Science 14Feb2020

sciencemag.org SCIENCE

PHOTO: KIM KYUNG-HOON TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY/REUTERS

Scientists sue cancer institute

BIOMEDICINE | Six prominent cancer

researchers at the University of California,

San Diego (UCSD), have sued to compel a

leading cancer funder to continue its cur-

rent level of support. The Ludwig Institute

for Cancer Research (LICR) confirmed

last week that it is winding down its

29-year-old San Diego branch, which UCSD

hosts, but stressed that it “is honoring

its contractual obligations.” A nonprofit

organization based in New York City and

Zurich, LICR oversees nine research cen-

ters at universities and research hospitals

around the world, including seven in the

United States; since 2016, it has closed five

branches in other countries. LICR partially

funds work by scientists at its research

centers and earns revenue from the patents

and licensing agreements that result.

From 2013 to 2018, LICR provided UCSD

between $11.5 million and $13.2 million

annually, including more than $3 million

a year for research, according to figures

cited in the lawsuit, filed in November 2019

and amended on 30 January.

Probe of solar wind launches

HELIOPHYSICS | After a successful

9 February launch, the European Space

Agency’s Solar Orbiter began a 9-year

mission to study how the Sun creates the

solar wind of charged particles that streams

out through the Solar System. From an

eccentric orbit that makes a close pass every

6 months and offers polar vantages, the

Solar Orbiter will observe the Sun at visible,

ultraviolet, and x-ray wavelengths.

It joins NASA’s Parker Solar Probe, launched

in 2018, and the ground-based Daniel K.

Inouye Solar Telescope in Hawaii, which

saw its first light last month, in an unprec-

edented joint examination of our local star

(Science, 3 August 2018, p. 441).

Biocontrol of locusts sought

AGRICULTURE | Somalia, among the

African nations hit hard by locusts, is

planning to control them with a fungus in

what would be the largest use of bio-

pesticides against these insects. Ethiopia

and Kenya are also suffering from their

NEWS

J

ust weeks after a novel coronavirus emerged in Wuhan, China, the

outbreak continued to expand in gravity and scope. This week, the

cumulative death toll surpassed 1000, compared with the more

than 800 killed by another coronavirus in the 2002–03 outbreaks

of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). Authorities assigned

official names to the virus, SARS-CoV-2, and the resulting disease,

COVID-19. Li Wenliang, a 34-year-old doctor who sounded an early alarm

in Wuhan about the disease only to be summoned by local police for do-

ing so, succumbed to the virus last week. China, which had recorded 99%

of the more than 40,000 infections as Science went to press, has restricted

travel for some 60 million of its citizens. Other countries’ travel restrictions

left people stranded, including more than 4000 passengers quarantined

on two cruise liners. As scientists labored to develop better tests for the

infection (p. 727), researchers from South China Agricultural University

announced at a press conference that a virus found in pangolins—

an endangered mammal whose scales are used in traditional Chinese

medicine—had 99% homology to the outbreak virus. But they had not

publicly shared any data by press time, and other researchers say it is far

from proved that the animal is the source of the outbreak.

Officials prepare to board the quarantined cruise ship Diamond Princess, docked in Yokohama, Japan.

INFECTIOUS DISEASE

Deaths from novel virus surpass SARS toll

IN BRIEF

Edited by Jeffrey Brainard

720 14 FEBRUARY 2020 • VOL 367 ISSUE 6479

Record high temperature for Antarctica, observed

last week at Argentina’s Esperanza research

station. The last record high was iset just 5 years

18.3°C ago, a sign of accelerating global warming.

Published by AAAS