ScienceInsider

STEM-winder. John Cornyn wants immigrant pool to contain more high-tech workers.

Efforts to enable more foreign-born scientists trained at American universities to stay in the United States got a boost this week with the introduction of two bills in the U.S. Senate. And although the finish line is still distant, observers view the legislation as a sign that Congress is now thinking seriously about how to tweak current immigration laws to retain technical talent without triggering a political free-for-all on the more contentious issue of illegal immigration.

“Short of comprehensive immigration reform, which we’d love for Congress to tackle, we’re happy to see these bills,” says Barry Toiv of the Association of American Universities, a group of 61 prominent research universities that has joined with high-tech companies, professional societies, and other higher-education organizations in urging Congress to act. “These immigrants are job creators,” notes Kasey Pipes, a spokesman for one such coalition, called Compete America. “And while we’re not taking sides, both bills are asking the right question: How do we keep more skilled foreign students in the country after they graduate?”

Warning signs. Developing brain scans and other biomarkers that detect the earliest stages of Alzheimer's is a priority for researchers.

Credit: U.S. National Institute on Aging, Alzheimer's Disease Education and Referral Center

An international panel of experts released recommendations today for future research on Alzheimer's disease. The recommendations will help guide the research component of the new national plan for Alzheimer's disease announced Tuesday by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. The plan sets the ambitious goal of developing effective prevention and treatment strategies for Alzheimer's by 2025.

The new research strategy was developed by experts who met during a 2-day summit at the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, earlier this week. The panel acknowledges a number of challenges facing the field, including the need to develop better experimental models and to initiate clinical trials at earlier stages of the disease. Their recommendations include conducting more interdisciplinary research on the biological mechanisms of Alzheimer's disease and therapeutic targets, enabling more rapid and extensive sharing of data and biological specimens, and fostering more public-private partnerships (along the lines of the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative, a successful biomarker development effort jointly funded by NIH and the pharmaceutical industry). The panel also calls for more research on nondrug interventions, such as lifestyle changes, that might prevent or slow the disease.

A financial stimulus for Alzheimer's research appears to be in the works: President Barack Obama's proposed 2013 budget includes $80 million in new funding. Congress has yet to weigh in on that plan.

Part of the Campi Flegrei caldera.

ROME—A project to drill deep into the heart of a “supervolcano” in southern Italy has finally received the green light, despite claims that the drilling would put the population of Naples at risk of small earthquakes or an explosion. Yesterday, Italian news agency ANSA quoted project coordinator Giuseppe De Natale of Italy’s National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology as saying that the office of Naples mayor Luigi de Magistris has approved the drilling of a pilot hole 500 meters deep.

The Campi Flegrei Deep Drilling Project was set up by an international collaboration of scientists to assess the risks posed by the Campi Flegrei caldera, a geological formation just a few kilometers to the west of Naples that formed over thousands of years following the collapse of several volcanoes. Researchers believe that if it erupted, Campi Flegrei could have global repercussions, potentially killing millions of people and having a major effect on the climate, but that such massive eruptions are extremely rare.

Whither wheat? Debate over U.K. research into genetically modified wheat ended up on a BBC news program.

Credit: U.S. Department of Agriculture

The fate of an experimental field of genetically modified wheat in the United Kingdom is still unclear after a televised debate between researchers in charge of the field trial and activists opposed to GM crops. The researchers, led by John Pickett of Rothamsted Research in Harpenden, issued a public appeal to the activists earlier this month asking them to call off their planned destruction of the field on 27 May.

The activists responded, saying they would welcome the chance to debate “on neutral ground, with a neutral chairperson, for an open exchange of opinions and concerns.” Both sides agreed to participate in a roundtable on the BBC’s Newsnight program last night. (Readers in the U.K. can see the program here.)

Why? Rohrabacher wants to know why U.S. agencies are supporting research in China.

Credit: Wikimedia/U.S. House of Representatives

The United States government is "insane" to be funding collaborative research with China according to a senior Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology.

Representative Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), a 12-term lawmaker and frequent critic of China's human rights record, last night took to the floor of the House for nearly 30 minutes to read a list of dozens of federally funded projects "that go directly to supporting development and the economy of China." Many involved grants for research involving physics, climate science, and environmental studies—but a few covered topics that included "judicial education" and green manufacturing.

"Couldn't we have spent this money better in the United States?" Rohrabacher asked.

Among his targets were a $63,000 National Science Foundation grant to Siena College in Loudonville, New York, for neutrino physics at China's Daya Bay nuclear facility, a $300,000 Department of Energy grant for modeling regional climate change in China, and a $100,000 U.S. Department of Agriculture grant for "climate change adaptation." "Now isn't that great?" Rohrabacher said in one of many ironic asides. "We're paying for them to adapt to climate change."

Leaders of Texas's $3 billion cancer research fund yesterday defended their controversial decision in March to award a $20 million "incubator" grant to Rice University and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

As detailed in a news story in Science magazine today, the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) has earmarked up to $18 million of the 1-year incubator grant for a drug discovery center at MD Anderson whose scientific director is Lynda Chin, wife of MD Anderson's new president, Ronald DePinho. On 8 May, Alfred Gilman, CPRIT's chief scientific officer, announced he plans to resign in the fall and cited concerns that the incubator grant proposal had not gone through scientific peer review. CPRIT officials have said that is because the proposal focused on commercialization, not scientific research.

A U.K. project that is examining the feasibility of geoengineering the Earth's climate to reduce global warming will no longer involve an outdoor experiment that was scheduled to take place later this year. The Stratospheric Particle Injection for Climate Engineering (SPICE) project was set to test the delivery of aerosols high into Earth's atmosphere. Today, however, planners announced that they have cancelled the test because of concerns that researchers involved in the project could have a commercial interest in its success.

Funded by the U.K. government, SPICE was set up in 2010 by British research institutions to investigate whether aerosols, such as sulfate particles, could be injected into Earth's stratosphere to scatter sunlight back into space, thereby stalling global warming. Aerosols are already known to reduce global warming: The vast clouds of sulfates thrown up in the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines, for example, reduced average global temperatures by about half a degree Celsius. Releasing aerosols on purpose is controversial, however, so scientists are keen to understand how such geoengineering might proceed before any policy decisions are made. They would like to understand what sort of aerosols could be used, how they would impact different aspects of climate, and how they would be delivered to the atmosphere.

SPICE scientists were hoping to test an aerosol delivery system later this year. Researchers have proposed various schemes, including the use of high-flying planes and artillery guns. SPICE scientists, however, were going to try using a balloon to carry aloft a kilometer-long pipe that would release 150 liters of water. (The water would serve as a substitute for sulfates.)

In a statement issued today, project leader Matthew Watson of the University of Bristol said one reason the test was cancelled was a lack of international agreement on how to proceed with geoengineering research, even though it would have been "hard to imagine a more environmentally benign experiment." Another, he said, was that the pipe-delivery technology had been the subject of a U.K. patent application before the project began. "The details of this application were only reported to the project team a year into the project lifetime and caused many members, including me, significant discomfort," he said. Efforts are now underway to make sure the intention of the patent application is to protect intellectual property and not to pave the way for commercial gain, he added.

New Leader. MIT elects one of its own, L. Rafael Reif, to head the distinguished research university.

Credit: MIT

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology's board of trustees today elected Provost L. Rafael Reif as president of the top-tier research university. He will replace neuroscientist Susan Hockfield, who was the first life scientist to lead MIT, on 2 July.

Reif, who has been an MIT faculty member since 1980, became the institute's chief academic officer in 2005. During his tenure, Reif presided over the development of Web projects that offer MIT and Harvard University courses online for free and led faculty efforts to recruit and retain minorities and women.

Faculty, staff, and students got a chance to welcome the president-elect and his family at a campus reception this afternoon.

A U.S. House of Representatives committee today takes up a 2013 spending bill for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that would partly reverse deep cuts in the agency's science and technology programs. It also provides $75 million for a controversial agricultural biodefense laboratory in Kansas that the Obama Administration had zeroed out of its fiscal year 2013 budget request.

Overall, the draft spending bill before the House Appropriations Committee would provide $39.1 billion for DHS, 1% below the White House's request and about $484 million, or 1.2%, below its 2012 budget. The agency's core research, development, and innovation (RD&I) programs would get a hefty 40% increase, to $406 million, over current spending levels, but that number is $73 million below the White House's request.

The restored $140 million is in part to make up for major RD&I cuts Congress imposed last year. The funding will allow DHS "to fully fund all projects that were at a reduced level in fiscal year 2012, restart half of its requested projects currently on 'hold,' and consider new R&D projects that offer the potential of novel and more cost effective solutions to DHS challenges," notes a committee report accompanying the bill.

Chile's Supreme Court has handed down a possibly landmark decision that will require more stringent environmental reviews of major construction projects and could help opponents challenge a series of planned hydroelectric dams in Patagonia.

In the 11 May decision, the high court voted 3 to 2 to invalidate the recent approval of the Río Cuervo dam in Chile's Aysén region. The justices ruled that project backers had not completed a required geological survey before a regional government agency approved the project. The dam's approval "is unlawful" because the agency hadn't considered "the indicated ground survey that, in the opinion of this Court, is essential for the approval or rejection of the project."

The decision "is clearly a radical change in the historical judgments of the Supreme Court," said Fernando Dougnac, attorney for the Environmental Prosecutor's Office, which filed the challenge on behalf of local residents opposed to the dam. It confirms that "studies should be performed before the decision is made," he said.

Collaborators. Brazil’s Glaucius Oliva (left), the U.S.’s Subra Suresh (center) and Germany’s Matthias Kleiner (right) discuss the new Global Research Council at today’s press conference in Arlington, Virginia.

Credit: Sandy Schaeffer, NSF

A new group of government research funders from around the world announced today that it will try to find common ground on two big issues in its inaugural year: defining research integrity and promoting open access to scientific information. The Global Research Council (GRC), comprised of the leaders of publicly funded science agencies from about 50 nations, also released its first work product, a common set of principles that frame how funders should review and choose the most worthy research projects.

The release of the new Statement of Principles for Scientific Merit Review followed a meeting of 47 research leaders hosted by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) at its headquarters in Arlington, Virginia. "I am very pleased that pretty much everyone we invited came," said NSF Director Subra Suresh, who has been looking for ways to foster international research cooperation. The 2-day Global Summit on Merit Review capped a year-long effort to develop the new statement, which highlights six "key elements necessary for a rigorous and transparent review system." They include the use of expert assessment of proposals and a transparent, impartial, and confidential review process.

"These are not necessarily all-inclusive principles," Suresh said at a press conference today, "but they are basic principles we all agreed on." Such agreement could help smooth the way for multinational research projects, he noted.

Suresh also formally announced the creation of GRC, which he said will be a "voluntary, … virtual organization" designed to foster discussion of "shared goals, aspirations, and principles, and provide a vehicle to unify science across the globe." It is not intended to be "a new bureaucracy," he emphasized, and each member agency will cover its costs for participating. GRC also will not, at least for the time being, get involved in funding international research projects, Suresh said. Instead, the goal is to create forum for "high-level discussions" of more general policy issues.

Now that it has hashed out the merit review principles, GRC will focus on developing common views on safeguarding research integrity and expanding open access, said science chiefs from Brazil and Germany, which will lead the effort. Both are "important" topics "in every laboratory in the world," said physicist Glaucius Oliva, president of Brazil's National Council for Scientific and Technological Development, the nation's lead research funding agency.

The latest numbers on the status of fisheries in the United States, released today by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), show continued progress toward ending overfishing. Six stocks that were previously overfished have been declared rebuilt—having reached a healthy population size—the biggest improvement since NOAA began issuing the reports in 1997. That raises the total number of rebuilt stocks to 27. "This is evidence that we are moving in the right direction and that sacrifices that fishermen have made are paying off," says Lee Crockett of the Pew Environment Group.

All told, 86% of the 258 major stocks reviewed by NOAA are in good shape.

But more remains to be done. Forty-five stocks remain overfished (the population is below the target) and 36 others are still "subject to overfishing," or, in other words, being caught at too high a rate. Both of these metrics, however, improved slightly from the previous year.

In a teleconference, Galen Tromble of NOAA's Office of Sustainable Fisheries credited the gains to the annual catch limits required by federal law and the rebuilding plans implemented by regional fisheries councils.

The six stocks now ready for guilt-free eating are:

• Northeast: Gulf of Maine Haddock
• Mid-Atlantic: Summer Flounder
• Northwest: Widow Rockfish, Chinook Salmon, Coho Salmon
• Alaska: Bering Sea Snow Crab

NSF Director Subra Suresh

Increasing collaboration between U.S. scientists and their counterparts in other countries has been a priority for Subra Suresh since he became director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) in October 2010. But one thing about negotiating such bilateral agreements has frustrated him: The time it takes to reach an agreement on the scientific rules of the road. There may be haggling over how to handle intellectual property and access to data, for example, but Suresh says the biggest bugaboo is often agreeing on common standards for peer review.

"We keep repeating the same thing over and over," says Suresh about the discussions over how each side would select the most worthy proposals. "Having to start from scratch causes considerable delay, and it is a big waste of time."

So Suresh decided to do something about it. After winning the strong backing of the White House, Suresh this weekend convened a meeting of 47 leaders of research funding agencies from 44 countries. And tomorrow, at the conclusion of closed-door sessions, the group will issue the first-ever global statement on the principles of merit review. Although the actual statement is embargoed until then, it is expected to touch on the importance of using experts in conducting a confidential yet transparent process to identify the highest-quality proposals.

The U.S. science education community is being invited to comment on the first-ever set of science standards for U.S. school children.

A draft of the Next Generation Science Standards has been posted by Achieve Inc., a coalition of high-tech companies, foundations, and state and local governments that hope to use their collective influence to create a voluntary national science curriculum where none now exists. The standards, a 2-year effort funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, are built around a novel "framework" for teaching science that blends content with how scientists do their work and its practical applications.

The public has until 1 June to submit comments. A second draft is expected to be issued this fall in hopes of finalizing the document in early 2013. Some 26 states are already involved in writing the standards, which would need to be adopted separately by each state.

See next week's issue of Science for an inside look at the draft standards.

The University of Michigan is offering trios of faculty members the chance to make interdisciplinary connections and get a quick start on high-risk, high-reward research projects.

The $15-million program, announced earlier this week, is called MCubed. Beginning this fall, each professor in a department with a research component will receive a token for $20,000. Professors can then discuss project ideas with colleagues. Once a minimum of three researchers—at least two of whom must be from different disciplines—decide to work together, they will register their project online and immediately receive $60,000 to hire an undergraduate, graduate student, or postdoctoral researcher. The collaborations and funding can scale up, but only by factors of three tokens.

The program aims to fund about 250 projects during its first-year pilot phase. The goal is to help faculty members gather the type of preliminary data that are typically needed to submit a competitive grant proposal to a federal research agency or other funding source.

The European Parliament yesterday postponed signing off on the 2010 expenditures of three science-related E.U. agencies amid concerns over conflicts of interest and inappropriate spending.

The vote to postpone the so-called discharge—which affects the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), the European Medicines Agency (EMA), and the European Environment Agency (EEA)—has no immediate consequences, but it is seen as a warning that the agencies need to restore their credibility. It came 2 days after EFSA's head resigned effective immediately because she had returned to her job at an industry-funded group.

The agencies, which provide the European Commission with scientific advice, have been under fire from members of the European Parliament for several years for being too close to industry and other parties. Because the Parliament has little control over them, members have used their right to withhold approval of past spending as a way to express their discontent and put pressure on the agencies.

Gas station. The U.S. government's helium enrichment facility in Texas.

Credit: U.S. Department of the Interior

Two years ago, scientists warned Congress of a looming helium crisis. Yesterday, a Senate panel examined a proposal that responds to that warning.

"Helium is a commodity that is frequently overlooked and often only considered when purchasing balloons for parties," said Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), chair of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, at a hearing on a bill he has introduced that would alter the terms under which the United States is selling off its once-vast reserve of helium gas, held underground in a natural geological formation near Amarillo, Texas. "Let me take a moment and highlight the importance of this commodity, as well as the importance of the U.S. helium reserve in the world's helium market."

The proposed Helium Stewardship Act of 2012 (S.2374) would maintain a roughly 15-year supply for federal users, including the holders of research grants. It would also give priority to federally funded researchers in times of shortage. Those provisions are meant to maintain a steady supply of helium for scientists as they ease over to private suppliers.

Bingaman's bill, co-sponsored by two other Democrats and two Republicans, would supplant a 1996 law expiring next year that authorizes sales from the federal helium reserve. Those sales, which constitute nearly 30% of the world's helium, would simply stop if Congress fails to act.

Budget cutter. Representative Jeff Flake (R-AZ) wants the National Science Foundation to stop funding political science research.

Credit: U.S. House of Representatives

The U.S. House of Representatives has decided that the country can't afford several federally funded research programs.

The list includes the entire political science portfolio at the National Science Foundation, as well as a $10-million NSF program on climate change education. The House would also pull the plug on the American Community Survey, a monthly questionnaire from the Census Bureau that has replaced the long form of the decennial census. And it voted to withhold funds from the Obama Administration's effort to implement a National Ocean Policy (NOP).

The moves were included in amendments to a bill approved today on a largely party-line, 247-to-163 vote that funds the commerce and justice departments as well as NSF, NASA, and other independent agencies.

The targeted programs comprise a tiny fraction of the $51 billion appropriated for 2013 in the so-called CJS bill (HR 5326), one of 12 appropriations measures that fund the entire U.S. government. But House Republicans say that they represent the type of duplicate and/or unnecessary spending that has led to a $1.5 trillion annual deficit and a $15 trillion federal debt.

The Cancer Prevention and Research Instiute of Texas (CPRIT) issued a statement yesterday afternoon in response to the resignation of its chief scientific officer, Nobel prize-winning biochemist Alfred Gilman. For details see our updated story that broke the news of Gilman's resignation.

Test results. The latest data on what U.S. middle school students know about science raises many questions.

Credit: NAEP

U.S. eighth graders did slightly better last year on a national science test than did their counterparts in 2009. But what that result says about the state of science in U.S. schools is open to debate.

A 2-point rise to 152 (on a scale from 0 to 300) is part of what Jack Buckley, head of the National Center for Education Statistics, calls the "uniformly positive" results from the 2011 Science National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) at Grade 8. The pronounced racial gap in scores narrowed by a small but significant amount, says Buckley, from 36 points to 35 points for white students compared with black students, and from 30 to 27 for white students compared with Hispanic students. And all three groups did better. At the same time, he notes that the gap in scores between boys and girls grew from 4 to 5 points.

However, some science educators strongly disagree with Buckley's self-declared "optimism" that things are moving in the right direction. "It's pretty hard to get excited about these results," says Gerald Wheeler, interim executive director of the National Science Teachers Association. "It's like when a student who is flunking every subject finally comes home with a D."