SEVEN DAYS
po licy
GM alfalfa ruling
A long-running battle over
genetically modified (GM)
alfalfa has ended with the
US Department of Agriculture
(USDA) deciding that farmers
can plant the crop without
restriction. Just a month
ago, the USDA put forth a
draft plan that would have
limited where the herbicide-
resistant crop could be
planted, addressing organic
farmers’ concerns about
contamination of their fields.
But the plan came under fire
from politicians and lobbyists,
and on 27 January, the USDA
reversed its stance.
Polio pledges
Billionaire Bill Gates has
called for a final push to
eradicate polio. The Bill &
Melinda Gates Foundation
will add US$102 million
to its annual $200-million
pledge for the cause, Gates
announced on 28 January.
The United Arab Emirates
and the United Kingdom also
made funding commitments
last week. The World Health
Organization’s Global Polio
SOUND BITE
It’s like a
math teacher
not believing
in algebra.
William Wallace, Washington
DC representative of the
National Association of
Biology Teachers in McLean,
Virginia, responds to a
study suggesting that most
biology teachers in publicly
funded high schools are
uncomfortable with teaching
evolution. See go.nature.
com/yfgex8 for more.
1 0 | N AT U R E | VO L 4 7 0 | 3 F E b R UA Ry 2 0 1 1
The news in brief
Amr NAbil/AP
Cairo museum survives Egyptian looters
Amid the public unrest in Egypt last week, death mask, before the army secured the
Cairo’s world-famous Museum of Egyptian building the next day (pictured). Zahi Hawass,
Antiquities seems to have been spared serious head of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities
damage. Looters tried to steal two mummy in Cairo, says that the damaged items can be
skulls and damaged some 100 items at the restored, adding that the looters mainly stole
museum on 28 January. But other citizens jewellery from the gift shop. Archaeological
stepped in to guard the museum, which holds sites outside the city may not have been not so
precious antiquities including Tutankhamun’s lucky, reports suggested as Nature went to press.
Eradication Initiative, which Weak innovation 5.1 gigawatts of capacity last
vaccinates children against the Member states in the European year — half the 2009 total —
virus, needs $720 million to Union are losing their lead in to reach a total capacity of
fill a funding gap in 2011–12.
Polio remains endemic in
innovation over Brazil and
China, and are not catching
40.2 gigawatts. Data released
on 12 January by the Chinese
Afghanistan, Pakistan, India up with the United States Renewable Energy Industries
and Nigeria. and Japan, according to the Association show that China
European Commission’s installed 16 gigawatts in 2010
US budget tension annual Innovation Union to reach 41.8 gigawatts.
In his annual State of the Scoreboard, released on
Union address on 25 January, 1 February. The report, based r es e a r ch
US President Barack Obama mainly on data from 2008 and
stressed the need to invest 2009, says that Europe’s patent Vostok drilling
in research — particularly revenues and business research Russian researchers drilling
in biomedical science and spending are particularly poor down to the sub-glacial Lake
clean-energy technology — compared with those of Japan. Vostok, 3,750 metres under
but he also proposed a freeze Antarctica’s ice sheet, told
on annual domestic spending China’s wind win Nature that they hope to reach
for the next five years. China has now installed more within 20 metres of the lake’s
Obama’s 2012 budget request wind-power capacity than surface by 6 February — the
is expected in mid-February. has been deployed by the last day of Antarctic summer
Congress has yet to vote on United States. The American operations. But they do not
the budget for 2011, which Wind Energy Association, in expect to penetrate the pristine
is expected to include tough a 24 January report, said that lake this season. Operations
austerity measures. its wind industry installed will resume in December.
© 2011 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved
 SEVEN DAYS THIS WEEk

It follows larger trials on the

SOurce: Nrc

THE RACE TO LONGER LIVING Caribbean island of Grand

Improvements in life expectancy in the United States are lagging
behind those in other wealthy countries.
Cayman in 2009 and 2010,
all run by Oxitec, a company
COmINg Up
38
Male Female based in Oxford, UK. 4 February
36 Other The European Council
OECD* United Intel research discusses energy
Life expectancy at age 50

countries
34
32
30
28
26
24
22
1979 1984
Smoking gun
Life expectancy in the United
States is lower than in many
other wealthy countries (see
chart), despite the country’s
huge health-care spending.
The popularity of smoking
in past decades and today’s
rising obesity rates are partly
to blame, a report from the US
National Research Council
concluded last week.
LHC extension
The Large Hadron Collider
(LHC) will run until the end of
2012. The particle accelerator
at CERN, Europe’s high-
energy physics laboratory
near Geneva, Switzerland,
had been due to stop in 2011
for a year-long shutdown to
upgrade its collision energy
to 14 teraelectronvolts
(TeV). But after a meeting in
TREND WATCH
SOurce: EnvironmEnt and Urbanization
States
Intel is investing
US$100 million in US
universities over five years, by
opening six to eight science
and technology centres
on university campuses
throughout 2011. Announcing
the investment on 26 January,
*Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
the company said that its
1989 1994 1999 2004 first centre will be at Stanford
University in California,
researching visual computing.
Chamonix, France, last week,
scientists decided to give Solar sailing
themselves an extra year to Two trials of solar sails, which
collide particles — currently at use the pressure of photons
7 TeV but potentially reaching from the Sun to propel
8 TeV — with the hope of spacecraft, are going well. On
collecting enough data to spot 26 January, Japan’s Aerospace
the Higgs boson. See go.nature. Exploration Agency said that
com/wd9fug for more. its Ikaros space capsule, which
has a 200-square-metre solar
Dengue control sail, had completed six months
Six thousand mosquitoes of space flight and would have
genetically engineered to its mission extended to March
be sterile were released in 2012. Six days earlier, NASA
Pahang state, Malaysia, on deployed a 10-square-metre
21 December. But the field trial, solar sail, NanoSail-D, in
which aims to control dengue low-Earth orbit.
fever by suppressing mosquito
populations, was announced B u s i n ess
only on 26 January, by
Malaysia’s Institute for Medical Pharma pruning
Research in Kuala Lumpur. In the latest round of drug-
Scientists and advocacy groups industry cutbacks, Abbott
were surprised, as they believed Laboratories, headquartered
the trial had been postponed. in Abbott Park, Illinois, will
policy and European
innovation, at a summit
meeting in Brussels.
go.nature.com/olubai
10–11 February
The future of the delayed
LISA Pathfinder mission
(see Nature 469, 280;
2011) will be assessed
by the European Space
Agency’s Science
Programme Committee.
cut 1,900 jobs, of which the
firm said “a small number”
were in research and
development. Elan, based in
Dublin, will cut 130 jobs —
about 10% of its workforce.
Around half of these are
scientists, and most are based
at the biotech firm’s research
and development facility in
South San Francisco.
Biotech buy
Biotechnology giant Amgen
will pay US$425 million to
acquire a cancer-vaccine
company. Amgen, based in
Thousand Oaks, California,
could also spend up to
$575 million in milestone
payments for BioVex Group.
The biotech, based in Woburn,
Massachusetts, develops
tumour-killing viruses
that also provoke immune

CITIES’ CARBON EMISSIONS responses against the cancer.

Average per-capita greenhouse-gas emissions vary widely
Although cities generate most between cities even within a country. Drug deal near
of the world’s greenhouse-gas Canada
Toronto*
Drug-maker Sanofi-aventis
emissions, their per-capita Calgary of Paris was reported to be
emissions vary widely (see China nearing a deal to buy Genzyme
chart). New York, for example, Beijing
Shanghai
of Cambridge, Massachusetts,
has half the per-capita emissions Germany
as Nature went to press. Sanofi
of Denver, thanks to its denser Hamburg is said to have boosted its
Stuttgart
population and lower reliance rejected US$18.5-billion bid.
Japan
on cars, notes a study published Tokyo Last month, Sanofi suffered a
last month (D. Hoornweg Netherlands setback when late-stage clinical
et al. Environ. Urban. Rotterdam trials showed that its anticancer
doi:10.1177/0956247810392270; United States drug iniparib failed to slow
Denver
2011). Rotterdam’s per-capita New York advanced breast cancer.
emissions are particularly high 0 5 10 15 20 25 30
because its port attracts industry *Metropolitan area Per-capita emissions (tonnes CO2 equivalent) NaturE.Com
and fuelling of ships. For daily news updates see:
www.nature.com/news
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© 2011 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved