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Spy satellite laser restrictions crimping astronomy
ROGER RESSMEYER/CORBIS
UPFRONT
Laser rules ‘stop science’ COULD astronomers accidentally knock out satellites? That’s the worry of the US air force, which restricts the use of lasers that help focus telescopes. Now some astronomers warn they will miss key observations under the rules. Many large observatories, including Keck and Gemini North in Hawaii, use lasers to determine the amount of turbulence in the atmosphere, which distorts images. Shape-shifting mirrors on the telescopes can then compensate to reduce blurring. Since a direct laser hit on a satellite could damage its optics, the US air force’s Space Command has for years restricted when and where US observatories can fire them, with little impact on astronomy. Then two years ago, just as kinks in the laser technology were being ironed out,
the rules were tightened. Now, with astronomers eager to use the lasers more, the restrictions are beginning to chafe. “Significant negative impacts of these new restrictions on scientific productivity are being felt,” says a report by the US Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, based in Washington DC. The restricted zones are now so large that they can rule out observations even when a satellite is below the horizon, the report says. This results in half to two-thirds of the objects astronomers would like to view with laser assistance on a given night being off-limits, the report adds. And for short-lived phenomena like gamma-ray bursts, there is no second chance.
Virus in the frame
in Reno, Nevada, investigated whether XMRV might be linked to CFS after the virus was reported in 2006 to be present in patients with a form of prostate cancer associated with biochemical changes also found in CFS. When her team analysed blood taken from 101 CFS patients, 68 of them tested positive for XMRV genes, compared with just eight out of 218 healthy controls (Science, DOI: 10.1126/science. 1179052). Mikovits says her team has found antibodies against XMRV in 95 per cent of nearly 300 patients tested.
–Shooting satellites?–
Flu vaccine spurned
“In a survey of UK nurses, 47 per cent said they would not get vaccinated, up from 31 per cent in August” Children are also at the top of the vaccine list; in the US summer outbreak, the age group most hospitalised was children under 4. Yet 40 per cent of US parents say 6 | NewScientist | 17 October 2009
MICHAEL REYNOLDS/EPA/CORBIS
they won’t vaccinate their kids, according to a poll by the VACCINATION against swine flu University of Michigan. has started in the US and will soon Many parents and health begin in Europe, but many of workers argue that swine flu is not those who should be first in line dangerous enough to justify the are having second thoughts. potential side effects of a vaccine, Healthcare workers are a top but this week there were fresh priority for vaccination because warnings that the virus can cause they can infect vulnerable people serious illness. In Canada and and because their services are Mexico respectively, 17 per cent vital in a pandemic. Yet in a survey and 41 per cent of people admitted of UK nurses last week, 47 per to intensive care with the virus cent said they would not get have died. In Mexico, half had no vaccinated. Meanwhile, British underlying health problems; in hospital bosses quizzed by The Canada 70 per cent had no major Guardian newspaper claim that as illness beforehand. few as 10 per cent of staff will have the shot. In the US, many hospital employees are protesting against rules saying they must be vaccinated or lose their jobs.
ALL in the mind, or all in a virus? Chronic fatigue syndrome, once dismissed as “yuppie flu”, has been linked to a virus that is also common in people with a certain type of prostate cancer. It’s still not clear if the virus, called XMRV, causes chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), or is just more common in people with the disorder. But the discovery has reignited debate over whether CFS is psychological or physiological. A team led by Judy Mikovits at the Whittemore Peterson Institute
Lunar let-down “I THINK we’re all a little bit disappointed that we didn’t see anything.” David Morrison, director of NASA’s Lunar Science Institute, summed up the collective thoughts of everyone who watched NASA crash a rocket into the moon on 9 October. NASA deliberately crashed its LCROSS spacecraft into the lunar surface about 4 minutes after the rocket. It was looking for water –Nothing to see here– and other molecules as it flew
UPFRONT
Laser rules ‘stop science’ COULD astronomers accidentally knock out satellites? That’s the worry of the US air force, which restricts the use of lasers that help focus telescopes. Now some astronomers warn they will miss key observations under the rules. Many large observatories, including Keck and Gemini North in Hawaii, use lasers to determine the amount of turbulence in the atmosphere, which distorts images. Shape-shifting mirrors on the telescopes can then compensate to reduce blurring. Since a direct laser hit on a satellite could damage its optics, the US air force’s Space Command has for years restricted when and where US observatories can fire them, with little impact on astronomy. Then two years ago, just as kinks in the laser technology were being ironed out,
the rules were tightened. Now, with astronomers eager to use the lasers more, the restrictions are beginning to chafe. “Significant negative impacts of these new restrictions on scientific productivity are being felt,” says a report by the US Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, based in Washington DC. The restricted zones are now so large that they can rule out observations even when a satellite is below the horizon, the report says. This results in half to two-thirds of the objects astronomers would like to view with laser assistance on a given night being off-limits, the report adds. And for short-lived phenomena like gamma-ray bursts, there is no second chance.
Virus in the frame
in Reno, Nevada, investigated whether XMRV might be linked to CFS after the virus was reported in 2006 to be present in patients with a form of prostate cancer associated with biochemical changes also found in CFS. When her team analysed blood taken from 101 CFS patients, 68 of them tested positive for XMRV genes, compared with just eight out of 218 healthy controls (Science, DOI: 10.1126/science. 1179052). Mikovits says her team has found antibodies against XMRV in 95 per cent of nearly 300 patients tested.
–Shooting satellites?–
Flu vaccine spurned
“In a survey of UK nurses, 47 per cent said they would not get vaccinated, up from 31 per cent in August” Children are also at the top of the vaccine list; in the US summer outbreak, the age group most hospitalised was children under 4. Yet 40 per cent of US parents say 6 | NewScientist | 17 October 2009
MICHAEL REYNOLDS/EPA/CORBIS
they won’t vaccinate their kids, according to a poll by the VACCINATION against swine flu University of Michigan. has started in the US and will soon Many parents and health begin in Europe, but many of workers argue that swine flu is not those who should be first in line dangerous enough to justify the are having second thoughts. potential side effects of a vaccine, Healthcare workers are a top but this week there were fresh priority for vaccination because warnings that the virus can cause they can infect vulnerable people serious illness. In Canada and and because their services are Mexico respectively, 17 per cent vital in a pandemic. Yet in a survey and 41 per cent of people admitted of UK nurses last week, 47 per to intensive care with the virus cent said they would not get have died. In Mexico, half had no vaccinated. Meanwhile, British underlying health problems; in hospital bosses quizzed by The Canada 70 per cent had no major Guardian newspaper claim that as illness beforehand. few as 10 per cent of staff will have the shot. In the US, many hospital employees are protesting against rules saying they must be vaccinated or lose their jobs.
ALL in the mind, or all in a virus? Chronic fatigue syndrome, once dismissed as “yuppie flu”, has been linked to a virus that is also common in people with a certain type of prostate cancer. It’s still not clear if the virus, called XMRV, causes chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), or is just more common in people with the disorder. But the discovery has reignited debate over whether CFS is psychological or physiological. A team led by Judy Mikovits at the Whittemore Peterson Institute
Lunar let-down “I THINK we’re all a little bit disappointed that we didn’t see anything.” David Morrison, director of NASA’s Lunar Science Institute, summed up the collective thoughts of everyone who watched NASA crash a rocket into the moon on 9 October. NASA deliberately crashed its LCROSS spacecraft into the lunar surface about 4 minutes after the rocket. It was looking for water –Nothing to see here– and other molecules as it flew