Los Alamos tapes ‘never left lab’ Senate told

Washington

US energy secretary Bill Richardson told a Senate hearing last week that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had found no evidence to suggest that computer tapes containing nuclear secrets — which went missing from the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and later turned up next to a photocopier — had ever left the laboratory (see Nature 405, 877; 2000).

“So far there is no evidence of espionage, nor is there evidence that the drives have ever left the Los Alamos X Division,” Richardson told the Senate Armed Services Committee last week. The disk drives are thought to have disappeared at the end of March, but their absence from a secure vault was not detected until 7 May.

The chair of the committee, Senator John Warner (Republican, Virginia), said he planned to introduce legislation to look at whether responsibility for the nuclear weapons programmes — including the weapons laboratory — should be given to the defence department or to an independent agency.

Russian unions protest over axed ministry

Moscow

The Russian coordinating committee of the scientific trades union organizations has called for a national day of protest next week (4 July) over the removal of the science ministry in a recent cabinet reshuffle.

The committee has told president Vladimir Putin that scientists are shocked by the move, which means that “there is no one in the cabinet who is directly and solely responsible for Russian science”.

The first demonstrations will be held in Moscow near the Kremlin and the State Duma, the lower chamber of the Russian parliament. Members from across the country have offered to mount local protests in support of the committee.

Swedish centre to focus on biosphere

Stockholm

Lund University in Sweden is to set up a Centre for Biosphere-Geosphere Studies. The centre is intended to act as “a powerful base for modern basic research and education with clearly defined applications towards important global and regional environmental problems”.

The centre's main research objective will be to promote an improved understanding of the processes linking the geosphere and biosphere. It will also seek to ensure collaboration and coordination between national and international research projects in biosphere–geosphere interactions. The centre will be associated with a new Geocentrum being constructed in Lund, and should be ready for use in less than two years.

Budget funding boost for New Zealand science

Sydney

Science in New Zealand has received its largest funding increase in a decade, as part of the Labour-led coalition government's first budget (see Nature 401, 106; 1999). In a shift from the market focus of its predecessor, the government has raised the research and development budget by almost 10%, to a total of NZ$474 million (US$222 million).

Most of the extra funding will be targeted to support research in industry, although business has attacked the government's scrapping of an election promise to introduce tax incentives in favour of grants to small companies. Already under strong financial pressure, universities have been told to direct their new funds to stabilizing the growth in tuition fees, which was a major issue in last year's election.

UK on target for Kyoto carbon dioxide cuts

London

A report on five European countries shows that only the United Kingdom is on track to achieve its Kyoto Protocol target for reduction in carbon emissions. The report, released by the Pew Centre on Global Climate Change, also looked at Germany, the Netherlands, Austria and Spain. It says that all need to put new measures into place if they are to reach their reduction targets.

The report adds that Germany is close, but will have difficulty reaching its target of 21% below 1990 levels. The Netherlands, meanwhile, has a target reduction of 6%, but current CO2 emissions have increased by 17%. The authors of the report include the former UK environment minister John Gummer, now chairman of an environmental consulting firm.

Stone marks site of Heisenberg's inspiration

Munich

Heisenberg monument: Gerd Buschhorn (left), director of the Max Planck Institute for Physics in Munich, and Frank Botter, the Burgermeister of Helgoland were among those at the unveiling. Credit: KRISTIANE PREUSS

The remote North Sea island of Helgoland became the scene of science history 75 years ago, when Werner Heisenberg made the major breakthrough in his theory of quantum mechanics there. This month, a memorial stone was erected on the island to celebrate the anniversary of the German physicist's breakthrough in June 1925.

He had been staying on Helgoland, one of Germany's most northerly points, to escape the hayfever that affected him on the mainland. Heisenberg, who died in 1976, was awarded the Nobel Prize for physics in 1932 for his work on quantum mechanics and for elaborating the principle of indeterminacy in nuclear physics.

Research council fined for technician's death

London

Britain's Medical Research Council (MRC) has been fined £25,000 (US$37,000) over the death last year of a lab technician in its Human Genetics Unit in Edinburgh. Jimmy Graham, aged 51, was asphyxiated when decanting liquid nitrogen from a storage vessel. The prosecution at Edinburgh Sheriff's Court followed a report to the procurator fiscal by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).

The HSE has welcomed the fine as recognition of the severity of the event. The MRC, which pleaded guilty to breaching health and safety regulations, has expressed regret over the death, stating that “the safety of our staff is our first concern”. It adds that new procedures have been put into place to ensure that such an event does not occur again.

Gates to Japan open to Canadian biomedics

Montreal

Canadian biomedical postdocs will be eligible to train in Japanese national institutes under one of the world's most attractive fellowship programmes, thanks to an invitation from the Japanese Science and Technology Agency to the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR).

The CIHR was launched on 7 June as Canada's main federal funding agency for health research (see Nature 405, 722; 2000). Until now, Canadian applicants to the programme had been handled by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council. Canada hopes that enough applicants will pass through the screening system to reach the current quota of 14 long-term and four short-term fellows.