Volume 391 Issue 6667, 5 February 1998

munich

The smooth continuation of the European Union's (EU) five-year Framework programmes of research is being held hostage for the first time to broader EU politics.

paris

France's science ministry is to reopen an inquiry into the activities of a government laboratory, which claims to have identified and cloned a molecule involved in fat degradation.

washington

The institute that manages the science programme for the Hubble Space Telescope should expand its focus beyond that instrument, according to the director chosen to lead the institute into the next century.

washington

Christmas has come late for the National Science Foundation (NSF), with the Clinton administration proposing a budget increase of ten per cent, to $3.8 billion - more than any other government science agency.

washington

Space agency chief Daniel Goldin, who has promised the White House that he can do more with less, will not be sharing in the federal research spending spree. NASA's 1999 budget request drops slightly from this year's approved level, to $13.46 billion.

washington

President Bill Clinton this week promised record increases in funding for the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation in a budget that delighted science advocates.

washington

Non-military science programes at the US Department of Energy will enjoy a 10 per cent increase under the budget proposal -- but not much of the money will be consumed by the start of construction at the $13 billion Advanced Neutron Spallation Source at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee.

washington

President Bill Clinton has asked Congress for the biggest dollar increase in the history of the National Institutes of Health biomedical agency, with the focus on cancer research funding.

london

Two advisory groups to the British government are seeking public endorsement of research using cloned human embryos less than 14 days old.

washington

US congressmen are queueing up to present various hastily drafted bills to outlaw human cloning.

Democracy, price stability and economic liberalization in Latin America are combining to present scientists in the region with their best opportunity in decades to match international standards of excellence.

Discoveries of spectacularly preserved embryos and tissues, in rocks that are about 570 million years old, open a new era in the study of early animal evolution.

In the ocean, colloids lie at the boundary between soluble chemical species and sinking particles. They account for 30-50% of the ‘dissolved’ organic carbon in sea water, and so are highly important players in marine chemistry. Work invoking polymer gel theory adds a fresh element to understanding colloid behaviour in sea water by quantifying colloid aggregation rates.

In the ocean, colloids lie at the boundary between soluble chemical species and sinking particles. They account for 30-50% of the ‘dissolved’ organic carbon in sea water, and so are highly important players in marine chemistry. Work invoking polymer gel theory adds a fresh element to understanding colloid behaviour in sea water by quantifying colloid aggregation rates.

In polycrystalline materials with grain sizes in the micrometre range, strength increases with decreasing grain size. This is because dislocations pile up at the grain boundaries and, as the grains become smaller, the effect of dislocation blocking increases, thereby strengthening the material. But with grains in the nanometre range, the opposite behaviour is found. Why? Computer simulations show that the reverse effect arises primarily from sliding motions at grain boundaries.

Mutations in the retinoblastoma (Rb) tumour-suppressor protein are implicated in many types of cancer. In healthy cells, Rb binds to the E2F protein, preventing the transcription of genes that would otherwise be activated by E2F. But in cancer cells, this repression is turned off, allowing the cells to enter the cell cycle. In an attempt to find out how Rb normally effects this repression, two groups have found that it binds to the histone deacetylase HDAC1, acting as a bridge to tether this protein to E2F. The HDAC1 protein therefore represses the E2F-regulated promoter, in an interaction that is mediated by Rb.

Over geological time, massive amounts of organic carbon of marine origin have accumulated in the Earth's sedimentary rocks. So a leading question for oceanographers has been what controls the balance between carbon burial and, conversely, its oxidization and recycling. A new analysis provides evidence that a crucial factor is the time that organic matter is exposed to dissolved oxygen after it has been incorporated into sediment. This seemingly simple explanation is attractive because it unites two variables -- the rate at which organic carbon is falling to the sea floor, and bottom-water oxygen content.

Treatments for baldness usually involve rubbing lotions onto the surface of the scalp. But one group is now making headway towards a more scientific cure by homing in on the root cause -- one of the genes that is responsible for baldness. By studying seven members of a Pakistani family with a recessively inherited form of baldness known as alopecia universalis, the authors identified a region on the short arm of chromosome 8 that is often mutated. They narrowed this down even further by cloning the human homologue of the mousehairlessgene, which turned out to map to this exact region. This is the first documented genetic mutation to be associated exclusively with hair loss.

Geologists have driven many of the recent advances in high-pressure experimentation. But understanding the properties of materials under extreme compression is also a well-developed branch of condensed-matter physics; high pressures are used in chemistry, too, to form dense crystalline materials, often with unusual coordination and valence states, or interesting electronic and magnetic properties. New extremes of pressure are now being explored with ‘designer’ diamond anvils and shock compression techniques.

Later this month, the Natural History Museum, London, presents a little-known aspect of its collections to the public -- a selection of 70 works of natural history art from its massive collection of some half a million. The exhibition is called ‘Images from Nature’. It is at Christie's, King Street, London SW1 (not the museum itself), and runs from 9 to 20 February.

Microscopes are among the commonest of scientific instruments, and an innovation employing the Internet will increase their usefulness yet further. The scheme involves a telemicroscopy system that allows Web browser software to connect multiple ‘clients’ to a computer that controls an automated light microscope. Such Internet-based remote control is not new. But this scheme is much more accessible and dynamic because it employs commonly available Web browsers and Java technology.

In the dark days of winter, many people suffer from seasonal affected disorder, or SAD. Brief daily exposure to intense light reduces the symptoms of this condition, and Daedalus suggests that this light would be best applied through the ears. He is developing an ‘Earlight’ to do just that, the aim being to stimulate the pineal gland in the brain, which is at almost the same level as the ears.

Vladimir Prelog, pioneer of stereochemistry.

Crystals forming on a sea of brine in one of Glen Onwin's installations demonstrated the emergence of shape from chaos — and reflected the artist's interest in the origins of matter.

We report a concept that is not only applicable for telemicroscopy, but may be adapted for the remote control of any kind of scientific device, opening a new field of application for the Internet.

Tools for riding the biotechnology wave, including those for designing, synthesizing, analysing and predicting the efficacy of new compounds. compiled by Brendan Horton from information provided by the manufacturers. For more details, fill in the reader service card bound inside the journal.