Volume 394 Issue 6688, 2 July 1998

The goodwill that greeted the appointment of UNEP's new executive director is in danger of evaporating.

tokyo

The Japanese government is proposing to promote nuclear energy as a means of reducing the country's greenhouse gas emissions.

tokyo

The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, a proposed US$10 billion next-generation fusion facility, faces significant scaling-down.

london

Suggestions for increasing the influence of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) have run into strong opposition.

paris

A French lay panel has delivered a mixed verdict on the use of genetically modified organisms.

washington

Eight senators have introduced a revised proposal to double the United States' investment in research and development over the next 12 years.

washington

Ground controllers have lost contact with the $1 billion Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), the centerpiece of an international programme to study the Sun and its interaction with Earth.

munich

The European Space Agency has agreed to work more closely with the European Union in developing strategies in telecommunications, navigation and Earth observation.

san diego

New questions have emerged about the rock-dating techniques developed by a geographer at Arizona State University following suggestions that some of the results may have been fabricated.

munich

An investigation into scientific fraud at the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding in Cologne has endorsed the institute's decision to dismiss a technician and the leader of her research group.

beijing

The Chinese Academy of Sciences is to be reorganized over the next 13 years. There will be investment in new research areas, new staff from overseas, some institutes will be merged, while others closed down.

sydney

A broad-based Biological Sciences Institute, the best-funded new facility for research in Australia for many years, is being set up at the University of Queensland, Brisbane.

london

How far can pollen travel while remaining able to cross-pollinate effectively with other species? This question has become critical in the British debate over the safety of genetically modified crops.

A better understanding of the dynamics of Earth's mantle depends on improved techniques for isotopic tracing. One such study has resolved minute variations in isotopes of osmium and links surface volcanism to events at the core.

A newly described 334-million-year-old fossil of an amphibian will give students of vertebrate evolution much to think about, for it has characters that were previously ascribed to three different types of early four-legged creature. Together with other examples, the fossil shows that during evolution new features seem to have been 'cut and pasted' on different groups at different times. Understanding such parallel evolution will require understanding the molecular and developmental basis by which such features arise.

Neutrinos have mass. This profound discovery was made using the SuperKamiokande detector in Japan, a huge flooded cavern lined with photomultiplier tubes and designed to detect different sorts of neutrino. The implications are tremendous: it is the first time that any phenomenon beyond the Standard Model of particle physics has been observed unequivocally. This mass detection is powerful support for a new unified theory of fundamental physics, based on SO(10) symmetry.

So far, six proteins have been identified as members of the Hedgehog family — intercellular signals that act in a range of developmental processes. One group now reports the discovery of a seventh member in the fruitflyDrosophila melanogaster. Called tout-velu, the newly identified protein mediates diffusion of the Hedgehog protein in the Drosophila wing. What's more, the tout-velugene is homologous to two human genes, mutations in which are associated with benign bone tumours.

We know that stars create heavy elements in their cores, and massive stars disperse these elements into space. But it is a surprise to discover these heavy elements in the low-density intergalactic medium, many millions of light years from the nearest galaxy clusters. A widespread generation of stars in the early Universe may have produced them, or they could have been ejected from galaxies with super-fast winds.

Most of the excitatory synapses in our brain — those that cause the depolarization of neurons — involve release of the neurotransmitter glutamate. One group has now found that glutamate also has inhibitory actions, resulting in the opposite effect (hyperpolarization). What's more, glutamate can act on the same receptor to cause both effects. It turns out that the crucial factors are how much glutamate is present, and how rapidly it is applied.

Could the West Antarctic Ice Sheet collapse, causing a disastrous global rise in sea level? To answer that, we must first understand the fast-flowing ice streams that stud its perimeter, carrying its ice to the sea. What controls their locations? Seismology and satellite observations give one possible answer: ice streams exist only over sedimentary basins, which supply material for a slippery clay-like bed.

In 'conventional' superconductivity, electrons form superconducting Cooper pairs through an attraction mediated by lattice vibrations. Are any other pairing mechanisms possible? As well as having intrinsic physical interest, such mechanisms might allow much higher transition temperatures. Perhaps surprisingly, as magnetic fields are usually anathema to superconductivity, evidence of a magnetic pairing mechanism has now been found in two materials.

Cells can signal to one another through a variety of ways, one of which is the addition and removal of phosphate groups. These processes are carried out by protein kinase and protein phosphatase enzymes, respectively. Signalling pathways are increasingly being found to be regulated by interactions between kinases and phosphatases — for example, one protein kinase has been identified as the substrate for a specific protein phosphatase in a self-moderating signalling complex.

Carbon nanotubes have been marketed as the latest in miracle superconductors and reinforcing fibres, but they cannot yet be produced in bulk. Daedalus intends to do this, by making them under catalytic control — just like any other chain polymer. His plan is to develop a metal anode plated with amorphous carbon, dipped into a solution of an alkali metal carbide in a suitable polar but aprotic solvent.

When X-rays were discovered in the last century they swiftly captured the popular imagination, giving rise to a new art form, saucy poetry and circus sideshows alongside their serious roles in science and medicine.

Kicking off with electron and atomic force microscopy, this section is rounded out by systems for light microscopy that include laser scanning fluorescence, improved automation, imaging software and other accessories.