Vito Scalia, Italy's science minister, alerted Nature shortly before Christmas (see 20 December p 768) to the three-pronged attack he was to make on European research organisations. Speaking in the room in the Rome convent where Galileo was tried (right) Scalia demanded that Italy get fairer treatment from ESA, that CERN delay its decision on a new Director-General, and that the EEC adopt an experiment on nuclear reactor meltdown. The results of his efforts are now becoming plain, as Robert Walgate reports.
