding on 15 August (K. M. Helgen et al. ZooKeys 324, 1–83; 2013) first discovered the mix-up by studying decades-old museum samples, eventually confirming their findings by tracking a live olinguito in Ecuador in 2006. DNA tests revealed that an olingo kept in US zoos during the 1960s and 1970s was actually an olinguito. See go.nature.com/acqawh for more.

POLICY

No money for eggs California governor Jerry Brown vetoed a proposed law on 13 August that would have allowed payments to women who donate their eggs for scientific research — a move that may deter other states from attempting to ease similar bans. The measure would have boosted the availability of human eggs for research in fields such as cloning or somatic-cell nuclear transfer. Separate rules prohibit the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine in San Francisco, the state’s stem-cell agency, from funding research on stem-cell lines created with eggs from paid donors. See go.nature.com/xkelfv for more.

Nuclear waste A US appeals court has ruled that the country’s Nuclear Regulatory Commission must revive its review of the Department of Energy’s application to open a nuclear-waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. The energy department had sought to withdraw its application in March 2010, after years of political controversy and concerns over whether the site would leak radioactive waste (see Nature 473, 266–267; 2011). But on 13 August, the court ruled that the regulatory commission must continue reviewing the energy department’s application.

Hydroelectric halt India’s Supreme Court has ordered that the construction of additional hydroelectric dams must be suspended in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand. After flash floods and landslides in June killed thousands of people in the state, environmental groups blamed the recent rapid expansion of hydroelectric projects as a contributing factor. On 13 August, the court ordered that an expert group should be set up to study the environmental impact of dams, tunnels and deforestation associated with hydroelectric plants, and to assess whether such projects precipitated June’s tragedy. See go.nature.com/pjvsp4 for more.

Amazon drilling Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa has abandoned an initiative intended to persuade wealthy nations to pay his country not to drill for oil in an Amazon rainforest reserve. Correa had asked for US$3.6 billion — 50% of the estimated revenue from development — in exchange for protection of the Yasuní National Park. After receiving only $13 million in pledges since the initiative was mooted in 2007, Correa announced on 15 August that the government would move forward with drilling.

Credit: NASA Goddard’s Scientific Visualization Studio

RESEARCH

Space dust trails NASA scientists have tracked a dust cloud that was dumped in Earth’s stratosphere by a meteor explosion in February over Chelyabinsk in Russia, the agency announced on 14 August. Using satellite data and atmospheric models, researchers found that the space dust — estimated to weigh hundreds of tonnes — reached an altitude of 40 kilometres within hours of the blast. It then swirled around the Northern Hemisphere for days, forming a band (pictured) that lasted for at least 3 months. The findings will be published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Planet-naming code Long-promised guidelines for the public naming of planets and moons were issued by the International Astronomical Union on 14 August. The Paris-based organization, which oversees planetary nomenclature, asks that any group gathering candidate names follow the guidelines. Among other things, the rules discourage using the names of pet animals and forbid the collection of money in the naming process. They were prompted in part by the actions of Uwingu, a space-education company in Boulder, Colorado, that in February asked the public to pay to vote on candidate planet names (see Nature 496, 407; 2013).

Kepler kaput NASA is abandoning attempts to resuscitate the crippled Kepler Space Telescope, the agency announced on 15 August. Engineers have spent months trying to repair two of the telescope’s four gyroscope-like wheels, which are crucial for controlling its movement. The first wheel failed in July 2012, with a second one breaking in May (see go.nature.com/4w1ufr). The spacecraft needs at least three working wheels to carry out its search for Earth-like exoplanets that might support life. Although Kepler completed its primary mission in 2012, it had begun an extended mission that was scheduled to end in 2016.

BUSINESS

Bribery probe In a widening crackdown, China will launch a three-month bribery probe across multiple business sectors, including the pharmaceutical and medical-services industries, the country’s State Administration for Industry and Commerce said on 14 August. Earlier this month, the authorities began probing Sanofi, based in Paris, over claims that the company offered 1.69 million renminbi (US$274,000) in bribes to physicians in China. In July, the Chinese government opened an investigation into senior executives of GlaxoSmithKline in China for allegedly bribing officials and physicians in the country to boost drug sales.

India drug patents Following media reports, Swiss drug-maker Roche has confirmed to Nature that it will stop enforcing an Indian patent that would have protected its breast-cancer drug trastuzumab (Herceptin) until 2019. Makers of generic pharmaceuticals may now sell cheaper versions of the drug, easing tensions over drug prices that have seen India reject some patents and skirt others by granting local ‘compulsory licences’ (see Nature 500, 266; 2013). By avoiding compulsory licensing, the compromise may help Roche to maintain long-term access to the Indian market.

Credit: Source: www.polioeradication.org

TREND WATCH

Numbers of cases of polio are falling in Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan, countries where wild poliovirus is endemic. But outbreaks have occurred in Somalia and Kenya, part of a band of African countries in which imported poliovirus tends to cause periodic reinfections. In Somalia, emergency vaccinations could prove particularly difficult. The medical charity Médicins Sans Frontières said on 14 August that it would close all its programmes there because of attacks on staff.

COMING UP

23 August Hoping to bring the International Linear Collider to Japan, the country’s high-energy-physics community holds a press conference to announce the site it has chosen to host the proposed atom smasher.

 28 August The Office for Human Research Protections hosts a public meeting in Washington DC to discuss guidelines on informed consent for clinical trials that test the high and low ranges of standard medical practice (see page 377). go.nature.com/lb42by