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Focuses on the efforts of senators in the U.S. Senate to remove a clause from a legislation to create the Department of Homeland Security that would have helped Texas A&M University in Texas to become one of the university-based centers for conducting security research and training. Criticism due to undermining the concept of basing government research awards on open, peer-reviewed competition; Arguments that supported the clause.

Reports on the controversy regarding the ruling by the U.S. court to the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) to halt a research cruise to Mexico that was using sound pulses to map the sea floor. Reason behind issuance of the order; Steps taken by NSF to avoid harming marine life; Legal proceedings that halted the works of the research cruise.

Reports the role of sonar pings produced by military ships on the unusual strandings of beacked whales in the Bahamas. Investigation on the stranded whales discovered by marine mammal researcher Ken Balcomb; Conclusion of U.S. Navy and National Marine Fisheries Service scientists on the case.

The article reports a study suggesting that a tiny fish may help hold back massive gas eruptions that turn a stretch of African coastline into a dead zone for marine life. In the November 2004 issue of the journal Ecology Letters, two researchers speculate that hungry schools of sardines may be clearing phytoplankton from the waters off Namibia, reducing the production of toxic gases and potentially helping curb global warming. For more than a century, people living along Namibia's Atlantic coast have reported noxious, sulfurous gases rising from nearby seas. Often, the eruptions were accompanied by mass die-offs of fish and crustaceans.

The article focuses on the effect of the recently held presidential election in the US on federal funding of stem cell research. California voters approved a $3 billion plan to make the state a mecca for stem cell research, but the reelection of President George W. Bush and the addition of several conservative lawmakers to the United States Senate dampened some researchers' hopes of easing restrictions on federal funding of stem cell studies. By a 59% to 41% margin, California voters approved Proposition 71, which calls for pumping $3 billion over the next 10 years into stem cell studies.

The article presents information about environmentalist and political activist Wangari Maathai of Kenya who has won the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize. Maathai, aged 64, is the first African woman to win the prize and the first to be honored for environmental work. The founder of the Green Belt Movement, which since 1976 has organized local groups to plant an estimated 30 million trees across eastern and southern Africa, Maathai was a long-time opponent of Kenya's former strongman Daniel arap Moi. Maathai's win also breaks new ground by recognizing environmental activism as worthy of the prize, along with peacemaking and human rights work.

This article presents information about an incident of firing of employees at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. A scientist among one of a dozen workers punished in what Director G. Peter Nanos called a move to restore public trust and confidence in the lab. Lab officials would not identify the punished workers but told reporters that three were involved in a July 2004 incident in which officials concluded that computer disks holding classified data were missing from a safe in the lab's Weapons Physics Directorate.

The article presents information that Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico has fired four workers for violating safety and security rules, and another will resign under pressure. The five were among 23 Los Alamos employees suspended earlier this year after incidents in which workers lost track of classified data and a researcher's eye was damaged by a laser. The firings are the latest twist in the lab's troubles, which began on 7 July when officials concluded that computer disks holding classified data were missing from a safe in the lab's Weapons Physics Directorate.

The threat of bioterror shouldn't stop scientists from freely sharing genome data, concludes a new report commissioned by the National Science Foundation. Limiting public access to genome data on potential bioweapons is impractical and would do more scientific harm than good, says a panel of the National Academies' National Research Council in a study released today. The U.S. government typically requires all federally funded scientists to make their genome data public. Since scientists sequenced the first viral genome in 1975, they have released the genetic codes of more than 1100 viruses and 150 bacteria, including those of the dangerous pathogens that cause smallpox, anthrax, and the plague.

The U.S. government has decided to retire its most famous research submarine and build a faster, roomier, and deeper diving substitute. On August 6, the National Science Foundation put an end to a decade of debate about the submarine's future by announcing that it will shelve the 40-year-old Alvin in late 2007 and replace it with a $21.6 million craft packed with features long coveted by deep-sea scientists. Alvin entered service in 1967 and is one of five research submarines in the world that can dive below 4000 meters. Some researchers argued for replacing the aging Alvin with cheaper, increasingly capable robotic vehicles.

Citing an atmosphere of "almost suicidal denial" of security and safety rules, the head of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico has indefinitely suspended 19 employees — including some senior scientists — pending an investigation of possible violations. Over the last decade, it has been beset by chronic security, safety, and management problems, including the largely discredited charges that lab scientist Wen Ho Lee stole bomb secrets for China. Last year, the Department of Energy announced that it planned to put the lab's management contract up for competition, dealing a major blow to the University of California (UC), which has managed Los Alamos since its birth in 1943.

The White House came out swinging last week against critics who have accused the U.S. Government of systematically manipulating science to advance its political agenda. White House science adviser John Marburger's reply was prompted in part by a statement released in February, signed by 60 prominent scientists, that accused the U.S. Government of suppressing or ignoring technical findings that don't square with its political views. The statement accompanied a report by the Union of Concerned Scientists, a Cambridge-based advocacy group, that listed more than 20 incidents in which it claimed the Government had politicized science, including stacking advisory panels with ideological allies and doctoring reports.

Marine conservationists are demanding that the U.S. government take emergency action to protect deep-sea corals and sponges from net-dragging trawlers. Arguing that environmental regulations haven't kept pace with new science, Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group Oceana last week petitioned Secretary of Commerce Don Evans to take immediate steps to protect the sea-floor organisms in the U.S. waters. In particular, the group argues that the federal Magnuson-Stevens Act compels regulators to protect fish habitats that are rare or fragile from any disruption that is more than minimal and temporary.

Microbiologist Thomas Butler was sentenced today to 2 years in prison for mishandling plague samples he shipped to Africa and for defrauding his university, Texas. Federal Judge Sam Cummings also fined Butler $15,000 and ordered him to pay restitution of $38,000 to Texas Tech. After Butler reportedly rejected a plea bargain, prosecutors added 44 fraud counts, alleging the scientist had diverted payments from drug companies intended for clinical trials. Many scientists rallied to Butler's defense, saying he was the victim of overzealous prosecutors.

More than 60 prominent scientists are accusing the U.S. Administration of manipulating science to serve its political agenda. The researchers today released a statement that calls on politicians to safeguard the free flow of scientific information. But the White House science adviser says the group hasn't provided evidence to back its "conspiracy theory." Authors argued that the Administration altered public documents to downplay the impacts of global warming, stacked advisory panels and muzzled government scientists to silence technical dissent on environmental regulations. To "restore integrity" to government science, the researchers are calling on the White House to issue a new executive order to ensure that scientists appointed to advisory panels have solid qualifications and no serious conflicts of interest.

The campaign to save the Hubble Space Telescope has intensified, when backers leaked two internal memos challenging the decision made by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to cancel a scheduled repair mission out of concern for the astronauts who would service the orbiting telescope. NASA chief Sean O'Keefe has stunned many astronomers with the decision to cancel the last telescope servicing mission, which was due to launch between 2006 and 2008. In the wake of the Columbia disaster, O'Keefe said that it didn't make sense to risk a mission that might extend the 14-year-old Hubble's life past 2007, although he admitted it was a difficult call.

The article focuses on a $2.4 trillion 2005 budget, proposed by U.S. President George W. Bush that would hold spending essentially flat at many major science agencies. The president's blueprint calls for federal spending on research and development to rise 4.6%, to $132 billion, in the fiscal year that begins October 1, 2004. On a more positive note, the National Science Foundation's account for major new research facilities includes money to start building a high-energy physics experiment and a national ecological observatory network and to upgrade an ocean-drilling vessel. NASA's budget would increase 5.6% to $16.2 billion.

The Pentagon in Virginia needs to shape up its $300 million biodefense research program within three years or ship it out to a civilian agency, concludes a new report from the Institute of Medicine. The report, released last week, recommends that the U.S. Department of Defense create a new biodefense organization to lead the fragmented, underfunded, and so far largely fruitless effort to develop new vaccines and drugs for soldiers. The key reform is unifying biodefense and infectious disease work under a single new agency that would manage rather than merely coordinate existing programs and report directly to a top Pentagon official.

After a decade spent standing at the dock, the U.S. marine scientists are getting ready to launch a network of ocean observatories. Drawing on 5 days of talks at a meeting, an independent panel will soon start assembling a detailed plan for a $200 million project. Last week's meeting was an opportunity for enthusiasts and skeptics to share ideas. One popular concept is to use sea-floor sensors to monitor colliding crystal plates or to dispatch robotic submersibles when underwater volcanoes erupt.

The article reports that U.S. oceanic and atmospheric science programs appear headed for a significant shakeup. Advisers to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) today recommended that the agency consolidate some of its dozens of laboratories, appoint a new high-level research czar, and craft a long-term science plan. The advice comes after Congress and some scientists criticized parts of the agency's research program. The $3.3 billion NOAA is one of the world's largest funders of science that probes the sea and sky, ranging from efforts to predict the weather and climate change to studies of fish populations and coral reefs.

California's budget crisis is threatening to eliminate one of the nation's best-known efforts to attract more minorities and disadvantaged students into science and engineering. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger today started a statewide tour designed to build public support for his plan to trim nearly $4 billion from state spending over the next 2 years. Among the Terminator's targets, The University of California's Mathematics, Engineering, and Science Achievement (MESA) program, which aims to better prepare students for technical studies. Since it was founded in 1970, MESA has encouraged thousands of minority students to enroll in science and engineering programs through mentoring, curriculum improvements and other techniques. Last year, the program spent $13 million to reach more than 35,000 of the state's precollege and undergraduate students, according to university statistics.

Microbiologist Thomas Butler was found guilty yesterday on 47 of 69 federal charges stemming from his report last January that 30 vials of plague bacteria had gone missing from his laboratory at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center. On January 14, 2003, Butler told university officials that some of his plague samples had disappeared, triggering a bioterror scare that ended after Butler wrote a statement in which he admitted to accidentally destroying the vials. The jury acquitted Butler of all seven charges that he illegally hand-carried plague samples into the U.S. from Tanzania in early 2002 and then broke the law again by transporting cultured bacteria to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Fort Collins, Colorado and to a U.S. Army research center in Fort Detrick, Maryland. Observers are divided on the verdict's implications for scientists, some of whom decried the government's prosecution and contributed money to Butler's defense.

The University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles, California has won a fierce competition to host the first academic research center to be funded by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The 3-year, $12 million grant will enable a USC-led alliance to develop computer models and other tools for forecasting the economic risks posed by terrorist threats. DHS officials said that they hope eventually to establish 10 centers, each focused on a particular area, if the U.S. Congress appropriates enough money. Its new center will focus on ways to prevent or reduce the impact of attacks on critical infrastructure, such as power, transport and communications grids.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has ranked 28 major science facilities it hopes to construct in the next 20 years. Topping the DOE wish list is a multibillion dollar nuclear fusion reactor, followed by a plan to build supercomputing infrastructure. The DOE Office of Science set out last year to evaluate and rank the department's proposed major science facilities. Marking another chapter in its spectacular comeback, the International Thermonuclear Fusion Reactor (ITER) experiment stands alone as DOE's number one future science project. ITER aims to achieve a self-sustaining fusion reaction by heating a mixture of deuterium and tritium, to hundreds of millions of degrees. Spain, France and Japan are competing to host the machine. The U.S. will likely foot 10% of the bill for the $5 billion experiment.

The U.S. should take the lead in launching a new era of global ocean exploration, argues a new report from a National Academy of Sciences committee. But with the start-up costs of around $270 million, the proposal is likely to be affected. The international panel reported today on the feasibility of a global initiative to explore little-studied regions of the world. Current funding priorities favor narrow, hypothesis-driven studies that send scientists repeatedly to the same sites. The panel estimates that a" minimal" exploration program, using leased ships and submarines and targeting just a few topics, would cost $30 million a year.

Census of Marine Life, a decade-long initiative to map global ocean life that released today its first figures at a conference in Washington D.C. So far, scientists have named some 210,000 marine species, but up to 10 times more may remain undiscovered, including perhaps a million kinds of nematodes, microworms found around the world. With start-up funds from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation in New York City, the census began assembling a far-flung network of researchers working on a various projects. The ultimate goal is to construct a detailed online atlas illustrating where marine organisms once lived, where they occur now, and how patterns might change in the future.

The U.S. government has awarded eight lead institutions grants totaling $350 million over the next 5 years to establish collaborative research centers that will focus on everything from understanding potential bioterror agents to developing new vaccines. These awards, announced on September 4, 2003 by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson are among the U.S. government's biggest research-related responses so far to the 2001 anthrax letter attacks.

Bowing to mounting criticism, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) says it will scale back plans to require polygraph tests for thousands of nuclear weapons scientists and security officials. DOE Undersecretary Kyle McSlarrow yesterday told a U.S. Senate panel that the agency will require fewer employees to take lie detector tests. But critics say the U.S. government is still putting too much faith in a device that has earned little scientific credibility.

Two watchdog groups want to prevent the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) from expanding its biodefense research. Nuclear Watch of New Mexico and Tri-Valley CAREs of California asked a federal judge to halt construction of two new biosafety level 3 labs, claiming that the department hasn't adequately studied the environmental risks and considered whether the new labs would endanger U.S. compliance with nonproliferation treaties. DOE says that its existing studies show that these labs will have minimal impact.

Scientists say that a congressional plan to force the United States Department of Energy (DOE) to take bids for the job of managing four of its national laboratories isn't such a great idea. On July 31, 2003 the U.S. House of Representatives approved a 2004 DOE spending bill that would put up for grabs the contracts to manage any DOE lab that has been operated by the same institution for more than 50 years. The labs range from sprawling nuclear weapons centers to specialized research accelerators. All are operated for the government by universities or private firms.

Wildfires in Indonesia were probably the culprit behind a massive die-off on distant reefs. Other papers also suggest that the global decline of coral reefs is more widespread and began much earlier than researchers once believed. Coral biologists know that human activities on land can threaten nearby reefs. Sometimes, these threats are exacerbated by natural trends, such as changing ocean currents that help spark harmful algal blooms in waters already loaded with nutrients washed from farm fields. The smoke apparently provided the nutrients needed to spark the red tide. In the Caribbean, hard corals have declined by 80% over the last 3 decades.

The U.S. government needs to rethink its nuclear energy research programs and policies if it wants to be able to use nuclear power to curb global warming. That's the message of a study that has been released by scholars at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It also recommends that the government help companies find sites, license plants, and modestly subsidize those that use pioneering technologies. The team also says that solving problems related to waste disposal, cost, safety, and nonproliferation will be essential to enable future growth of nuclear power.

The administration of U.S. President George W. Bush is getting mixed reviews for its new climate change research plan. The 330-page blueprint, released today, lays out a detailed course for researchers to follow over the next decade as they seek to understand climate change and find possible solutions. The new plan has its roots in the Bush Administration's 2001 decision to back away from international agreements to limit carbon emissions in a bid to slow global warming. Instead, the White House said it would reorganize and reenergize the government's climate science programs and develop technologies that might reduce carbon emissions over the long haul.

The U.S. Congress is on the verge of approving legislation that would require the government to examine the implications of nanotechnology as it pumps funds into the promising field. The British government is also moving to probe nanotechnology's promise and peril. The House and Senate in the U.S. have recently worked on bills (H.R. 766 and S. 189) that would require the government to fund studies on the social, economic, and environmental impacts of civilian nanotechnology. In Britain, meanwhile, the government last month asked the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering to review nanotechnology's ethical and social implications.

A member of the United States Congress introduced a bill directed at the debate over whether electronic scientific journals should be freely accessible. The bill would prevent private publishers from controlling information by denying copyright protection to work produced with substantial government funding. Some researchers and academic librarians complain that the public pays twice for science. Officials the University of California in Santa Cruz, California say that the change would dampen industry interest in certain research products such as software and Web sites that are protected by copyrights.

The United States should revise its approach to ocean policy and double spending on marine research to avoid expensive ecological catastrophes, says an independent panel of political and science heavyweights. The 18-member panel, created by the Pew Charitable Trusts of Philadelphia and led by former White House chief of staff Leon Panetta, is attempting to follow in the footsteps of the influential Stratton Commission. The panel recommends that Congress start by passing legislation that declares the government's priority to be healthy oceans, not maximizing economic return. Still, marine advocates hope that the Pew recommendations will gain momentum from similar suggestions due later this year from a government-appointed panel led by retired Admiral James Watkins.

U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham announced today that the U.S. government will hold a competition to choose who will run the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico when the current contract with the University of California (UC) expires in 2005.Founded in 1943 on an isolated mesa to build the first atomic weapon, Los Alamos has become a sprawling facility with a$ 2.2 billion budget and nearly 12,000 employees engaged in everything from weapons science to climate modeling.In January, the University swept aside the laboratories's top management as part of a major reform effort, and the U.S. Dept. of Defense announced that it was considering canceling the contract.

Charles McQueary has been appointed as the science chief of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. McQueary's priorities include evaluation of off-the-shelf anti-terror technologies, deployment of promising technologies and recruitment of his team. His goal is to get new sensors, software, and other equipment as quickly as possible into the hands of everyone from border guards to local police McQueary hopes to spend 365 million dollars countering bio- and agroterror threats, including establishing a nationwide monitoring system for bioagents.

Reports on U.S. federal judge's dismissal of claims of University of Rochester regarding the anti-inflammatory drug developed by the University. Patent obtained for David Young and team's description of a technique for identifying cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) inhibitors in the early 1990s; University's claim for royalties from pharmaceutical companies that made COX-2 drug Celebrex.

Focuses on the 2003 federal budget released by the U.S. Congress that would benefit scientists. Benefits to the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation; Research grants for the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases; Projections regarding the impact of the 2004 budget to be released by President George W. Bush on the growth of science agencies.

Cites a report on the study by U.S. scientists and conservationists on the effects of human-generated noise on marine mammals . Sources of noise in the deep-sea; Reason behind the blockage of research projects that use submarine sound by the federal judge; Need of more research to understand the effect of noise on marine mammals.

Reports that according to the 2004 budget request to the U.S. Congress released by President George W. Bush the spending plan calls for significant raises to military and homeland security programs. Division of the total federal spending on research and development; Distribution of funds between the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Energy; Budget plans for homeland security and the Pentagon.

Focuses on the arrest of plague researcher Thomas Butler at Texas Tech University's Health Sciences Center in Lubbock, Texas. Reason for his arrest; Tension on researchers who are working with potential bioweapons; Possibility of a jail term for Butler.

Presents a study on inhalation habits of cigarette smokers in the U.S. Clinical manifestations of the study; Perception about the absence of inhalation while smoking cigarettes.

Reports on finalization of a 2003 spending plan that reduces the proposed science budgets by the U.S. Congress. Reason for reduction of the spendings plan; Release of a budget blueprint written by Senate panels; Overview of the spending plan.

Reports on a workshop sponsored by the U.S. National Academies expressing the need for bioscientists in national security. Concerns of security experts regarding use of biological research tools for evil; Expected publication of papers helping terrorists develop bioweapons; Development of guidelines to review the papers.

Reports on the concerns of the U.S. security experts regarding the increase in common biological research tools, from gene splicing to the mass production of novel chemicals in the United States. Impact of the biological weapons on human beings; Reasons for the restriction in the publication of bioweapons related work.

Reports on the resignation of Los Alamos, New Mexico-based Los Alamos National Laboratory's chief John Brown and his aide in the wake of security and fraud scandals as of January 03, 2003. Controversies related to the laboratory; Possibility of a termination of association of the laboratory with California-based University of California by the U.S. Department of Energy.

Reports on the possible appointment of U.S. Senator Bill Frist, a surgeon as the Majority Leader of the Senate as of December 20, 2002. Career background of Frist; Efforts of Frist for passage of bills related to science and health care.

Reports on the announcement of bioterrorism regulations by the U.S. government on December 13, 2002. Implications of the regulations on scientists pursuing bioterror research; Factors that led to enactment of the bill; Provisions of the bioterror bill passed by the U.S. Congress; Responsibilities of universities, private companies, and government laboratories according to the rules.