IT’S one of the priciest scientific instruments never used – and a thorn in NASA’s side. Now the agency may be forced to delay the retirement of the space shuttle so that it can haul the

Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer particle detector into space.

More than a decade ago, NASA agreed to lug the AMS to the International Space Station. There it will probe the origin of cosmic rays, measure antimatter, and look for hints of dark matter. But after the Columbia disaster in 2003 triggered a decision to retire the shuttle fleet, the agency changed its mind, saying all remaining flights would be full.

Some US law-makers are now complaining that this is unfair to the European and Asian countries that coughed up most of the $1.5 billion it cost to build the AMS. So on 4 June, a congressional committee passed a resolution that would force the agency to deliver the experiment.

Though the resolution is a long way from becoming law, it seems to have broad support. The White House Office of Management and Budget says it is alarmed because it would mandate an extra shuttle flight in 2010 regardless of its cost.

IT’S just over a month since the US government designated the polar bear as an endangered species. Now the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) stands accused of giving oil companies a “blank cheque to harass polar bears”.

The row revolves around the seven oil companies that paid $2.6 billion in February for the rights to look for oil in the Chukchi Sea, off the coast of Alaska. Some 2000 polar bears

live in the region – a significant chunk of the estimated 20,000 to 25,000 bears worldwide, and the companies were worried that environmental groups might take legal action to prevent the animals being disturbed.

But the FWS issued regulations last week permitting firms to disturb “small numbers” of bears and walruses without fear of prosecution as long as they report each incident and take steps to minimise the animals’ stress. If underwater sonar is being used, for instance, engineers must stop surveying should a bear swim close by.

The Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental

“The law would mandate and extra shuttle flight, regardless of its cost”

“The decision will allow ‘essentially unlimited harassment of polar bears’ ”

HANDS up those who have falsified data. It appears there is vastly more cheating going on in the lab than gets reported.

Sandra Titus of the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) in Rockville, Maryland, surveyed 2212 scientists at 605 institutions funded by the US Department of Health & Human Services. Nine per cent said they had witnessed misconduct, mainly fabrication of results or plagiarism (Nature, vol 453, p 980). The team calculates that this amounts to 2300 cases of misconduct per year among all DHHS-funded researchers, yet the ORI receives 24 misconduct alerts a year. “I think our findings are the tip of the iceberg,” she says.

Titus’s team says the key to preventing misconduct is to create a “zero tolerance” culture both for those who commit misconduct and those who turn a blind eye to it.

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group based in Tucson, Arizona, says that the decision will allow “essentially unlimited harassment of polar bears”. Researchers are also worried. Steven Amstrup, a polar bear expert at the US Geological Survey in Anchorage, Alaska, says no one really knows how the exploration will affect the bears because the Chukchi populations have not been studied in detail.

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60 SECONDS

Gene scan crackdown

California is ahead of the curve again, this time in regulating direct-to-consumer genetic tests. The state’s Department of Public Health is demanding that 13 start-ups offering to scan genes for signs of disease demonstrate that they meet quality and reliability standards. So far the US Food and Drug Administration does not evaluate such tests.

Potent pot

Pot now packs more punch. The concentration of the drug’s active ingredient tetrahydrocannabinol averaged 10 per cent in samples analysed by the Potency Monitoring Project at the University of Mississippi. That’s more than double the average of 25 years ago. Dutch researchers note that Amsterdam coffee shops can charge more for higher-strength weed.

The tasty food diet

Could making food tastier encourage people to eat less? Alan Hirsch of the Smell & Taste Treatment and Research Foundation in Chicago found that obese people who sprinkled sweet or savoury crystals, including cocoa, horseradish and spearmint flavours, on their food lost more weight than people who ate plain food.

Pig poo power

Imagine filling your vehicle every day with fuel made from pig manure. This unlikely sounding dream is moving closer, but it might be more difficult than hoped to get rid of contaminants such as water, according to an analysis of a petroleum substitute extracted from pig manure (Fuel, DOI: 10.1016/j.fuel.2008.04.038).

Common Earth

Finding an Earth-like planet gets more likely by the week. Three more alien worlds – ranging from 4 to 9 times Earth’s mass – have been found in tight orbits around their host stars by Michel Mayor of the Geneva Observatory in Switzerland and colleagues, as part of the HARPS survey.

NASA hijacked

Bears vs oil

Snitch on a cheat

www.newscientist.com 21 June 2008 | NewScientist | 7

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