People | Events | Policy | Trend watch | Coming up

PEOPLE

Marcy resigns Astronomer Geoffrey Marcy resigned from the University of California, Berkeley, on 14 October, following revelations that he had violated his university’s sexual-harassment policies. In response, the American Astronomical Society is updating its code of ethics to include guidelines and practices for dealing with misconduct. Marcy, a pioneer in the field of exoplanets, has also terminated his relationship with the Breakthrough Listen project to search for extraterrestrial intelligence, and been removed from an adjunct position at San Francisco State University. See page 483 for more.

Credit: Ralph Claus Grimm

EVENTS

Pollen-coated honeybee photo wins gold This extreme close-up of a honeybee (Apis mellifera) eye covered in dandelion pollen grains won the annual Nikon Small World Photomicrography Competition. The contest showcases microscopic images captured worldwide by scientists, artists and others. Australian secondary-school teacher Ralph Grimm, a former beekeeper, snapped the photo, devoting four hours to mount and light the eye and focus the image. Second prize went to an image of a mouse colon colonized with human microbiota, and in third place was a picture of the trap of a humped bladderwort (Utricularia gibba), a freshwater carnivorous plant.

New Ebola cases The World Health Organization (WHO) reported two new cases of Ebola in Guinea on 16 October, ending a two-week period in which no new cases had been detected across West Africa. Contacts of both individuals will receive an experimental Ebola vaccine as part of an ongoing clinical trial. The WHO does not consider a region Ebola-free until 42 days have passed without a new case.

Harvard and China Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has unveiled a collaborative environmental research project in China. The US$3.75-million venture, announced on 15 October, will enable atmospheric scientist Michael McElroy to work with Chinese researchers on climate change, energy security and sustainable development. Based at the Harvard Center Shanghai, it will include studies in economics, engineering, atmospheric science and environmental health related to sustainability. The collaboration is the first initiative of the Harvard Global Institute, a funding mechanism launched the same day, to encourage interdisciplinary collaborative research overseas.

Whaling fight Australia’s environment minister said on 19 October that the country is taking legal advice over Japanese plans to restart whaling in the Southern Ocean, claiming that Japan is attempting “to exclude itself from the International Court of Justice in matters relating to future whaling activities”. The court declared Japan’s whaling in the region illegal in 2014, ruling that it was not strictly for scientific purposes. Minister Greg Hunt said that Australia had met with the Japanese government to discuss the latter’s apparent attempt to sidestep the court.

Oil-industry pledge Officials from ten of the world’s largest oil and gas companies, including BP and Shell, endorsed on 16 October the goal of limiting the increase in average global surface temperatures to 2 °C. While calling on governments to create “clear stable policy frameworks”, the companies committed to increasing investments in clean-energy solutions, including energy efficiency and technologies that would allow carbon dioxide from industrial plants to be captured and sequestered underground. Released less than two months before the United Nations climate summit in Paris, the statement was met with scepticism from environmentalists, who say that the industry is still fighting meaningful climate regulations.

WHOI cyberattack The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in Massachusetts told its staff on 13 October that it had been the target of a cyberattack. An investigation suggests that the attack originated in China. The institution does both classified and unclassified oceanographic research; no classified information was accessed during the breach, it says. The attack, which targeted data and e-mail, began as early as February 2013 and was not detected until June 2015.

Canada leans left The Liberal Party triumphed over the Conservatives in Canada’s 19 October general election. Incoming prime minister Justin Trudeau pledged before the election to appoint a chief science officer to make government science “fully available to the public”. The previous Conservative government attracted large-scale protests from researchers who accused its leader Stephen Harper of muzzling federal scientists and cutting research budgets. See go.nature.com/27d1td for more.

Credit: George Steinmetz/Corbis

POLICY

Halt to Arctic oil The US Department of the Interior on 16 October cancelled a pair of oil and gas lease sales in the Arctic, citing low oil prices and weak industry interest. The decision comes after the oil company Shell suspended its Chukchi Sea Arctic drilling programme in September after finding less oil and gas than expected. The lease sales had been planned for 2016 in the Chukchi Sea and 2017 in the Beaufort Sea (pictured). The department also denied requests from Shell and Norwegian oil company Statoil to put their existing Arctic leases on hold and resume them at a later date.

Oversight overhaul The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) may scale back its review of research involving human gene therapy. The agency’s Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee reviews all research protocols involving gene transfer into humans, but on 16 October, the NIH proposed that such research be reviewed only if requested by local ethics committees. A 2013 report from the US Institute of Medicine argued that the current level of oversight is no longer needed. The public is invited to comment on the proposal until 30 November.

Emissions action The White House announced a series of executive actions and voluntary industry commitments on 15 October to reduce emissions of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), a group of potent greenhouse gases that are commonly used as refrigerants. The US Environmental Protection Agency said that it will pursue new rules governing the use and management of HFCs, and the Department of Defense announced plans to use alternative chemicals at some of its facilities and on ships. Combined with earlier announcements, the commitments aim to reduce global greenhouse-gas emissions by the equivalent of more than 1 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide by 2025.

Wellcome boost The Wellcome Trust, Britain’s largest biomedical-research charity, announced plans on 21 October to spend £5 billion (US$7.7 billion) over the next five years. The organization has disbursed £6 billion over the past 10 years, including £728 million in 2014. Jeremy Farrar, the trust’s director, says that Wellcome “will do more of what we’re already doing”, and identified other areas such as combating drug-resistant infections and research that involves mining medical records. The splurge is driven by the performance of Wellcome’s £18 billion endowment fund, says Farrar. From 2013 to 2014, its investment assets grew by about 10%, to £18 billion. See go.nature.com/ywcab1 for more.

Credit: Source: M. R. Macleod et al. PLoS Biol. http://doi.org/8cf; 2015

TREND WATCH

Drug testing in animals is at substantial risk of bias because of poor study design, suggests an analysis of thousands of papers (M.R.Macleodetal.PLoSBiol.http://doi.org/8cf;2015). Many publications do not mention bias-avoiding methods. These include randomizing animals’ assignment to treatment or control arms; calculating the sample size necessary for a statistically robust result; and ‘blinding’ researchers as to which animals were assigned which treatment. See go.nature.com/j7ipin for more.

COMING UP

23–24 October The University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania hosts a conference on the biology and control of nausea and vomiting. emesis2015.com

25–28 October Is time travel possible? Scientists gather in Turin, Italy, to debate causality and non-locality in physics, in relation to time machines. www.timemachinefactory.eu

25–29 October Molecular and cellular biologists meet in Kyoto, Japan, for a Keystone Symposium on molecular mechanisms and treatment strategies for diabetes. go.nature.com/we3huv