SCIENCE sciencemag.orgPHOTO: © FAO/SVEN TORFINN
Health. About 13% of global demand
for fertilizer could be met by recovering
nitrogen, phosphorus, and potash from
wastewater; such use provides a bonus,
diverting nutrients from waterways,
where they can create harmful eutrophi-
cation. Sewage also offers an alternative
energy source. The need to plan and
finance such recovery efforts is greatest in
“low- and middle-income countries, where
most municipal wastewater still goes
into the environment untreated,” says the
study, published 27 January in Natural
Resources Forum.Wildlife breeding plan criticized
CONSERVATION |A decision by South
Africa’s government to allow breeding
and genetic research on more than
30 wild species—including rhinos, lions,
and cheetahs—could considerably reduce
their genetic diversity, scientists warned
last week. The government’s action has
been interpreted to allow breeders to
select for commercially desirable traits,
such as longer horns or larger body size;that could create genetic bottlenecks by
promoting a few stud lines, the research-
ers wrote in the South African Journal
of Science. They added that it may prove
expensive or impossible to keep the inten-
sively bred animals from mating with wild
counterparts. A handful of game ranchers
requested the policy, which South Africa
announced in May 2019 without con-
sulting the public or studying potential
consequences. Game ranching —for hunt-
ing, meat, and tourism—already occupies
more than 15% of the country, and the
government wants to expand the industry.NSF ‘big ideas’ pay off
FUNDING |The U.S. National Science
Foundation (NSF) announced this week
seven winners in its contest for “big
ideas” to address societal problems. Four
winning teams will receive $26,000 each
to develop ideas on topics ranging from
using artificial intelligence for complex
problem-solving to developing small-
scale technologies that sequester carbon
dioxide. Three more teams earned $10,as runners-up. The 2026 Idea Machine
contest attracted almost 800 submissions,
and although some high schoolers made
it to the semifinals, all the winners work
at research institutions. NSF hopes to
fund workshops and exploratory grants
to further develop these and other ideas
from contestants.Reproducibility tool scales up
PUBLISHING |A software company said
last week it has teamed up with publish-
ing giant Wiley to roll out in mid-2020 a
tool that can signal whether findings in
Wiley’s scientific papers are reproducible.
The software, called Scite.ai, uses artifi-
cial intelligence to examine articles that
cite a paper, and determines and displays
whether they provide evidence support-
ing or contradicting the paper’s findings.
Users can browse and search the relevant
text of the citing articles. Scite CEO Josh
Nicholson says the software allows users
to home in on articles that attempted to
reproduce a study; of every 100 citations
analyzed, Scite has found that 94 merelyAGRICULTURELocusts overrun Horn of Africa, threatening famine
T
he largest plague of desert locusts (Schistocerca gregaria)
in decades is advancing across the Horn of Africa, consum-
ing crops and threatening famine. The problem began in
2018 when unusually heavy rains on the Arabian Peninsula
allowed populations to boom over several generations. In
October 2019, the locusts swarmed south into Ethiopia, Eritrea,
and Somalia, and in late December, they spread to Kenya, causingthe worst infestation there in 70 years. Somalia—which last week
declared a national emergency and asked for increased food aid—
has already lost 100,000 hectares of crops and pasture. Another
generation of locusts will likely hatch this month and cause more
damage. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United
Nations called for $70 million to fight the outbreak with pesticides
and help farmers.7 FEBRUARY 2020 • VOL 367 ISSUE 6478 607A farmer tries to
drive away locusts in
Katitika, Kenya.Published by AAAS