Science - USA (2018-12-21)

SCIENCE sciencemag.org 21 DECEMBER 2018 • VOL 362 ISSUE 6421 1335

CREDITS: (IMAGE) NASA/NRL/PARKER SOLAR PROBE; (GRAPH) J. BRAINARD/

SCIENCE

; (DATA) S. A. GALLO

ET AL

., BIORXIV, 10.1101/479816 (2018)

Probe kisses the sun

SPACE SCIENCE | NASA’s Parker Solar

Probe has made its first dip into the sun’s

atmosphere, providing scientists with

longed-for data such as the image below

of a solar streamer, a blast of particles from

an area of high solar activity. (The bright

spot in the center is Mercury.) Launched in

August (Science, 3 August, p. 441), Parker

will make 24 close flybys over 6 years,

probing the sun’s atmosphere, or corona,

and an outward particle flow known as the

solar wind. Its first flyby, from 31 October

to 11 November, has already broken records

for the highest speed for a spacecraft, at

343,000 kilometers per hour, and the closest

approach to the sun, at 24 million kilo-

meters. But those records won’t last long as

Parker’s orbits become closer and faster.

NIH urged to guard research

GRANT MANAGEMENT | An advisory panel

to the director of the National Institutes

of Health (NIH) has recommended that

U.S. universities receiving NIH funding

consider vetting the activities of foreign

scientists before they are hired. Last

week’s report on “foreign influences” also

suggests that NIH expand the definition

of scientific misconduct to include “mate-

rial nondisclosures” of any ties to other

governments, companies, and individuals.

The recommendations reflect concerns

that academic researchers are unwittingly

allowing China and other governments to

steal research findings and other intel-

lectual property that belong to the U.S.

government. A senior Federal Bureau of

Investigation official told Congress last

week that it has investigated “thousands”

of such attempts, and that U.S. univer-

sities must do more to thwart them.

Preventing reviewers from downloading

research proposals could be another way

to prevent information from falling into

unauthorized hands, the report suggests.

Australia cuts future funding

RESEARCH FUNDING | Funding for gradu-

ate research and education in Australia

will be virtually flat for the next 4 years,

the government said this week. A mid-

year budget adjustment requires the

elimination of AU$328 million ($236 mil-

lion) in planned increases, according to

a 17 December announcement. “Economic

growth and prosperity will not be

achieved by cutting research,” John Shine,

president of the Australian Academy of

Science in Canberra, said in a statement.

Scientists hope to get the money at

least partially restored in the next full-year

budget, which will be adopted in the

spring and take effect on 1 July 2019.

New immune system institute

BIOMEDICINE | The Allen Institute for

Immunology was launched last week in

Seattle, Washington. The effort will use

a $125 million donation from the late

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen to better

define how the immune system works and

why it falters in certain illnesses, includ-

ing cancer and autoimmune conditions.

“We want to do a very detailed view of the

immune system over time,” says Executive

Director Thomas Bumol, an immuno-

logist and former senior vice president at

Lilly Research Laboratories. Researchers

will track the immune function of three

groups of people—4-year-olds, adults in

their 20s and 30s, and people between

55 and 65. The institute joins Allen-

funded efforts exploring cell biology, the

brain, and artificial intelligence.

A few grant reviewers do a lot

PEER REVIEW | A small cadre of seasoned

researchers performs a disproportionately

large share of the peer reviews that help

U.S. science agencies award grants in the

biological sciences, a study has found.

Survey responses from 874 researchers

showed that a

subset served on

seven or more

funding panels

over 3 years and

spent an average

of nearly

17 days on the

task annually,

according to a

preprint paper

published 28

November on

bioRxiv. These

reviewers made

up 23% of respondents who sat on at least

one panel, but they served on 40% of all

panels reported. Frequent reviewers also

reported spending nearly three times

more hours on proposal reviews than less

frequent reviewers, close to what they

considered the maximum time available for

such work.

Mars’s methane mystery deepens

SPACE SCIENCE | Mars’s methane has gone

missing. For 2 decades, spacecraft moni-

toring the martian atmosphere, including

NASA’s Curiosity rover, have hinted at the

presence of the gas, which on Earth is

primarily a byproduct of life. Last week, at a

meeting of the American Geophysical Union

in Washington, D.C., scientists reported

that the European Space Agency’s Trace

Gas Orbiter (TGO), which arrived at Mars

in 2016, has failed to detect methane in the

atmosphere down to 50 parts per trillion.

That’s well below levels seen by Curiosity,

which has detected small seasonal swings

in the gas from its perch in Gale Crater.

The TGO will run until at least 2022, long

enough to capture any methane surges over

several martian years.

Zinke exits Interior

CONSERVATION | U.S. Secretary of the

Interior Ryan Zinke announced last week

that he will leave the post by the end of

the year. Many environmental groups

More

frequent

reviewers

Less

frequent

reviewers

0

35

70

105

140

Hours spent reviewing

applications annually

Particle flows from the sun snapped by the Parker

Solar Probe in its first flyby.

Published by AAAS

on December 20, 2018^

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