News briefing: 11 february 2010: Nature Newspolicy Business People Events Awards Research Business watch The week ahead Number crunch Sound bites Policy Climate service: The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric administration (NOAA) announced plans on 8 february to create a'climate service'charged with collecting and disseminating climate-related data and information. Thomas Karl, who is currently the director of NOAA's National Climatic Data center, will head the programme, which will also incorporate six existing regional climate centres and a new online portal (www. climate. gov). The reorganization will require authorization from Congress, which is currently considering the 2011 budget. Legislation to establish a national climate service linking the climate programmes of all federal agencies an idea supported by NOAA chief Jane Lubchenco is pending in Congress. Indian collaboration: The Indian Network for Climate Change Assessment, a group of more than 200 scientists formed in October 2009, will publish its first research findings by November and feed them into the fifth report of the United nations'Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). India's Prime minister Manmohan Singh announced the details on 5 february at a Delhi meeting on sustainable development, and also backed under fire IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri. India has full confidence in the IPCC process and its leadership and will support it in every way, he said. Business Stem-cell patents: Fate Therapeutics, a biotech company based in San diego, California, has been granted the first US patent for genetic reprogramming technology to create induced pluripotent stem (ips) cells. The 4 february licence came shortly after a rival Californian company, ipierian of San francisco, was awarded Britain's first patent for ips cell reprogramming (see Nature 463,592-593; 2010). ) The US patent covers pretty cumbersome technology, says David Resnick, a patent attorney with Nixon Peabody in Boston, Massachusetts, and so is unlikely to affect other researchers or companies in the field. Seeds of progress: German chemicals company BASF has received its first approval to market genetically modified seeds. Its herbicide-tolerant soya bean'Cultivance, 'which was developed with Embrapa, the Brazilian Agricultural Research Cooperation, can now be sold in Brazil. Farmers will start planting the seed next year, the company expects if China, the United states and Europe approve the variety for import. BASF is hoping to break into a market dominated by Monsanto, Syngenta, Dupont and Bayer; its'Amflora'genetically modified starchy potato is awaiting European union approval. Depression exit: London-based pharma giant Glaxosmithkline revealed plans on 4 february to shut down early-stage research into pain and depression medications, and open a new research arm dedicated to finding treatments for rare diseases. Lay offs related to the change in strategy would hit research centres in Harlow, UK, and Verona, Italy, although the company did not specify how many jobs would be lost. It also plans to trim £500 million (US$779 million) from its yearly budget, half of which is to come from research and development. Business watch New biofuel standards have cleared the way for a continued expansion of maize (corn) ethanol production in the United states. The US Environmental protection agency (EPA) ruled on 3 february that ethanol made from maize decreases greenhouse-gas emissions by 20, %formally qualifying it as a'renewable fuel'for a federal mandate that requires the use of 136 billion litres of biofuels in 2022. The determination went against recent studies that suggest that ethanol made from maize may increase emissions owing in part to deforestation spurred by increased demand for the crop. More than 30%of the US maize harvest went into producing 42 billion litres of ethanol in 2008-09 (see chart), although maize production has in large part kept pace with the increased demand. The mandate requires refiners to produce nearly 57 billion litres of renewable fuels by 2015. Cellulosic ethanol and'advanced biofuels'(which reduce emissions by more than 50%and include ethanol made from sugarcane) must cover the remainder. But the EPA has scaled also back the 2010 requirement for cellulosic biofuels, citing slow progress in the field. The agency plans to make annual adjustments, leaving open the possibility that the production of maize ethanol could expand even further. People Change at the NSF: The director of the US National Science Foundation (NSF) is departing after nearly seven years of running the agency. From 1 june, Arden Bement will lead the newly created Global Policy Research Institute at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. In 2004, Bement, previously a nuclear engineer at Purdue, was appointed by then-President George w bush to a six-year term at the NSF, which he already had directed on an interim basis for 10 months. His replacement has not been announced. Inquiry clears Mann: Climate scientist Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State university, University Park, has been cleared of allegations of research misconduct by a committee at his university. The committee, convened to investigate Mann's integrity in the wake of public inquiries made after e-mails were stolen from the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia, UK, found no wrongdoing. But it said that Mann's compliance with sound academic procedures required further examination. Events Saturn mission extended Cassini, the probe that has been orbiting Saturn and its moons since 2004, will get to fly until 2017, NASA announced on 3 february. The mission was slated originally to come to end in 2008, and had already been extended to 2010. The US$60-million-a-year Solstice Mission will allow Cassini to study Saturn (pictured in July 2008) when it is summer in the planet's northern hemisphere. The new schedule calls for 155 orbits around the planet, 54 fly-bys of the methane-shrouded Titan and 11 fly-bys of the icy moon Enceladus. Awards Wolf winners: Physicists Anton Zeilinger, John Clauser and Alain Aspect share the prestigious 2010 Wolf Prize in Physics for their work on quantum entanglement. Biologist Axel Ullrich took the medicine prize for his research in cancer (he co-developed trastuzumab, or Herceptin, used to treat breast cancer); and geneticist and plant scientist David Baulcombe got the agriculture prize for his discovery of small interfering RNA in plants, which led to the development of gene silencing. The awards, each worth US$100, 000, will be presented at the Israeli parliament in Jerusalem on 13 may. Research University belt-tightening: Yale university in New haven, Connecticut, will reduce its intake of graduate students by 10-15, %cut staff benefits and freeze salaries for some officers in order to start trimming a budget deficit of $150 million. Support for ongoing research programmes is also set to be reduced, the university's president and provost said on 3 february. Yale lost $ 6. 6 billion of its $22. 9 billion endowment between June 2008 and June 2009. MMR paper retracted: The Lancet has retracted the research paper (A j. Wakefield et al. Lancet 351,637-641; 1998) that began the scare over a purported link between autism and the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine. The retraction, on 2 february, said that the paper falsely claimed both that children were referred consecutively and that investigations were approved by the local ethics committee. The retraction came days after the UK General Medical Council censured the paper's lead author, Andrew Wakefield for unethical conduct (see Nature 463,593; 2010). ) Pika not protected: The US Fish and Wildlife Service has denied endangered-species protection to the American pika (Ochotona princeps. Campaigners had argued that the small herbivore (pictured) would be threatened by rising temperatures. It would have been only the second mammal other than the polar bear to be afforded such protection explicitly because of climate change. Federal biologists said that pika, which live in mountainous parts of ten western US states, would be able to migrate or adjust to warmer climes. Cloud access: The US National Science Foundation (NSF) announced on 4 february that selected NSF-supported researchers would be given access, via three-year agency grants, to store and analyse data using Microsoft's cloud-computing service. Two related products developed by Google and IBM, and by HP, Intel and Yahoo already offer some scientists access to their services (see Nature 449,963; 2007). ) The week ahead 11 february US Department of energy secretary Steven Chu is questioned on his agency's proposed 2010 research and development budget by the House Committee on Science and Technology. go. nature. com/YWJQIN 12 february NASA holds a public'state of the agency'meeting, presenting its current and proposed programmes. go. nature. com/Ddnjf6 13-17 february The American Physical Society meets in WASHINGTON DC. go. nature. com/OTUIVJ Number crunch $2. 4 trillion The minimum global cost by 2050 of the melting Arctic's declining ability to cool the climate, according to a Pew Environment Group report the first to attempt to quantify the value on the region's'climate services'.'Sound bites I wish people would read my scientific papers rather than my e-mails. Phil Jones, who stepped aside as director of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU), University of East Anglia, UK, following allegations that e-mails taken from CRU's computers revealed that the case for global warming was overstated. Source: Sunday Times, UK Â

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