Funding | Events | Research | Policy | People | Facilities | Trend watch | Coming up

FUNDING

Grants guaranteed The UK government has announced that it will guarantee existing research grants from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 funding programme after the country leaves the EU. UK researchers receive billions of euros from the €75-billion (US$84-billion) programme. June’s referendum vote to leave the EU left British scientists worried that funding for projects spanning several years could be taken away. But on 13 August, the government said that it would cover any shortfalls in these grants, provided that an organization has bid for them before the United Kingdom leaves the EU (a date that has not yet been fixed). See go.nature.com/2aoa7gi for more.

US finds Zika funds The US government will put US$81 million towards the study of potential vaccines against the Zika virus, the US Department of Health and Human Services announced on 11 August. The money, which is to be reallocated from other projects, will be divided between the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which will receive $34 million, and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, which will receive $47 million. Even so, the NIH estimates that it will need another $196 million for Zika vaccine research in the 2017 fiscal year.

EVENTS

Polio returns to Nigeria after two years Nigeria has recorded its first cases of wild poliovirus in more than two years — a setback to the global campaign to eradicate the disease. The country will now start emergency vaccination campaigns to hold back the virus’s spread. Nigeria’s government found two children in the northeastern Borno state who had been paralysed by polio in July, the World Health Organization announced on 11 August. The country had been on the brink of wiping out polio; its last recorded case had been in July 2014. See go.nature.com/2bccf92 for more.

Credit: Sunday Alamba/AP

Quantum satellite China launched the world’s first quantum satellite on 16 August. The Quantum Experiments at Space Scale (QUESS) mission, which lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northern China, successfully entered orbit at an altitude of 500 kilometres. During its two-year mission, QUESS will test the limits of the quantum phenomenon known as entanglement by observing whether entangled photons remain linked across 1,200 kilometres, eight times the distance so far achieved in free space. It will also test ways to ‘teleport’ information between the satellite and Earth using entangled photons.

ChemRxiv coming The American Chemical Society announced on 10 August that it wants to establish a preprint site for chemistry called ChemRxiv. The site would allow chemists to share early results and data online before publication. The repository would follow the physics preprint server arXiv and the bioRxiv for biologists. Chemists have historically been reluctant to publicly share manuscripts before peer review. One reason is that some major journals in the discipline discourage posting work online before submission. See go.nature.com/2bn7clg for more.

Corruption case India’s Central Bureau of Investigation has charged the former chair of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), G. Madhavan Nair, and seven leading officials in a corruption case. The group includes former employees of the ISRO and its commercial arm Antrix, and officials of the satellite company Devas Multimedia in Bangalore. They have been accused of cheating, corruption and conspiracy to make financial gains by abusing their positions in a deal between Antrix and Devas. In 2011, Antrix scrapped a 2005 contract with Devas, citing security concerns amid allegations of corruption. Nair, who was head of Antrix as well as the ISRO, signed off the deal. Devas took the case to the courts, and two international arbitration proceedings have ruled in the company’s favour.

RESEARCH

Solar-storm war risk A study has revealed for the first time how a solar storm in May 1967 nearly caused the US military to launch planes for war — until Air Force researchers realized that ballistic early-warning radars were being jammed by energetic solar particles, and not by the Soviet Union (D. J. Knippet al.SpaceWeatherhttp://doi.org/bn5x;2016). Since then, the Department of Defense has continued to invest heavily in space-weather forecasting. A team led by Delores Knipp, a space physicist at the University of Colorado Boulder, disclosed the story at a meeting in Boulder on 10 August.

POLICY

Chimp retirement The US National Institutes of Health has released a long-awaited plan to move its research chimpanzees into permanent retirement. Under the schedule, announced by the agency on 11 August, all 360 of the agency’s chimpanzees will be moved to the federally funded Chimp Haven sanctuary (pictured) in Louisiana by 2026. The chimps, which are living in research centres in Texas and New Mexico, will be moved in small groups to keep families and social circles together. Chimp Haven currently has space for only about 75 more animals, and is constructing space for an extra 100; deaths in the ageing population are likely to make further room.

Credit: Melanie Stetson Freeman/Christian Science Monitor/Getty

More marijuana The United States is making it easier to access marijuana for research purposes. Scientists have long been able to obtain the drug from only one source — the University of Mississippi in Oxford. But in an unexpected move, the US Drug Enforcement Administration announced on 11 August that it will allow any institution to apply for permission to grow marijuana for research. The agency says that the change is motivated by a high demand from scientists and a desire to encourage research on the drug. Research on marijuana typically focuses on cannabinoids, compounds found in the drug that may alleviate chronic pain and mitigate the effects of neurological disorders.

PEOPLE

Harvard chief Leading stem-cell scientist George Daley was announced as the new dean of Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, on 9 August. Daley is a long-time faculty member at the school and its affiliated hospitals. He is a former president of the International Society for Stem Cell Research, which has established guidelines for the use of embryonic stem cells, and most recently, for the gene editing of human germline cells.

FACILITIES

US space projects A report on the United States’ biggest astronomy and astrophysics programmes has affirmed the country’s support for a European Space Agency-led gravitational-wave observatory. Physicists announced the first detection of gravitational waves in February; since then, the proposed space-based observatory has garnered renewed US interest. The report, released on 15 August, is a ‘midterm’ assessment of decadal funding priorities laid out in 2010 for agencies including NASA and the US National Science Foundation. The Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope, which was widely favoured in 2010, is still slated for launch in the mid-2020s.

Chinese sea lab China is to establish a South China Sea marine-research laboratory on Hainan island. The State Key Laboratory of Marine Resources Utilization in the South China Sea, which is due to open in November with an initial term of five years, will survey mineral and marine resources in the region. The announcement came shortly after a decision by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, the Netherlands, that censured China for transgressing international law in its attempt to claim nearly all of the South China Sea. China rejected the ruling. According to sources in state press, the laboratory will help China to “safeguard our nation’s rights”.

TREND WATCH

More species protected by the US Endangered Species Act have recovered during President Barack Obama’s administration than under all other presidents combined, the US Department of the Interior announced on 11 August. Under Obama, 19 species have recovered and been delisted. This might be a result of the 43-year-old legislation finally paying dividends, and because the Obama administration has put more resources into processing delistings to counter attacks from Republicans.

Credit: Source: US Dept of the Interior/US Fish & Wildlife Service

COMING UP

21–26 August Scientists gather in Melbourne, Australia, for the International Congress of Immunology. ici2016.org

24 August The US Animal Welfare Act, the first federal law to regulate the use of animals in research, turns 50.