European countries set to agree on greenhouse targets

london

Members of the European Union (EU) will this week announce their individual targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions under their obligations to the Kyoto protocol on climate change. Germany will cut its emissions the most — 22.5 per cent from 1990 levels before 2012. Denmark will make a 22 per cent reduction, with Austria making a 21 per cent cut by 2010.

The United Kingdom will reduce emissions by 12 per cent before 2012. France and Finland will be allowed to stabilize emissions at 1990 levels. In contrast, Portugal will be allowed to increase emissions by 24 per cent from 1990 levels, Greece by 23 per cent, Spain by 15 per cent and Luxembourg by 30 per cent.

These targets collectively are in line with the EU member states' joint commitment at last December's Kyoto climate conference to reduce emissions of a basket of six greenhouse gases by 8 per cent from 1990 levels before 2012.

Scientists seek a role in Ireland's peace deal

dublin

The Irish Research Scientists' Association has called on Ireland's research minister Bertie Ahern to propose an All-Ireland Science Council as one of the cross-border bodies to be created under the Northern Ireland peace initiative. In a letter last week to the minister, the association says that such a council would be a “potent vehicle to tap the benefits of science and technology for the good of all communities across the island”. The association represents scientists from both sides of the border.

The association also asks the minister to use his influence to help persuade the Queen's University of Belfast not to close its geology department, as it has planned following its low ranking in the last UK research assessment exercise. The association argues that science departments should be given time to rebuild themselves in a peaceful society, where the environment will be more attractive to top scientists.

Appeal to US Senate to back test ban treaty

washington

Madeline Albright, the US Secretary of State, has called on the Senate to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. “Do not stall, do not delay, approve the CTBT,” she declared during a major speech last week on disarmament.

Albright called on Senator Jesse Helms (Republican, North Carolina), chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to examine the issue “on its merits” and offered to testify before the committee at any time. The speech was the opening shot in the Clinton administration's much-delayed campaign to win ratification of the treaty (see Nature 392, 855; 1998).

But the speech may have served only to harden battle lines. Afterwards, Trent Lott (Republican, Mississippi), the majority leader in the Senate, lambasted the CTBT as “an unverifiable treaty overtaken by events”. Tom Daschle (Democrat, South Dakota) promised to try to force a vote on it.

First success for Japan-US astronomical survey

london

Credit: SDSS COLLABORATION

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey, a joint Japanese-American project to build a three-dimensional map of the cosmos, has achieved ‘first light’. The survey's telescope, at Apache Point observatory in New Mexico, recorded images (above) of a portion of sky in the constellations Serpens and Ophiuchus on the night of 27 May.

The telescope contains a digital camera to create five-colour images of the sky. This is complemented by two spectrographs, which provide information about the chemical composition, and the distances, of astronomical sources. The survey will record data for five years, producing a catalogue of positions and brightnesses for more than 100 million stars, galaxies and quasars, according to the survey's scientific director, Bruce Margon.

Antimatter experiment passes flight test

washington

Developers of the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer say they are happy with a recent test flight aboard the space shuttle, despite problems with a high-rate data link. The controversial experiment is scheduled to be placed on board the International Space Station in 2002 to begin a three-year search for antimatter particles (see Nature 391, 732; 1998).

A failure in the shuttle's communications system meant that only about 15 per cent of the data from the test flight, intended primarily to verify the spectrometer's detector, could be transmitted to the ground in real time. But all the data were safely recorded on tape, according to principal investigator Samuel Ting of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

His group plans to run calibration tests in ground-based accelerators this year, but foresees no need for a further shuttle flight before launching to the space station.

Mudslide prompts call for geological surveys

london

Geological investigations should be made compulsory for all civil engineering projects, according to the Paris-based European Federation of Geologists. The federation is calling on European Union member states to consider legislation to this effect following the recent tragedy at Campania, Italy, where a mudslide caused 250 deaths in the Sarno valley.

The mudslide was caused partly by the fact that buildings had been erected over a disused seventeenth-century system of drainage. The federation says that landslides and foundation failures can often be predicted and prevented by a proper understanding of regional geological history.

Kyoto climate accord ‘will wreak havoc in US’

washington

James Sensenbrenner (Republican, Wisconsin), chair of the US House of Representatives Science Committee, last week levelled some of the harshest criticism yet against the international agreement on climate change signed last December in Kyoto, Japan. Speaking at a forum on energy efficiency in Washington, Sensenbrenner said the treaty is “so flawed⃛ that it cannot be salvaged”.

While claiming that compliance with the treaty would “wreak havoc on US businesses and families,” the congressman also attacked the treaty's scientific underpinnings. “Because the science is unclear, I don't think we should risk harming the American economy, and by extension the American people, by ratifying the Kyoto treaty.”

San Jose sees its name written in the heavens

london

The Lick observatory on Mount Hamilton, east of San Jose, California, has had an asteroid named after its home city in recognition of officials' support for the observatory by controlling the interfering glow of streetlights.

M. R. C. Greenwood, chancellor of the University of California, Santa Cruz, and Joseph Miller, the observatory's director, presented the city council with a plaque carrying a digital image of the asteroid together with a tribute.

The Paris-based International Astronomical Union has approved the name.