Dutch database aims to give voice to dying languages

Munich

An ambitious attempt to create multimedia records of dying languages was launched last week by the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmwegen, the Netherlands. Researchers plan to create a database containing sound and video recordings of rare languages being spoken.

The Volkswagen Foundation, a Hanover-based charity, has provided 3.5 million euros (US$3.1 million) to fund 12 three-year projects. “Comparable information has only been available here and there, or in written form,” says Martin Haspelmath, a linguist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.

Two-thirds of the world's 6,500 known languages are spoken by fewer than 5,000 people. For example, the Indian Wichita language in Colorado is now used by only 10 people.

→ http://www.mpi.nl/DOBES

European satellite tracking system jostles for position

Barcelona

Galileo, Europe's alternative to the Global Positioning System (GPS), has finally been given the go-ahead by the European Union. The system, which will consist of 30 satellites, will primarily be used for transport and communications. Possible scientific applications include tectonics and climate research, flood management and long-term observation of animal movements.

The system will reduce Europe's reliance on the GPS, which is primarily run by the United States. Arguments over how to meet the project's costs — some 3.5 billion euros (US$3.1 billion) — had threatened to derail the endeavour, but leaders of European Union's members reached agreement at a summit last week in Barcelona.

A joint European organization will oversee the construction of the satellites, which are due to be operational by 2008, in collaboration with the European Space Agency. The United States, which had criticized the project as superfluous, has nonetheless asked to participate in it to ensure that Galileo is compatible with the GPS.

→ http://www.galileo-pgm.org

'Big dead lizard' is named and shamed

Washington

Entomologist Michael Ivie says that his new name for the dinosaur formerly known as Syntarsus was meant as a joke. But his choice of Megapnosaurus, which means 'big dead lizard', has not amused palaeontologists.

Ivie, based at Montana State University in Bozeman, renamed Syntarsus after realizing that a beetle discovered in 1869 already had the same name. Following recognized taxonomy guidelines, Ivie issued a correction and attempted to inform the discoverer of Syntarsus, Mike Raath of the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.

But palaeontologists were not impressed. Some pointed out that the name is inaccurate, as Syntarsus was not big by dinosaur standards, and others have disputed Ivie's right to rename it.

The controversy highlights problems with duplicate names. Thousands of biological species are thought to share the same names, and a recent paper (J. Alroy, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences; 10.1073/pnas.062691099; 2002) suggests that this and other taxonomy problems may have led to overestimates of global diversity.

Taste of success in search for oral smallpox drug

Prague

Hopes for the development of an easy-to-take smallpox drug were set to receive a boost with the announcement by virologists of a treatment that can be taken orally.

Researchers at the International Conference on Antiviral Research in Prague were expected to reveal this week that hexadecyloxypropyl-cidofovir (HDP-CDV) protects mice against cowpox, a relative of smallpox. The drug also protects cultured human cells against smallpox.

The treatment has not yet been tested for safety in people, but John Huggins of the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases in Fort Detrick, Maryland, says he is optimistic that it will prove to be safe and effective in humans. Once in the body, HDP-CDV is converted into the drug cidofovir, which is thought to be a safe smallpox treatment but which must be administered by injection.

Crop pioneer to lead non-nuclear family

New Delhi

Indian geneticist Monkombu Sambasivan Swaminathan is to lead the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, the influential nuclear non-proliferation group that was launched nearly 50 years ago by Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell.

Swaminathan's work on crop genetics and sustainable agriculture has played an important role in helping to improve India's food supply over the past 40 years. He is currently chairman of the M. S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, a non-profit organization based in Chennai that works to promote sustainable development.

Swaminathan, who is the first Indian to lead Pugwash, was elected as its head last week at the 51st Pugwash Conference in Agra, India. The outgoing president, Michael Atiyah, said that Swaminathan's election would help to expand Pugwash's agenda into areas relating to health and welfare.

Germans up in arms over shotgun technique award

Munich

Some German scientists played party-pooper last week after Craig Venter, former president of Maryland-based Celera Genomics, won the prestigious Paul Ehrlich Prize. Venter won the award for developing the 'shotgun' method of mapping genetic sequences and using it to map the human genome.

Helmut Blöcker of the German Research Centre for Biotechnology in Braunschweig, one of the German Human Genome Project's coordinators, told the German Press Agency that the award was “unjustified”. He claims that the shotgun method is flawed and that the sequencing technique used by Venter was not new.

Many biologists feel that the sequencing of the human genome warrants a Nobel prize, but it is unclear whether both the public and the private projects will be so honoured. The Nobel committee will also have to decide how to deal with the rule that stipulates that a maximum of three people can receive the prize.