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4 | NewScientist | 26 May 2012 HERITAGE AUCTIONS THE balloon will not go up. A controversial geoengineering field test has been cancelled after the lead scientist learned of a patent on the technology held by several of his collaborators. The Stratospheric Particle Injection for Climate Engineering (SPICE) project, run by researchers at three UK universities, is investigating cooling the planet by releasing aerosol particles into the stratosphere. The field test would have tested the feasibility of the delivery system – a hose lofted by a balloon – by pumping out water spray at an altitude of 1 kilometre. In October 2011 the field test was postponed for six months, after an oversight panel decided more public engagement was needed. Now lead scientist Matthew Watson at the University of Bristol, has cancelled it altogether. At issue was a patent on the Field test deflated technology, filed in 2009 by independent consultant engineer Peter Davidson. Watson only learned of the patent late last year. Hugh Hunt at the University of Cambridge, who is also named on the patent, says it was not filed to make a profit, but to enable the engineers to retain control of their ideas. “We wouldn’t want ExxonMobil or Shell to have control,” he says. Other geoengineering projects will not be affected, but the embarrassing circumstances of the cancellation may tarnish the field’s reputation. Gay ‘cure’ apology A LEADING psychiatrist whose controversial study backed therapies to make gay people straight has admitted it was flawed and apologised to homosexuals for implying that they could be “cured”. In 2003, Robert Spitzer, while at the New York State Psychiatric Institute, published a paper in Archives of Sexual Behavior concluding that “reparative” therapy – which can include aversive conditioning and spiritual intervention – could change sexual orientation. He reached this conclusion after interviews with 200 self-selected individuals who claimed to have become heterosexual after the therapy. In a letter published in the same journal this week, Spitzer speaks of the “fatal flaw” in his study: the impossibility of telling whether his interviewees had genuinely changed sexual orientation (DOI: 10.1007/s10508-012-9966-y). “I believe I owe the gay community an apology for my study making unproven claims of the efficacy of reparative therapy,” he writes. Dino sale protest A MONSTROUS row is brewing over the auction on 20 May of a tyrannosaur fossil. The problem? The dinosaur – Tarbosaurus bataar – has only ever been found in Mongolia, and exporting fossils from the country has been illegal for 50 years. Bidding at Heritage Auctions in New York proceeded despite a temporary restraining order and pleas to stop from the Mongolian president and palaeontologists. –Next stop, the space station– –Tarbosaurus – going twice– Enter the Dragon “FALCON flew perfectly!! Dragon in orbit, comm locked and solar arrays active!!” It was fitting that Elon Musk, founder of commercial space flight company SpaceX, announced the new era on Twitter, as he celebrated the successful launch on Tuesday at 3.44am EST (8.44am BST) of the Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. As New Scientist went to press, the Dragon cargo capsule had separated from the rocket and was heading for the International Space Station. The launch opens the next chapter in space flight – one in which nimble entrepreneurial companies with innovative ideas hope to compete with and outgun big-spending, government-run space agencies. “This successful launch is good news for NASA, which really does not want to rely so much on Russia for resupply of the space station,” says Philip Hylands, an analyst at Ascend, a space flight and aviation consultancy at Heathrow airport, London. “If in the next few days the ISS rendezvous and docking also goes sweet as a nut, SpaceX can really concentrate on its forthcoming NASA cargo missions – and then get on with making the Dragon capable of carrying astronauts.” The lift-off will also boost SpaceX’s plans to work with inflatable space habitat provider Bigelow Aerospace of Las Vegas, Nevada. The firms aim to supply a one-stop shop for launches of private-sector space stations and even space hotels. You can start looking forward to holidays in orbit. “The field test would have tested the feasibility of using hoses lofted by balloons to cool the planet” JOHN RAOUX/AP/PA UPFRONT
