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4 | NewScientist | 9 June 2012 LFI/PHOTOSHOT IT’S the worm that goes to the very top. US president Barack Obama personally backed the Stuxnet cyberattack that destroyed hundreds of uranium centrifuges in Iran in 2010. So claims The New York Times writer David Sanger in a book published on 5 June. As news of the latest computer virus, Flame, emerges (see page 24) he claims that Stuxnet was a joint creation of US and Israeli intelligence agencies. In Confront and Conceal: Obama’s secret wars, Sanger claims Obama pledged in 2008 to maintain two of the Bush administration’s security programmes: the drone war in Afghanistan and “Olympic Games” – codename for a project designed to undermine Iran’s nuclear ambitions via computer malware. As a result, Sanger alleges, Stuxnet was created Obama’s Stuxnet by engineers at the US National Security Agency in collaboration with Unit 8200, a specialist cyber operation of Israeli military intelligence. Once delivered, it forced fast- spinning centrifuges in a plant in Natanz to stop suddenly, smashing them to pieces. It worked until a programming error allowed Stuxnet to copy itself outside the plant, alerting the world, and Iran, to its presence. If true, it is the first time that the US has been known to have used cyberweapons against another country. Parkinson’s vaccine TEN people with Parkinson’s disease this week received injections of the first vaccine aimed at combating the condition. Called PD01A, the drug primes the body’s immune system to destroy alpha-synuclein, a protein thought to trigger the disease by accumulating in the brain and disrupting dopamine production. Affiris, the company in Vienna, Austria, that developed the vaccine, says it is the first treatment to target the cause of the disease. “When it forms clumps in cells, alpha-synuclein disrupts normal levels of dopamine by locking it inside cells that produce it. It is also toxic, killing neurons and their connections,” says Mandler Markus, head of preclinical development at the company. Most existing treatments only ease symptoms by boosting dopamine levels. In all, 32 people will receive the vaccine in the first trial on humans. The objective is to ensure the vaccine is safe, but researchers will also monitor for signs of improvement in symptoms. Last transit NO ONE who saw this week’s transit of Venus is likely to be alive for the next one: it won’t occur again until 11 December 2117. At least, not from the viewpoint of someone on Earth. Later this year, astronomers hope to observe Venus pass in front of the sun from beyond Earth’s orbit for the first time. On 21 December, Saturn, Venus and the sun will be lined up and the Cassini spacecraft will –Greenland peaking– –Come again in 2117– Carbon dioxide milestone UP, UP and away. Parts of the planet have seen levels of carbon dioxide rise above 400 parts per million for the first time. Although it’s largely symbolic, the milestone is a stark reminder of humanity’s powerful influence on the atmosphere. “During the month of April, the mean was over 400 ppm for the first time, throughout the Arctic,” says Pieter Tans of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado. CO 2 levels reach an annual peak around April as the gas is released by respiration, and then fall over the summer as plants suck it up. As a result, the 2012 average will be a little lower, at about 393 ppm. Nevertheless, Tans says global levels will top 400 ppm in a few years. The Arctic is not the only place seeing record levels. The Japan Meteorological Agency has reported levels above 400 ppm for both March and April at a monitoring station in Ofunato, according to local media. Despite its psychological significance, there’s nothing to suggest 400 ppm is a major threshold in the climate system, according to Tans. In fact, we don’t know what a safe level of CO 2 would be. The campaign group 350.org wants levels reduced to 350 ppm, but Tans says that is arbitrary. The safe level could be 380 ppm, or 320 ppm – we just don’t know. As a result, any growth in CO 2 increases the risk of catastrophic climate change. “We’re playing a very dangerous game,” Tans says. “If true, it is the first time that the US has been known to have used cyberweapons against another country” BERND RÖMMELT/HUBER/4CORNERS IMAGES UPFRONT
