Volume 398 Issue 6730, 29 April 1999

Previous agreements notwithstanding, it makes sense not to destroy a key protective resource.

paris

Harold Varmus, director of the US National Institutes of Health, has drafted a plan to set up a global electronic publishing venture covering all the biomedical sciences.

tokyo

Full electronic versions of selected Japanese scientific journals will soon be available, thanks to a government-led project that provides technical support to national research institutes and academic societies.

munich

Switzerland has rejected an application from the German biotechnology company AgrEvo to conduct filed trials of its genetically modified herbicide-resistant maize.

washington

The third largest maize processor in the United States has announced that it will not accept genetically modified maize that has not been approved for import by the European Union.

stockholm

Sweden's new science minister, Thomas Östros, is moving to strengthen links with the science community that came under severe strain under his predecessor.

washington

A two-ounce Mars Sundial will be fixed to the Mars Surveyor 2001 lander due to touch down on the Red Planet in January 2002.

san diego

US efforts to create a Biodiversity Observatory Network are speeding up as part of a broader effort by the National Science Foundation to chart the country's biocomplexity.

washington

A plan by the US space agency NASA to hire a single contractor to manage the peer review of all research grant proposals has worried some scientists.

washington

A $1.4 billion project to build the world's most powerful neutron source has fallen several months behind schedule during its first year of construction and is facing major difficulties in obtaining further construction funds.

tokyo

Japan is to set up a body to evaluate engineering and technology departments at universities to develop a system that will set teaching standards equal to those in the West.

munich

Leading specialist science journal publishers have responded cautiously to an open letter from Germany speaking libriaries asking how they propose to keep prices affordable.

washington

Scientists are split over a decision by the Clinton administration to preserve one of the two known stores of live smallpox virus.

new delhi

Eight workers were exposed to “mild radioactivity” when about six tonnes of heavy water leaked during the inspection of a coolant channel tube at an Indian power station last month.

london

Unesco's World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology (COMEST) is meeting in Oslo this week at the invitation of the Norwegian government.

hammamet, tunisia

Investment in biotechnology could be Africa's route to future economic prosperity, according to Thomas Odhiambo, the outgoing president of the African Academy of Sciences.

london

'Virtual laboratories' could be a valuable device for combatting the brain drain from the South to the North, according to three researchers at the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, Italy.

Leaf-cutting ants cultivate a mushroom from the fungal tribe Leucocoprini as a source of food. But a new study shows that there is another partner in this mutually beneficial relationship -- a bacterium from the genusStreptomyces, which produces antibiotics to prevent infestation of the ant garden by the fungal parasite Escovopsis.

The search for a practical quantum computer has come one step closer to reality with the creation of a solid-state 'quantum bit', or 'qubit'. A qubit is a two-state quantum system, which offers greater efficiency than the classical computer bit. What makes this latest qubit so exciting is that it can be controlled externally allowing the device to be switched between states.

How do arms or wings (forelimbs) become different from legs (hindlimbs)? It all hinges on the expression of specific transcription factors in the embryonic fore- or hindlimb buds. Expression of the Tbx5 protein in the chick results in the development of wings, whereas the Tbx4 protein specifies legs. Misexpression of these proteins generates wing-like legs and leg-like wings, respectively, and should tell us much about the mechanisms by which these proteins act.

Techniques used by molecular biologists and geochemists have been combined to uncover a new type of microbe that lives off a diet of methane gas seeping from marine sediments. Although no organism that can consume methane anaerobically has ever been identified, circumstantial evidence indicates that such a microbe -- genetically related to methane-producing bacteria -- is lurking in deep marine sediments.

Many membrane proteins are taken up into the cell by the process of clathrin-mediated endocytosis — the proteins are pinched off in vesicles coated with the protein clathrin. A study using a fusion protein (green fluorescent protein combined with the clathrin light-chain) now indicates that formation of these coated pits may be coupled to events at the membrane skeleton, possibly through scaffold proteins.

It seems likely that the warming of the Earth's atmosphere is caused by anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases, and that the warming trend will continue long into the future. What have been, and will be, the consequences for the occurrence of extreme events such as storms, floods and droughts? There are no straightforward answers, but climate models employing nonlinear analysis may be a way forward.

There are many similarities between nematodes and mammals in the pathways that lead to programmed cell death. There are also differences, and one of these is now highlighted -- it seems that mammals have an extra level of complexity. A protein called FLASH has been shown to modulate the activity of a killer protease (caspase), and even its existence was completely unexpected.

How does a cell regulate its exit from the stage of the cell cycle known as mitosis? The answer, surprisingly, involves a new regulatory principle. Exit, it seems, is controlled by switching off mitotic kinases, and this is done by a phosphatase called Cdc14, an inactive form of which is sequestered in the nucleolus until needed. This is the first time that nucleolar localization has been shown as a regulatory mechanism.

Brain scans or blood sampling of praying monks and nuns could provide objective evidence for religious belief. By identifying a crucial religious chemical, Daedalus believes a new 'Theological Prozac' would enable everyone to experience true religious feelings.

Douglas Starr's book Blood: An Epic History of Medicine and Commerce was announced as the winner of the science and technology category of the 1998 Los Angeles Times Book Prize last Friday (23 April). Starr was one of five finalists in the science and technology category: