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Meningitis vaccine to be distributed through Africa
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Hoist the mainsail
large carnivores the effect was five times as great (Biology Letters, DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2010.0996). “For large predators, it’s more important to protect their prey,” agrees Guillaume Chapron of the Grimsö Wildlife Research Station in Sweden. Ecologist Nick Isaac at the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Wallingford, UK, adds that we need to know whether a lack of food is as big a threat as poaching. In St Petersberg, money rather than food was pledged to save the species: the Wildlife Conservation Society promised $5 million a year, while actor Leonardo DiCaprio pledged $1 million.
60 Seconds
led by the Planetary Society, a space advocacy group in California. NASA’s original NanoSail-D suffered the same fate when its Falcon 1 launcher failed in 2008.
MORE than two years after a rocket failure destroyed NASA’s NanoSail-D solar sail, the agency last week launched a spare into orbit. If it unfurls as planned over “If NanoSail-D unfurls as the coming days, it will be the planned over the coming first NASA sail to open in space. days, it will be the first Solar sails are designed to be NASA sail to open in space” propelled by the pressure of sunlight. They have the potential But this year the winds of to carry spacecraft vast distances fortune seem to have shifted. without fuel, but for years, In May, Japan launched a solar sail attempts to test them in orbit called IKAROS which succeeded in have run into stormy weather. exploiting sunlight to propel and In 2001 and 2005, launch failures steer itself. wrecked two solar sail missions
Carbon emissions buck recession
Meningitis assault
Jianan Yu/Reuters
THOUSANDS of deaths could be WHILE rich countries were cutting back their emissions during the saved every year when the first recent recession, China and India vaccine produced specifically for Africa is rolled out in Burkina Faso sailed through with no pause in their output of greenhouse gases – one on 6 December. MenAfriVac will more sign that developing economies be offered to 12.5 million people are having an increasing influence on aged 1 to 29 in the country to global temperatures. protect against meningitis A, According to data compiled by the the variation of the Neisseria Global Carbon Project, carbon dioxide meningitidis bacterium which emissions worldwide dropped 1.3 per predominates in Africa. cent in 2009, compared with 2008. Programmes will also be initiated “That’s about four days of emissions in neighbouring Mali and Niger. out of the year,” says Pierre The vaccine will eventually be Friedlingstein of the University extended to 450 million people in 25 countries across the continent’s of Exeter, UK (Nature Geoscience, DOI: 10.1038/ngeo1022). infamous “meningitis belt”, A year ago, the International stretching from Senegal in the Energy Agency predicted a 3 per cent west to Ethiopia in the east, fall. The drop was less than half that, potentially preventing 50,000 cases per year and 5000 deaths. “The impact will be truly enormous in terms of lives saved and disability prevented,” said Jean-Marie Okwo-Bele, the World Health Organization’s head of vaccines, at a press conference in London this week to launch the five-year assault. Costing less than US$0.5 per shot compared with $120 for the currently available vaccine, MenAfriVac provides protection against meningitis A that is 20 times stronger than any other existing vaccine, and will be provided free, supported by –Chinese industry kept on growing– governments and charities.
because the economies of China and other developing countries continued to grow. These countries emit much more CO2 for every dollar they earn than do developed countries. “The UK is four times more efficient than China, because China is relying on coal and that emits more CO2 per unit of energy,” says Friedlingstein. Despite the only modest fall in emissions, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere increased by just 3.4 gigatonnes, one of the smallest rises in the last decade. Friedlingstein says this was due to land and marine sinks performing better in 2009 because La Niña made the tropics wetter than usual. The team predicts that as the world economy recovers, emissions will grow by 3 per cent in 2010.
Hide and won’t seek Banning displays of cigarettes in shops could help to reduce smoking amongst teenagers. Teens interviewed before and after a 2009 ban on such displays in Ireland were less likely to recall advertising displays, and said fewer of their friends smoked, after the ban (Tobacco Control, DOI: 10.1136/ tc.2010.038141).
HIV decline Over the past decade, the number of new HIV infections worldwide has decreased by 20 per cent, reports the United Nation’s AIDS partnership. The rate of new infections has decreased by more than 25 per cent in 33 of the 63 countries from which they had reliable data, with the success attributed to prevention measures.
Alien worlds The number of planets discovered outside our solar system has passed the 500 mark, according to the Interactive Extrasolar Planets Catalogue. The latest discovery, the fourth giant planet found orbiting the star HR8799, is puzzling astrophysicists as current models can’t explain how all four formed (arxiv.org/abs/1011.4918).
Mexico climate warning All the emissions cuts promised in Copenhagen, Denmark, last year will only get us 60 per cent of the way to avoiding dangerous climate change, says the UN Environment Programme. Their report says countries must go further at the Cancún climate change summit, which begins in Mexico next week.
Heroin shortage A mystery fungus has halved Afghanistan’s opium crop for this year, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. Afghanistan produces 92 per cent of the world’s opium, and the shortage is thought to have forced UK drug dealers to mix heroin with other substances.
27 November 2010 | NewScientist | 7
Hoist the mainsail
large carnivores the effect was five times as great (Biology Letters, DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2010.0996). “For large predators, it’s more important to protect their prey,” agrees Guillaume Chapron of the Grimsö Wildlife Research Station in Sweden. Ecologist Nick Isaac at the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Wallingford, UK, adds that we need to know whether a lack of food is as big a threat as poaching. In St Petersberg, money rather than food was pledged to save the species: the Wildlife Conservation Society promised $5 million a year, while actor Leonardo DiCaprio pledged $1 million.
60 Seconds
led by the Planetary Society, a space advocacy group in California. NASA’s original NanoSail-D suffered the same fate when its Falcon 1 launcher failed in 2008.
MORE than two years after a rocket failure destroyed NASA’s NanoSail-D solar sail, the agency last week launched a spare into orbit. If it unfurls as planned over “If NanoSail-D unfurls as the coming days, it will be the planned over the coming first NASA sail to open in space. days, it will be the first Solar sails are designed to be NASA sail to open in space” propelled by the pressure of sunlight. They have the potential But this year the winds of to carry spacecraft vast distances fortune seem to have shifted. without fuel, but for years, In May, Japan launched a solar sail attempts to test them in orbit called IKAROS which succeeded in have run into stormy weather. exploiting sunlight to propel and In 2001 and 2005, launch failures steer itself. wrecked two solar sail missions
Carbon emissions buck recession
Meningitis assault
Jianan Yu/Reuters
THOUSANDS of deaths could be WHILE rich countries were cutting back their emissions during the saved every year when the first recent recession, China and India vaccine produced specifically for Africa is rolled out in Burkina Faso sailed through with no pause in their output of greenhouse gases – one on 6 December. MenAfriVac will more sign that developing economies be offered to 12.5 million people are having an increasing influence on aged 1 to 29 in the country to global temperatures. protect against meningitis A, According to data compiled by the the variation of the Neisseria Global Carbon Project, carbon dioxide meningitidis bacterium which emissions worldwide dropped 1.3 per predominates in Africa. cent in 2009, compared with 2008. Programmes will also be initiated “That’s about four days of emissions in neighbouring Mali and Niger. out of the year,” says Pierre The vaccine will eventually be Friedlingstein of the University extended to 450 million people in 25 countries across the continent’s of Exeter, UK (Nature Geoscience, DOI: 10.1038/ngeo1022). infamous “meningitis belt”, A year ago, the International stretching from Senegal in the Energy Agency predicted a 3 per cent west to Ethiopia in the east, fall. The drop was less than half that, potentially preventing 50,000 cases per year and 5000 deaths. “The impact will be truly enormous in terms of lives saved and disability prevented,” said Jean-Marie Okwo-Bele, the World Health Organization’s head of vaccines, at a press conference in London this week to launch the five-year assault. Costing less than US$0.5 per shot compared with $120 for the currently available vaccine, MenAfriVac provides protection against meningitis A that is 20 times stronger than any other existing vaccine, and will be provided free, supported by –Chinese industry kept on growing– governments and charities.
because the economies of China and other developing countries continued to grow. These countries emit much more CO2 for every dollar they earn than do developed countries. “The UK is four times more efficient than China, because China is relying on coal and that emits more CO2 per unit of energy,” says Friedlingstein. Despite the only modest fall in emissions, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere increased by just 3.4 gigatonnes, one of the smallest rises in the last decade. Friedlingstein says this was due to land and marine sinks performing better in 2009 because La Niña made the tropics wetter than usual. The team predicts that as the world economy recovers, emissions will grow by 3 per cent in 2010.
Hide and won’t seek Banning displays of cigarettes in shops could help to reduce smoking amongst teenagers. Teens interviewed before and after a 2009 ban on such displays in Ireland were less likely to recall advertising displays, and said fewer of their friends smoked, after the ban (Tobacco Control, DOI: 10.1136/ tc.2010.038141).
HIV decline Over the past decade, the number of new HIV infections worldwide has decreased by 20 per cent, reports the United Nation’s AIDS partnership. The rate of new infections has decreased by more than 25 per cent in 33 of the 63 countries from which they had reliable data, with the success attributed to prevention measures.
Alien worlds The number of planets discovered outside our solar system has passed the 500 mark, according to the Interactive Extrasolar Planets Catalogue. The latest discovery, the fourth giant planet found orbiting the star HR8799, is puzzling astrophysicists as current models can’t explain how all four formed (arxiv.org/abs/1011.4918).
Mexico climate warning All the emissions cuts promised in Copenhagen, Denmark, last year will only get us 60 per cent of the way to avoiding dangerous climate change, says the UN Environment Programme. Their report says countries must go further at the Cancún climate change summit, which begins in Mexico next week.
Heroin shortage A mystery fungus has halved Afghanistan’s opium crop for this year, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. Afghanistan produces 92 per cent of the world’s opium, and the shortage is thought to have forced UK drug dealers to mix heroin with other substances.
27 November 2010 | NewScientist | 7