VideoLab: Reconstructed Ammonite Jaw Three-dimensional reconstructions shed light on the feeding habits of a group of abundant marine invertebrates that went extinct about 65 million years ago. See the related Report by Kruta et al. in this week's issue. SCIENCE News Summaries, Volume 331, Issue 6013
dated January 7 2011, is now available at: - http://www.sciencemag.org/content/vol331/issue6013/news-summaries.dtl
A copy of the "SCIENCE News This Week" section has been appended below.
SCIENCE News This Week
January 7 2011, 331 (6013)
NEWS OF THE WEEK
U.S. Science Policy: The Battle Over the 2011 Budget: What's at Stake for Research Jeffrey Mervis The 112th Congress convened this week amid cries from fiscal conservatives to shrink the federal budget and reduce the deficit. With revenues unlikely to grow much now that the outgoing Congress has extended Bush-era income tax cuts for the next 2 years, the immediate task of deficit hawks will be to convince their colleagues that individual agencies should receive less in 2011. But that begs an important question: Less than what? Full story at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/331/6013/14?sa_campaign=Email/sntw/7-January-2011/10.1126/science.331.6013.14
Europe: ESF Moves Toward Rebirth, But Change Worries Some Daniel Clery 2011 will likely see the end of the European Science Foundation (ESF), at least in its current form. After 37 years of funding researchers, organizing collaborations, and convening meetings across the continent, ESF is expected to transform into a lobbying and strategy organization. But even as the details continue to be worked out, some observers are lamenting the change, particularly as certain science academies may be excluded from the resulting body. Full story at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/331/6013/16?sa_campaign=Email/sntw/7-January-2011/10.1126/science.331.6013.16
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: Studies Point to Possible Contamination in XMRV Findings Jocelyn Kaiser* The stormy debate over a potential cause of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is nearing hurricane force. Last month, it prompted headlines suggesting that researchers have reached a dead end, scores of blog posts from disappointed patients, and accusations that scientists had gone beyond their data. The 14-month-old row intensified when four papers appeared in Retrovirology suggesting that reports linking the virus XMRV to CFS were based on false positives. * With reporting by Martin Enserink. * With reporting by Martin Enserink. Full story at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/331/6013/17?sa_campaign=Email/sntw/7-January-2011/10.1126/science.331.6013.17
Ecology: A Slimy Invader Blooms in the Rivers of Patagonia Patricio Segura* The alga Didymosphenia geminata, or Didymo, is unwelcome wherever it blooms. It forms large colonies of brownish slime that cling to vegetation and streambeds, extending leathery trailers into the current. It is established in several Northern Hemisphere locations—including in Canada and the eastern United States, Europe, and Asia. But it was not seen in the Southern Hemisphere until 2004, when Didymo appeared in New Zealand. In 2010, to the dismay of naturalists and Chile's tourism industry, it gained a foothold in Patagonia. The propagation of D. geminata may be unstoppable, although officials in Chile have launched a massive effort to halt it. * Patricio Segura is a freelance journalist in Coyhaique, Chile. * Patricio Segura is a freelance journalist in Coyhaique, Chile. Full story at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/331/6013/18?sa_campaign=Email/sntw/7-January-2011/10.1126/science.331.6013.18
ScienceNOW.org: From Science's Online Daily News Site ScienceNOW reported recently that young mollusks maturing in slightly warmer and more acidic seawater can't calcify their shells, the "placebo effect" may work even if patients know they are taking fake pills, people rely on the eyes to judge whether a face has a mind behind it, and DNA from an ancient finger bone has confirmed the discovery of a new type of human, among other stories. Full story at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/331/6013/19-a?sa_campaign=Email/sntw/7-January-2011/10.1126/science.331.6013.19-a
ScienceInsider: From the Science Policy Blog ScienceInsider reported last week that Brazil will pay more than  250 million over a decade to join the European Southern Observatory, becoming the first member from outside Europe, among other stories. Full story at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/331/6013/19-b?sa_campaign=Email/sntw/7-January-2011/10.1126/science.331.6013.19-b
NEWS FOCUS
Was North Africa the Launch Pad for Modern Human Migrations? Michael Balter Until very recently, most researchers studying the origins of Homo sapiens focused on the fossils of East Africa and the sophisticated tools and ornaments of famed South African sites such as Blombos Cave. Few scientists thought that much of evolutionary significance had gone on in North Africa, or that the region's big-toothed, somewhat archaic-looking hominins might be closely related to the ancestors of many living people. Now, thanks to new excavations and more accurate dating, North Africa boasts unequivocal signs of modern human behavior as early as anywhere else in the world, including South Africa. Climate reconstructions and fossil studies now suggest that the region was more hospitable during key periods than once thought. The data suggest that the Sahara Desert was a land of lakes and rivers about 130,000 years ago, when moderns first left Africa for sites in what is today Israel. And new studies of hominin fossils suggest some strong resemblances—and possible evolutionary connections—between North African specimens and fossils representing migrations out of Africa between 130,000 and 40,000 years ago. Full story at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/331/6013/20?sa_campaign=Email/sntw/7-January-2011/10.1126/science.331.6013.20
Cell Biology: The Power of One Mitch Leslie Mashing up a multitude of cells in order to study them obliterates key differences between cells, researchers have come to realize. That's why more and more scientists are opting to take the measure of individual cells. Scientists have already recorded the most accurate measurements of how much an individual cell weighs and gauged how much oxygen one requires. They've flagged specific cancer cells resistant to chemotherapy and developed ways to pinpoint rare, disease-causing bacteria among swarms of harmless microbes. Developmental biologists have tallied gene activity as a fertilized egg starts its course of division and specialization, work that might help clarify the factors that spur a cell in the embryo to become one tissue and its seemingly identical next-door neighbor to become something else. And other researchers have spelled out how individual cells not only cope with but actually benefit from "noise," random fluctuations in their internal and external conditions. Of course, scientists have paid attention to single cells ever since the first microscopes were invented. What's changed is that researchers are now applying to individual cells the powerful techniques, including genome sequencing, mass spectrometry, and gene expression analysis, that formerly required batches of cells. Full story at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/331/6013/24-a?sa_campaign=Email/sntw/7-January-2011/10.1126/science.331.6013.24-a
Single-Cell Tech Primer Mitch Leslie Microfluidics is the hot technique in the single-cell field (see main text). However, it's just one of the methods that are enabling researchers to delve into individual cells; others include gene expression, flow cytometry, and mass spectrometry. Full story at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/331/6013/24-b?sa_campaign=Email/sntw/7-January-2011/10.1126/science.331.6013.24-b
National Science Foundation: Meeting for Peer Review at a Resort That's Virtually Free John Bohannon Can the hard work of grant review be done without face-to-face meetings? With budgets tightening, scientific organizations like the National Science Foundation are exploring ways to reduce the number of their physical meetings by holding virtual-reality meetings in the online world of Second Life. Proponents see it as a win-win scenario, saving not only time and money but also carbon emissions. Whether the technology is up to the task is another matter. Full story at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/331/6013/27?sa_campaign=Email/sntw/7-January-2011/10.1126/science.331.6013.27
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