Peña quits job as US energy secretary after just 15 months

washington

Credit: US DOE

Federico Peña (left), the US Secretary of Energy, announced this week that he will resign on 30 June after spending only 15 months at the helm of the department, which sponsors most US physics research.

A former mayor of Denver, Colorado, and Secretary of Transportation in the first administration of President Bill Clinton, Peña says he is leaving to spend more time with his family. He will quit politics and return to the private sector. He cites among his main achievements “addressing the management crisis at the Brookhaven National Laboratory and recruiting a solid team of managers at the department”.

Peña's sacking of Brookhaven's contractor irritated some scientists (see Nature 387, 114; 1997). But the community applauded his appointment of Ernest Moniz, formerly chair of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as under-secretary of energy with responsibility for science and technology.

A short tenure had been anticipated ever since Peña was unexpectedly given the job ahead of Elizabeth Moler, who became his deputy. Peña said nothing to dispel rumours that Moler is in line to succeed him.

Spain boosts the number of research jobs at last

munich

The Spanish government, after months of delay, has announced 65 new posts for junior researchers in the institutes of its national research council. A further 48 posts for senior researchers will also be provided through internal promotion.

On top of these increases, 55 additional positions for junior researchers are to be made available, but it is not yet clear if these will be permanent and who will be entitled to apply for them.

The promised increase in staffing comes as a welcome break for the hundreds of Spanish postdoctoral staff who trained abroad but returned home to broken promises of an expansion in research positions.

UK inquiry into genetic engineering of crops

london

The UK's Nuffield Council on Bioethics has launched an inquiry into the social, ethical and regulatory issues raised by the genetic modification of crops. A nine-member working party is to be chaired by Alan Ryan, warden of New College, Oxford. Its members include Derek Burke, former vice-chancellor of the University of East Anglia and a former government adviser on genetically modified foods, Julie Hill of the Green Alliance, and Derek Osborn, who recently retired as permanent secretary at the Department of the Environment.

The working party will consider the safety and environmental impact of genetically modified crops, as well as implications for developing countries and intellectual property rights. Its final report is expected early next year.

Bill promises tax windfall for biomedical agency

washington

Americans would be able to direct their income tax overpayments to biomedical research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) under a bill introduced by Representative Michael Bilirakis (Republican, Florida). Bilirakis chairs the health and environment subcommittee of the House of Representatives commerce committee.

Donations would be tax-deductible, and would add to NIH funding routinely appropriated by Congress. The bill is the latest in a flurry of proposed laws — mostly related to a proposed $368 billion settlement with the tobacco industry — that aim to direct extra money to the agency.

‘Red list’ names 33,000 plants under threat

london

More than 10 per cent of the world's known plants are under threat of extinction, according to an inventory of threatened plants published yesterday (8 April) by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. The ‘red list’ of threatened plants contains 33,000 species of vascular plants — ferns, gymnosperms and flowering plants.

The list has been compiled by the World Conservation Monitoring Centre in Cambridge. It is the result of a 15-year collaboration of botanical institutions and conservation organizations from around the world. The list will be put on the Internet (http://www.wcmc.org.uk), and will be used to set priorities in biodiversity conservation programmes.

Call for study of Europe's marine biodiversity

paris

A major European effort is needed to describe and characterize marine biodiversity, and to quantify its economic importance. That is one of the recommendations of the European Science Action Plan on Marine Biodiversity, which is to be released by the European Marine and Polar Science Boards, a body set up under the auspices of the European Science Foundation (ESF) and representing most of Europe's marine research organizations (see Nature 377, 469; 1995 & 392, 323; 1998).

The report claims that the understanding of marine biodiversity lags far behind that of terrestrial biodiversity. This means that the science needed to underpin conservation and sustainable use of marine resources is badly lacking.

The action plan will be submitted to the ESF and the European Commission. One member of the panel that prepared the report says it is hoped that it will stimulate new research programmes, especially under the commission's fifth Framework programme which starts in 1999.

US companies ‘passed rocket secrets to China’

london

Two US companies that helped China with the launch of a satellite-bearing rocket are to be investigated by a US federal grand jury for the possible transfer of unauthorized technologies. The companies, Loral Space and Communications and Hughes Electronics Corporation, helped China to review the circumstances of the failure of a rocket carrying a Loral-built satellite in 1996.

US officials believe that the companies may have helped the Chinese to improve their rocket-guidance systems. This technology is known to be similar to the technology used to guide ballistic missiles. But, in a potential twist to the case, it has emerged that President Bill Clinton authorized Loral to launch a satellite aboard another Chinese rocket during an official investigation of the company's role in advising the Chinese on the failure of their earlier launch.

Japan puts blame for food poisoning on US

tokyo

Japan's Ministry of Health and Welfare announced last week that food poisoning outbreaks caused by the O157 strain of the Escherichia coli bacterium in July 1996 (see Nature 382, 567; 1996) were caused by radish sprout seeds imported from the United States. According to the ministry, genetic material unique to the bacterium was found in imported seeds.

Although the bacterium itself has not been detected, officials believe the evidence is strong enough to suggest that radish sprouts are the cause of food poisoning. But the US embassy and Japan's Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry remain unconvinced. The embassy contends that genetic material detected in the seeds could be from a different strain of E. coli that does not cause illnesses.