Thanks for the blast, North Korea

EDITORIAL

Thanks for the blast, North Korea It may sound perverse, but the maverick nuclear state could have done us all a favour

inevitably blow up somewhere, by accident or by design, and meanwhile we need money for schools, farms, clean water and energy so much more than for bombs. How, then, can we curb proliferation? Revive the NPT, for a start. That means the nuclear states must keep their side of the bargain. Encouragingly, Russia and the US are already talking about cutting missiles and fissile material. But the clearest signal would be to bring the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) into force. New nukes need testing, and a test ban would mean that existing nuclear powers are serious about disarmament. The treaty

IS A nuclear explosion ever good news? Well, the test in North Korea this week might just be something to celebrate. Hard to swallow, perhaps: the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) is tottering, countries all over the world “The test is an unmissable reminder that we need to call off the new are acquiring nuclear technology, and Iran nuclear arms race” is enriching uranium. So North Korea tests a second nuclear bomb, and this is a good thing? In a way, yes. For one thing, it was an languishes because the US signed but failed unmissable reminder that we need to call off to ratify it. Congress was convinced both that the new nuclear arms race that is developing. the US needed tests and that other countries And paradoxically it was also a bang-up would secretly break the ban. demonstration that we have technology that The scientific community has already might coax the runners off the starting line. disproved the first argument. Now the North The world can’t put off action much longer. Koreans have reminded us what the treaty’s The 1968 NPT asked countries without nukes verification network long ago proved: we can to forgo them, and in return the five countries prevent cheating. Dedicated seismographs that already had them promised to give them relayed the test’s giveaway vibrations to up – eventually. That second promise has the state-of-the-art CTBT lab in Vienna in obviously not been kept, and after 40 years milliseconds. Detectors are even now sniffing nuclear have-nots are reconsidering the deal – for telltale gases. If someone had tried this in especially as Israel, India, Pakistan and North water or air, CTBT sensors would spot it. Korea have demonstrated that joining the No more excuses. We need this treaty to nuclear club gets you respect. If the NPT review deter anyone else tempted to go nuclear – and conference next year falls apart like the last even more, so that countries might again take one did, the arms race could be unstoppable. the NPT seriously. Feel the shock waves from The risks are huge. Some bomb would North Korea. Ratify the test ban treaty. ■

Just like SARS? We’ll be lucky SWINE flu has faded from the headlines, but not from the world’s hospitals. And it could well get worse as the southern hemisphere enters its winter flu season (see page 4). Yet the World Health Organization is delaying the declaration of a full pandemic, partly to accommodate countries whose pandemic plans are in disarray. The WHO is not underestimating the threat, however, unlike some pundits who claim that swine flu is no more than a “scare, just like SARS”, the virus that frightened the world in 2003. We should be so lucky. It was the scare itself – with its travel warnings, quarantines and public precautions – that eradicated the threat from SARS. No matter who dislikes being “scared” we must prepare for the possibility that swine flu could become much worse. ■

Overselling Ida IT’S a shame when the demands of the media overshadow those of science. The closely managed razzmatazz that accompanied the debut of Ida – the fossil “that could change everything” about our ancestry – ensured that everyone was talking about her for a day or two. But it also meant that no one was allowed to see the relevant paper until after the event, so there was little chance to seek disinterested comment on the researchers’ claim (see page 22). By the time doubts about Ida’s role in our past emerged, the circus had moved on. ■

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30 May 2009 | NewScientist | 3