NEWS | IN BRIEF
science.org SCIENCEPHOTO: JANE KACZMAREKcame from four women scientists, three of
whom worked with or under the supervi-
sion of Jean-Philippe Vielle Calzada of
Mexico’s National Laboratory of Genomics
for Biodiversity (Langebio). They alleged
that he touched them without their con-
sent, pressured them to enter a romantic
relationship, and retaliated professionally
after they rejected him (Science, 1 October
2021, p. 17). (Vielle Calzada has denied
the allegations.) The office, the Internal
Control Organ, found in 2021 that Vielle
Calzada had committed “serious” mis-
conduct. But in recent weeks, it dismissed
two of the complaints, in one case citing a
procedural issue, which the complainant
plans to appeal. Critics of the office’s move
have vowed to press for giving Langebio
and its parent institution, the Center for
Research and Advanced Studies, authority
to sanction its researchers for harassment.
From 2016 to 2018, only 1% of 399 cases
of sexual harassment reported in Mexico’s
federal institutions led to a sanction for the
accused harasser.
Trump plug increases vaccination
COVID-19 | An online advertisement cre-
ated by political scientists and economists
that featured former President Donald
Trump recommending COVID-19 shots led
to increased uptake of the vaccines in U.S.
counties that had low vaccination rates, an
analysis has concluded. COVID-19 vaccine
hesitancy is higher in U.S. regions that voted
heavily for Trump in the 2020 election, so
the research team targeted them by creating
a 30-second YouTube ad that featured a Fox
News TV interview in which Trump recom-
mends the vaccine. The team spent nearly
$100,000 on Google Ads to place it online
in 1083 U.S. counties in which fewer than
50% of adults were vaccinated; an additional
1085 similar counties that did not receive
the ads served as a control group. Compared
with control counties, the study found an
increase of 104,036 people receiving first
vaccinations in areas that observed the ad,
a statistically significant difference. The
intervention’s cost was just under $1 pervaccinated person. In contrast, U.S. locales
that used lottery tickets as a reward spent
$60 to $80 per vaccination, according to
the preprint study posted at the National
Bureau of Economic Research.Biologist quits over #MeToo ruling
WORKPLACE | David Sabatini, the
high-profile biologist forced out of the
Whitehead Institute in 2021 after a probe
found he violated its sexual harassment
policies, has resigned his professorship at
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
after three senior MIT officials recom-
mended revoking his tenure. They found
that Sabatini violated MIT policy by
engaging in a consensual sexual relation-
ship with a person over whom he held
a career-influencing role. In an emailed
statement, Sabatini, who codiscovered a
key mammalian signaling pathway, called
the outcome “out of all proportion to the
actual, underlying facts. I look forward to
setting the record straight and standing
up for my integrity.” Nancy Hopkins, an
emeritus professor of biology who helped
lead a landmark push for gender equality
on the MIT faculty in the 1990s, called
his resignation “a milestone,” noting in an
email, “A young woman had the courage
to demand that the rules be enforced. And
she was heard.”Cancer institute head steps down
BIOMEDICINE | Norman “Ned” Sharpless,
director of the U.S. National Cancer
Institute (NCI) since 2017, will step down at
the end of April. He said he will spend time
with his family in North Carolina before
deciding what’s next, but could return to
academia. Sharpless, who studies aging
and cancer, was appointed to lead NCI,
which has a $6.9 billion budget, by former
President Donald Trump after directing the
University of North Carolina’s Lineberger
Comprehensive Cancer Center. In 2019,
Sharpless served a 7-month stint as acting
chief of the Food and Drug Administration,
then returned to NCI. There he highlighted
the harm caused by missed cancer screen-
ings during the pandemic and launched
efforts to improve immunotherapies, share
data on pediatric tumors, and improve
diversity in the cancer research workforce.
He also worked to find funding that has
enabled NCI to raise its grant success rates,
which have been the lowest of the National
Institutes of Health’s largest institutes
because of soaring applications.SCIENCE.ORG/NEWS
Read more news from Science online.A new CHIME outrigger telescope has been built in British Columbia with funds from a $10 million gift.ASTRONOMYWith upgrade, telescope to pinpoint radio bursts
A
groundbreaking radio telescope is being expanded to sharpen its eyesight to find
the mysterious, milliseconds-long flashes known as fast radio bursts (FRBs).
They were first detected in 2007, but only a few dozen were known before the 2018
debut of the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME). It has
glimpsed more than 500 since. Although the telescope has a wide field of view
that is ideal for detecting FRBs, it cannot locate them very well. Now, the management
team is building three mini-CHIMEs, or outriggers, in British Columbia, California, and
West Virginia. Their wide separation will allow researchers to pinpoint FRBs to a patch
of sky no bigger than a coin viewed from 40 kilometers away, down from the size of the
full Moon. Better accuracy helps other telescopes zoom in on the FRBs’ home neighbor-
hoods for clues to their origins.118 8 APRIL 2022 • VOL 376 ISSUE 6589