ScienceInsider

by Jon Cohen

With reporting by Martin Enserink.

Although the world’s attention is focused on the novel H1N1 virus causing the swine flu pandemic, H3N2, a seasonal strain of influenza, has popped up in many East Asian countries—and some variants in circulation may outfox the seasonal vaccine in use. “We have seen that H3N2 viruses have been in fairly broad circulation in some of the countries there,” Keiji Fukuda, special adviser on pandemic to the director-general of the World Health Organization, said at a press conference today.

The H3N2 strain is one of three in the seasonal influenza vaccines. But if the H3N2 strain in circulation differs substantially from the one used to make the vaccine, the vaccine may offer less protection, and more people will get sick than usual. “For the current H3N2, we don't have such studies, so I can't tell you right now the degree the current seasonal vaccine will protect against the H3N2 virus,” Fukuda says.

A new center has opened at Purdue University to create software to help manage complex crises such as disease outbreaks and financial calamities. (Nonironic photo credit, Purdue)

A 43-page book by Columbia University explores the psychological aspects of climate change.

Tomorrow, First Lady Michelle Obama will visit the Department of Energy and meet with officials. She'll also visit a group of students preparing for the National Science Bowl.

The Senate Commerce Committee delved into national ocean policy in a hearing today.

Two companies have won NASA's $2 million Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander X PRIZE Challenge.

Los Alamos National Laboratory Director Michael Anastasio, a weapons physicist, makes $800,348 a year, according to documents at recovery.gov. 

U.K. Science Minister Lord Paul Drayson is the latest notable to condemn the sacking of David Nutt, former top drug policy adviser to the British government. 

Less than 2 years ago, Princeton agriculture expert Tim Searchinger published a paper in Science that sought to quantify how growing biofuels on cropland in the United States could lead to deforestation abroad. He estimated in some cases that indirect emissions could lead to a doubling of emissions associated with corn ethanol. Previously, researchers thought using the fuel could cut emissions by 30% since it would replace gasoline. Rarely do scientists have as immediate an impact on government policy. Since Searchinger’s paper was published, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, spurred by Congress, has been mulling whether to take so-called indirect land use into account when calculating the carbon footprint of biofuels for new regulations it is crafting, expected by December. Critics say Searchinger’s calculations were faulty and that uncertainties made it impossible to gauge their effects.

Right now, indirect land use related to biofuels isn’t included in proposed climate change legislation in the U.S. Senate, as well as proposed agreements that will be on the table in Copenhagen. In a recent policy piece published in Science, Searchinger and colleagues wrote that such a policy "erroneously treats all bioenergy as carbon neutral,” calling it a major "accounting error."

To discuss these issues, Insider conducted an e-mail conversation with Searchinger and John Sheehan, an expert on biofuels at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.

by Jocelyn Kaiser

Fewer academic biomedical scientists are relying on industry support for their research than in the mid-'90s, according to a study highlighted today in The Boston Globe. That's the most surprising result of the latest survey of industry relationships at universities led by conflicts of interest expert Eric Campbell of the Massachusetts General Hospital. Campbell and his co-workers found that 20% of the more than 2000 life sciences faculty who responded in 2007 have direct industry funding, according to a paper in Health Affairs. That's down from 28% in a 1995 survey.

In a press release, the authors point to the growth of the National Institutes of Health budget and level research funding in industry as possible factors—as well as a growing public uproar about drug company payments. “Industry relationships may be declining because of increased regulation by universities as well as a general attitude among the public that working with industry is somehow bad,” Campbell says.

One of Campbell's longstanding messages hasn't changed: Industry relationships are pervasive in academic biomedicine.

by Eli Kintisch

From Secretary of State Hillary Clinton yesterday in Morocco:

The State Department has established a science envoys program, and I’m pleased to announce today that the first envoys will be three of America’s leading scientists: Dr. Bruce Alberts, a former president of our National Academy of Sciences; Dr. Elias Zerhouni, a former director of our National Institutes of Health; and Dr. Ahmed Zewail, the Nobel Prize-winning chemist. Each of these men has agreed to travel to North Africa, the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia to fulfill President Obama’s mandate to foster scientific and technological collaboration. The State Department will also expand positions for environment, science, technology, and health officers at our embassies.

Alberts is the editor in chief of Science, of which ScienceInsider is a part. Thanks to Alan Kotok of Science Careers for the tip.

by Elizabeth Pennisi

Heartened by a continuing rapid decline in the cost of genome sequencing, a group of genome and museum experts today launched an ambitious plan to decipher 10,000 vertebrate genomes. The Genome 10K plan, formally announced today and described online in the 5 November issue of the Journal of Heredity, is short on details: where funding will come from; what sequencing strategy to use; how to process and make use of data generated.

But its proponents have already set in motion a global effort to gather the DNA needed to ultimately provide a huge number of genomes to compare with human DNA. Such comparisons help pinpoint important regions of the human genome and provide evolutionary insights. To date about 60 vertebrates have been sequenced or are being sequenced to some degree. Now David Haussler from the University of California, Santa Cruz; Stephen O’Brien from the National Cancer Institute in Frederick, Maryland; Oliver Ryder from the San Diego Zoo in California; and about 50 others from around the world have compiled a list of 16,000 species spread across 43 institutions for which they know they can very likely get the DNA needed for sequencing.

The House of Representatives of the Netherlands today rejected a motion asking the government to sever all ties with virologist Albert Osterhaus of Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, who had been accused of conflicts of interest in his role as a government adviser. But Dutch health minister Ab Klink, meanwhile, announced a "Sunshine Act" compelling scientists to disclose their financial ties to companies.

U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee mulls the dismal state of international climate politics in a hearing tomorrow entitled: "Copenhagen and Beyond: Is There a Successor to the Kyoto Protocol?"

The European Union is moving ahead with a plan to get solar energy from the Sahara.

Seventeen thousand species are threatened with extinction, says international watchdog the International Union for Conservation of Nature

(Photo Credit: © Tim Laman)

by Martin Enserink

It's a promise: 10% of the 250 million doses of H1N1 vaccine purchased by the United States will be donated to help poor countries. But when is still unclear. At a press conference today, Thomas Frieden, head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, declined to answer questions about the timing of the gift. "That has to be determined as the production schedule will become more clear in the weeks to come."

WHO expects to send some 200 million doses of vaccines donated by countries and governments to the developing world. Timing is key, because the vaccine will do the most good if it's used before a wave of infection peaks. As WHO's Marie-Paule Kieny just told ScienceInsider, the United States has promised the first part of its share of 25 million doses by early December.

But AFP suggested last week that the United States will not donate any vaccine until it has taken care of the 159 million people in its priority groups.

by Martin Enserink

As the H1N1 swine flu pandemic marches on, western countries have begun vaccinating their most vulnerable populations against the virus. But many countries in the developing world lack the resources to buy the vaccine. With charitable donations from manufacturers and rich countries, the World Health Organization is trying to get cash-strapped countries at least some vaccine. Marie-Paule Kieny, head of WHO's Initiative for Vaccine Research, gave ScienceInsider an update on how this complex operation is moving along. Questions and answers have been edited for brevity and clarity.

Q: At a press conference last week, you said that WHO's plan to distribute vaccine to the developing world is now moving into its operational phase, and that WHO Director-General Margaret Chan has approved a list of 95 countries eligible for vaccine donations. Can we get a list of those countries?

M.-P.K.: No, because some of those countries may decide not to get the vaccine. So far, only about 40 countries have sent us a letter of intent saying they want us to send vaccine. Before we can make the names of the eligible countries public, we must know that they are willing to accept the conditions.

Q: What are those conditions?

M.-P.K.: They have to sign an agreement that they hold the vaccine manufacturers harmless in case of adverse events. WHO cannot bear that responsibility, so we're passing it on to the governments. It's the same as for most developed countries; they had to agree to this as well.

Q: Are the developing countries reluctant to accept that liability?

by Adrian Cho

Known for frankness and wit, Nobel Prize-winning particle physicist Burt Richter could soon become a columnist in his own right. Yesterday the editors of The Washington Post announced that Richter and nine other aspiring columnists had made the finals of “America’s Next Great Pundit” contest, the winner of which will get to write 13 columns for the paper or its Web site. "I told The Washington Post I believed the newspapers needed a science-and-technology version of Paul Krugman and that I could be that person," Richter says. His entry to the contest called for the resurrection of the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment:

In 1995 it decided that ignorance was bliss and abolished OTA as part of the Gingrich revolution, in order to save about $20 million out of a congressional budget of $2 billion. It has been blissful ever since, getting its information on science and technology issues from outside organizations that too often have serious conflicts of interest.

For science journalists, Richter has long been a go-to guy—somebody with the wisdom and perspective to provide insight into an issue, the temperament to be even-handed, and the clout to speak his mind without having to worry too much about the repercussions. Chosen from more than 4800 contestants who submitted an op-ed piece in the initial round, the finalist will have to compete in a series of challenges—this week The Post will publish a column from each finalist and ask readers to vote on them. Richter’s competition includes a former federal prosecutor, an executive at Teach for America, and an expert on international security at the Council on Foreign Relations, a fact that led one reader to comment on Ricther’s piece: “I was expecting a healthy sampling of everyday America based on how The Post described the contest. Boy was I wrong.”