Overruling scientists, Florida board authorizes fishing of the vulnerable goliath grouper
A Florida commission voted last week to again allow fishing of the Atlantic goliath grouper, a storied species that the state had protected from any harvests since 1990 to allow it to recover from overfishing. The panel acted despite objections from fisheries scientists that the fishing will halt the population’s fledgling recovery and lacks any scientific justification. More than 90 fisheries scientists in the United States and other countries endorsed a letter in May to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission recommending against the move. Beginning in 2023, it will allow harvesting of up to 200 juveniles annually in most of the state’s waters, which extend up to 14.4 kilometers offshore. The International Union for Conservation of Nature lists the species (Epinephelus itajara) as vulnerable, and the U.S. government bans fishing it in federal waters. With a life span of up to 37 years, it can grow to more than 2 meters and 450 kilograms.
A Nobel for organic catalysts
This year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry honors the discovery of small organic catalysts that mimic the work of conventional ones to develop new drugs and other compounds more efficiently. Benjamin List of the Max Planck Institute for Coal Research and David MacMillan of Princeton University share the award for discovering the “organocatalysts,” which speed intricate reactions that build complex functional molecules. Before List’s and MacMillan’s work, many catalysts contained metals, which can be toxic, or were large biological enzymes, which can be difficult to use outside cells. The dozens of pharmaceuticals developed using organocatalysts include paroxetine, used to treat anxiety and depression, and the influenza drug oseltamivir (Tamiflu).
All-male Nobels raise gender equity issue
Over the past 4 years, relatively few women have served on the selection committees for science Nobel Prizes.
This year’s all-male slate of winners of the science Nobel Prizes—physics, chemistry, and physiology or medicine—disappointed but didn’t shock many in the scientific community. It’s in line with most of the Nobel Foundation’s 121-year history: In only 18 of those years has a woman been among the science laureates. But it also comes despite a push for more women to be nominated, which resulted in a doubling of the fraction of nominees for the science prizes in recent years who are women, according to members of two award-granting committees who shared their internal numbers with Science. This year, female scientists made up 13% of the nominees for the physiology or medicine prize and 7%–8% for the chemistry prize. The uptick in female nominees is encouraging, but the numbers remain low relative to the fraction of women in those fields. Some observers say more women should also be appointed to the committees that select prize winners.
Natural studies in economics win
Three pioneers in the use of natural experiments to determine causal relationships in economic activity won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences this week. Controlled studies of such behaviors and outcomes are often impossible or unethical. But in the 1990s, David Card of the University of California, Berkeley, showed he could probe questions such as whether increasing the minimum wage leads to higher unemployment by comparing neighboring communities—one that raised its minimum wage and another that did not. (The wage increase did not increase unemployment.) Joshua Angrist of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Guido Imbens of Stanford University shared the other half of the $1.14 million prize for methodological work on the conditions needed to make such studies valid.
Third dose of China vaccines urged
Two widely used COVID-19 vaccines made in China require a third dose to provide solid protection—but only in people ages 60 and older, a vaccine advisory panel of the World Health Organization (WHO) said this week. About 2 billion doses of the Sinopharm and Sinovac Biotech shots, both based on an inactivated version of the entire virus, have been administered in China, and another 1 billion have been exported. The Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization, which based its recommendation on real-world evidence of vaccine effectiveness, acknowledged a third dose will further strain global supply of vaccines and stressed that countries should first give two doses to the unvaccinated. The group insists that a third shot for the Chinese vaccines is not a “booster” shot—which WHO has said most people don’t need yet—but an “additional” dose to complete the “primary series.”
Foreign influence probes tax NSF
The National Science Foundation’s in-house watchdog says the agency can’t keep up with the soaring number of allegations that scientists have ignored rules requiring them to disclose support from China when seeking NSF funding. Allison Lerner, NSF’s inspector general, whose office investigates such allegations, told Congress last week that tracking foreign influences “now makes up 63% of our caseload” and that “we don’t have the resources we need” to deal with a problem she says wasn’t on her agenda until 4 years ago. Lerner also revealed that NSF so far has recovered $7.9 million from 23 grantees at 21 institutions who were found guilty of breaking NSF’s rules on disclosure. The agency also imposed other sanctions, including making violators ineligible to receive federal funding or to serve as a reviewer on grant applications. All but one of the cases resolved have involved an award to a scientist with links to China, and an analysis by Science of publicly available data suggests that as many as 80 cases remain open.
Biden to restore environment rule
Fulfilling a campaign promise, the Biden administration last week said it will reverse changes by former President Donald Trump to federal rules for reviewing the environmental impact of major development projects. Builders of highways, dams, and other publicly funded projects will again have to consider their projects’ cumulative, long-term impacts on ecosystems, climate, and people living nearby, the White House said. The Biden administration is also expanding opportunities for public comment on the projects. Trump argued his changes were needed to speed project approvals, but the Biden White House says they gutted safeguards. In a related move last week, 23 federal agencies, including NASA and the Department of Energy, released plans for ensuring their operations can “adapt to and are increasingly resilient to climate change impacts.” The public can comment on the agency plans until 6 November.
Drawings celebrate diverse scientists’ ‘superpowers’
Ask children around the world to draw a scientist, and many sketch an older white man. CodeMakers, an education nonprofit in South Africa, is working to break down such stereotypes in a new way: disseminating trading cards and posters (above) that depict real, local scientists as Marvel Comics–style superheroes, hoping to stimulate children’s imagination and ambition. The project, Super Scientists, has donated these printed materials to schools throughout Africa. Founder Justin Yarrow, an educator, says the United States is second only to South Africa as a source of traffic to the project website. A longer version of this interview with Yarrow is available at scim.ag/ScienceSuperhero.
Q: What’s your goal? Why superheroes?
A: In South Africa [and elsewhere], the demographics of established science don’t reflect the demographics of the country. We want to have young Black people see these amazing up-and-coming scientists. We wanted to show off the power of scientists—astronomers’ ability to see back in time, or biotechnologists’ ability to create new forms of life. Superpowers are a language that young people understand.
Q: How did you choose the 49 scientists now featured?
A: [We wanted] scientists in different fields, so we have paleoscientists, oceanographers, astronomers. Another component is making sure they are representative of the kids we work with. Our most recent scientist, Mpho Kgoadi, aka Cosmic Dawn, is a disabled astrophysics Ph.D. student at the University of the Witwatersrand. We also are profiling scientists from Kenya, Uganda, Ghana, Rwanda, Zambia, and Botswana. South Africa is 80% Black and 8% white, [as are] the Super Scientists. I’m proud to say that they’re 65% women.
Q: What impact have you seen?
A: We hear anecdotal things. We’ve heard from a University of Cape Town oceanography Ph.D. student—Kolisa Sinyanya, aka Nitro—that she’s received phone calls from people in tears, telling how when they were growing up, they thought only white men could be scientists. Now they can show these materials to their kids: this powerful, strong image of a scientist.
U.S. official broke journal policy
A top journal retracted an article last week because it was edited by a high-profile scientist now working in the White House who had ties with the article’s co-authors. Jane Lubchenco, a marine biologist appointed in March as deputy director for climate and the environment at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, had co-authored a related paper with authors of the now-retracted article, one of whom is her brother-in-law. The retracted article, published in October 2020 by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), concluded that expanding marine preserves could improve fisheries harvests. PNAS’s retraction notice, first reported by Retraction Watch, said Lubchenco’s ties violated its policies; the notice also cited an error in the article’s data. Its authors plan to submit the article to another journal. Lubchenco, who led the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration from 2009 to 2013 and is a former president of AAAS, Science’s publisher, provided a statement: “I greatly regret the poor decision I made quite some time ago in agreeing to edit this paper.”
U.S. panel revises aspirin guidance
People age 60 or older should not start taking a daily baby aspirin to prevent heart disease, an influential federal advisory panel said this week, backing away from its previous recommendation. New research has bolstered evidence that aspirin’s risks, such as gastrointestinal and brain bleeding, outweigh its preventative benefits, the panel said. People between ages 40 and 59 at high risk for a first heart attack or stroke should consult with their physicians about whether to start taking aspirin as a preventive, the U.S. Public Health Service’s Preventive Services Task Force concluded in a draft recommendation. The guidance, which is expected to be finalized after a comment period, updates the task force’s 2016 report endorsing preventative low-dose aspirin for at-risk people ages 50 to 59 and advising that those between ages 60 and 69 decide for themselves.
It’s kind of weird. But it’s also nice.
- Suzanne Simard
- author of a best-selling book about how trees communicate, to CBC, about the many emails and touch of fame she received when her research was mentioned in the hit TV show Ted Lasso.
Reactor leak linked to staffing
A shortage of experienced staff, exacerbated by the pandemic, contributed to a 3 February release of radiation from the small research reactor at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), according to a report last month. On 4 January, workers refueling the 52-year-old reactor apparently failed to latch into place one of 30 fuel rods, and flowing cooling water pushed it out of place, investigators found. When the reactor restarted 1 month later, the rod overheated. NIST said monitoring at the boundary of its 234-hectare campus indicated that the maximum dose a member of the public could have received from the leak was less than 0.5 millirem, or 1/200th of the regulatory limit. NIST also reported that 10 staff members were exposed to radiation levels about what a person would receive during a computerized tomography scan. Poor training and a lack of experience contributed to the accident, investigators found. In 2011, nine of 11 operators had more than 20 years of experience, compared with three of 22 now.
120,000
U.S. children who lost care when a parent or grandparent died from COVID-19, according to statistical modeling. More than half the children are Black or Hispanic. (Pediatrics)
Chimp refuge gives vaccine
Project Chimps, a U.S. animal sanctuary in Georgia, this month started to administer an experimental vaccine to its 77 chimpanzees to protect them from COVID-19. Zoos, conservatories, and aquariums in the United States have administered the vaccine to their animals. But Project Chimps is the first U.S. sanctuary accredited to house great apes retired from research labs, the pet trade, and the entertainment industry to do so. Five other accredited great ape sanctuaries—including the largest, Chimp Haven in Louisiana—are taking a wait-and-see stance about the animal-only vaccine, made by the manufacturer Zoetis; they want to learn more about its safety and efficacy, and believe the current risk of their chimps contracting COVID-19 is low. To protect the animals, many staff members at those sanctuaries and at Project Chimps have themselves been vaccinated against COVID-19.
Source: Science Mag