Special Issue: Dealing with Data Science and its sister publications explore the issues surrounding the growing influx of research data. Access to this special collection and related online discussion is FREE. SCIENCE News Summaries, Volume 331, Issue 6018
dated February 11 2011, is now available at: - http://www.sciencemag.org/content/vol331/issue6018/news-summaries.dtl
A copy of the "SCIENCE News This Week" section has been appended below.
SCIENCE News This Week
February 11 2011, 331 (6018)
NEWS:
Rescue of Old Data Offers Lesson for Particle Physicists Andrew Curry* Accustomed to working in large collaborations and moving swiftly on to bigger, better machines, particle physicists have no standard format for sharing or storing information after an experiment shuts down. Old data can end up scattered across the globe, stored haphazardly on old tapes, or lost entirely. This tendency has prompted some in the field to call for better care to be taken of data after an experiment has finished. For a very small fraction of the experiment's budget, they argue, data could be preserved in a form usable by later generations of physicists. To promote this strategy, researchers from a half-dozen major labs around the world, including CERN, formed a working group in 2009 called Data Preservation in High Energy Physics. One of the group's aims is to create the new post of "data archivist," someone within each experimental team who will ensure that information is properly managed. * Andrew Curry is a freelance writer based in Berlin. * Andrew Curry is a freelance writer based in Berlin. Full story at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/331/6018/694?sa_campaign=Email/sntw/11-February-2011/10.1126/science.331.6018.694
Is There an Astronomer in the House? Sarah Reed* An unusual collaboration at Harvard uses visualization software developed for use with medical scans such as MRIs to analyze astronomical data sets. It's not the only odd pairing of astronomers and biomedical researchers motivated by the need to deal with data. At the University of Cambridge, astronomers use sophisticated computer algorithms to analyze large batches of images, picking out faint, fuzzy objects. When they aren't looking for distant galaxies, nebulae, or star clusters, the astronomers lend their data-handling skills to the hunt for cancer. The key behind the project is the surprising similarity between images of tissue samples and the cosmos: Spotting a cancerous cell buried in normal tissue is like finding a single star in a crowded stellar field. Some scientists caution against using secondhand algorithms rather than ones customized for the project at hand, but those involved in these collaborations say they benefit from the opportunity to cross disciplines. * Sarah Reed is a freelance writer and former Science intern. * Sarah Reed is a freelance writer and former Science intern. Full story at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/331/6018/696?sa_campaign=Email/sntw/11-February-2011/10.1126/science.331.6018.696
May the Best Analyst Win Jennifer Carpenter A small Australian start-up company called Kaggle is exploiting the concept of "crowdsourcing" in a novel way. Kaggle's core idea is to facilitate the analysis of data by allowing outsiders to model it. To do that, the company organizes competitions in which anyone with a passion for data analysis can battle it out. The contests offered so far have ranged widely, from ranking international chess players to evaluating whether a person will respond to HIV treatments to forecasting if a researcher's grant application will be approved. Despite often modest prizes, the competitions have so far attracted more than 3000 statisticians, computer scientists, econometrists, mathematicians, and physicists from approximately 200 universities in 100 countries, Kaggle founder Anthony Goldbloom boasts. And the wisdom of the crowds can sometimes outsmart those offering up their data. In the HIV contest, entrants significantly improved on the efforts of the research team that posed the challenge. Citing this and other successes as examples, Goldbloom argues that Kaggle can help bring fresh ideas to data analysis. Full story at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/331/6018/698?sa_campaign=Email/sntw/11-February-2011/10.1126/science.331.6018.698
NEWS OF THE WEEK
This Week's Section Follow the links below for a roundup of the week's top stories in science, or download a PDF of the entire section.
Around the World In science news around the world this week, Pfizer is cutting its R&D spending, the U.S. Congress has sworn off earmarks, one of the Channel Islands has been named the world's first "dark sky island," a Japanese volcano is gathering steam, the Great Barrier Reef escaped being battered by the recent hurricane, drillers still have not reached subglacial Lake Vostok, and European research funding is being revamped. Full story at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/331/6018/654-b?sa_campaign=Email/sntw/11-February-2011/10.1126/science.331.6018.654-b
Random Sample A research expedition in New Zealand has once again caught sight of a lost natural wonder; U.K. archaeologists are protesting new restrictions on excavations; and a new survey tallies up the impact of an uncertain political environment on stem cell research. In this week's numbers: U.S. budget cuts, safeguarding specimens of threatened North American plant species, and a new science documentary film initiative. Full story at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/331/6018/654-c?sa_campaign=Email/sntw/11-February-2011/10.1126/science.331.6018.654-c
Newsmakers Newsmakers this week include Boston neurologist Seward Rutkove, who has scored $1 million for developing a new way to track the progression of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and German anesthesiologist Joachim Boldt, who may have as many as 90 of his papers retracted as a result of an ongoing investigation of his work. Full story at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/331/6018/655?sa_campaign=Email/sntw/11-February-2011/10.1126/science.331.6018.655
FINDINGS
First Find From Undiagnosed Diseases Program Full story at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/331/6018/656-a?sa_campaign=Email/sntw/11-February-2011/10.1126/science.331.6018.656-a
Unpainting Presidential Portraits Full story at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/331/6018/656-b?sa_campaign=Email/sntw/11-February-2011/10.1126/science.331.6018.656-b
First Steps Toward Fighting Ebola in the Wild Full story at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/331/6018/656-c?sa_campaign=Email/sntw/11-February-2011/10.1126/science.331.6018.656-c
A Blood Test for Prion Disease Full story at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/331/6018/657-a?sa_campaign=Email/sntw/11-February-2011/10.1126/science.331.6018.657-a
Try This at Home Full story at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/331/6018/657-b?sa_campaign=Email/sntw/11-February-2011/10.1126/science.331.6018.657-b
NEWS & ANALYSIS
Pfizer's Shakeup Means Less Money for Research Sam Kean The pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has announced it will lay off thousands of workers and cut its research and development budget by between $1.5 billion and $2 billion in 2012. That drastic decrease, industry observers say, reflects uncertainties facing many large drug companies about what role they should play—or even want to play—in basic drug research. Increasingly, they shop for the science they need, when they need it. Full story at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/331/6018/658?sa_campaign=Email/sntw/11-February-2011/10.1126/science.331.6018.658
From Nuclear Watchdog to the Maelstrom of Cairo Dan Charles* Mohamed ElBaradei, the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, recently became a central figure in the antigovernment protests in Egypt and is on a steering committee of opposition leaders. The Muslim Brotherhood, considered the largest single opposition group and also part of the committee, has endorsed a leading role for him in potential talks with Egypt's rulers. Yet ElBaradei's future in the maelstrom of Egyptian politics is far from certain. Friends and former associates describe a personality that seems unsuited for politics: cerebral, reserved, principled, and uncharismatic. * Dan Charles is a writer based in Washington, D.C. * Dan Charles is a writer based in Washington, D.C. Full story at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/331/6018/659?sa_campaign=Email/sntw/11-February-2011/10.1126/science.331.6018.659
The Genome Project: What Will It Do as a Teenager? Jocelyn Kaiser The 10th anniversary of the completion of the draft human genome sequence has been a time for celebration—and also for sober stock-taking. Early successes in DNA research, some critics have said, led to hype about early payoffs for human health. But clinical applications have been slow to arrive. The need to pick up the pace of translating research into medicine informs the latest strategic plan from the U.S. National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), which published its 10-year map this week. Eric Green, who succeeded Francis Collins as NHGRI director, discussed the plan with Science in an interview. (Also see Science's monthlong series commemorating the 10th anniversary of the sequencing of the human genome.) Full story at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/331/6018/660?sa_campaign=Email/sntw/11-February-2011/10.1126/science.331.6018.660
Ending Earmarks Also Means the End Of Many Research Projects Jeffrey Mervis The last pillar supporting congressional earmarks crumbled last week, dooming the controversial practice for at least the next 2 years. Many scientists approve; they argue that earmarking reduces the amount of money available for peer-reviewed competitive research by forcing agencies to pay for things they did not request. But ending earmarks won't be painless; they pumped $2 billion into university facilities and research activities last year. Turning off the spigot will have a dramatic impact on the scientists who receive the money and perhaps also on the societal problems they are tackling. Full story at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/331/6018/661?sa_campaign=Email/sntw/11-February-2011/10.1126/science.331.6018.661
NEWS FOCUS
What Would You Do? Jennifer Couzin-Frankel With genetic studies multiplying and sequencing costs plunging, more than a million people worldwide are, sometimes unknowingly, sharing their DNA with hundreds or even thousands of researchers. And it's slowly dawning on many scientists and ethicists that even if the DNA was offered to study diabetes or heart disease or some other specific condition, it may surrender many other secrets. Whether to divulge these results, and how, is arguably the most pressing issue in genetics today. The Ethical, Legal and Social Implications Research Program at the U.S. National Human Genome Research Institute is now accepting applications for more than $7.5 million in studies on how to share genetic results with research participants. In December, 28 researchers convened by the U.S. National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute published a set of "ethical and practical" guidelines for returning such results. Hospitals struggling with the issue are running focus groups and mailing surveys to patients and families, querying them on what they might want to learn, however unexpected, about their or their child's DNA. This News Focus article and the one on the genomic data explosion are part of a collection this month reflecting on the 10th anniversary of the publication of the human genome, which is gathered here. Full story at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/331/6018/662?sa_campaign=Email/sntw/11-February-2011/10.1126/science.331.6018.662
Will Computers Crash Genomics? Elizabeth Pennisi A single DNA sequencer can now generate in a day what it took 10 years to collect for the Human Genome Project. Computers are central to archiving and analyzing this information, but their processing power isn't increasing fast enough, and their costs are decreasing too slowly, to keep up with the deluge. Bioinformaticists are trying new approaches to handle the data onslaught. Some are heading for the clouds—cloud computing, that is, a pay-as-you-go service, accessible from one's own desktop, that provides rented time on a large cluster of machines that work together in parallel as fast as, or faster than, a single powerful computer. But other researchers warn that cloud computing is not the solution to every data problem. This News Focus article and the one on sharing genomic data with trial participants are part of a collection this month reflecting on the 10th anniversary of the publication of the human genome, which is gathered here. Full story at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/331/6018/666?sa_campaign=Email/sntw/11-February-2011/10.1126/science.331.6018.666
Coming Soon to a Lab Near You: Drag-and-Drop Virtual Worlds Robert F. Service A group of researchers at Microsoft hopes to transform the way scientists study complex, ever-changing systems, such as the global carbon cycle and information processing inside cells. To do so, they're working to develop a suite of new software tools including novel programming languages that better represent biological systems and computer models that work across multiple scales, simulating carbon budgets at the levels of leaves, trees, and forests, for example. They're also striving to make those tools simple to use, thereby extending the types of studies that can be done by researchers who aren't full-time programmers. Prototype versions of several of these tools are now up and running and being put through their paces by researchers at Microsoft. Full story at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/331/6018/669?sa_campaign=Email/sntw/11-February-2011/10.1126/science.331.6018.669
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