International physics centre gets new director

A physics institute with a mission to promote science in developing countries last week welcomed its new director, physicist Atish Dabholkar.

The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), based in Trieste, Italy, was founded in 1964 by Pakistani physicist Abdus Salam, the first Muslim Nobel laureate in science. It has since provided scholarships and networking opportunities for some 165,000 scientists from 188 countries — 25% of them women in 2018.

Along with oversight of 60 research programmes, previous director Fernando Quevedo opened satellite centres in Rwanda, China, Brazil and Mexico.

Italy provides around 80% of the ICTP’s €26-million (US$29-million) yearly budget. Quevedo says that, from 2020, Italy-based ICTP researchers will for the first time be eligible for European Research Council grants.

Dabholkar previously headed the ICTP’s high-energy physics section. He comes from a family of intellectuals in India, inspired by rebuilding the nation after it gained independence in 1947. “Growing up in India gave me a certain sense of commitment and a perspective about a broad cross-section of the society,” he says.

Atish Dabholkar is the ICTP's new director.Credit: Roberto Barnaba, ICTP Photo Archives

Chemistry publisher finds gender imbalance

Women are less likely than men to get papers accepted for publication in chemistry journals, an analysis of more than 700,000 manuscripts has found.

The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) analysed the given names of authors who submitted to its journals between January 2014 and July 2018, in an effort to determine their gender. Almost 36% of authors were women, but only 23% of accepted papers had female corresponding authors.

The analysis, published on 5 November, also found that when women do publish, their papers get fewer citations on average than do those with male corresponding authors. And although papers with male corresponding authors cite more articles than do those led by women, they are less likely to cite papers with female corresponding authors.

The RSC, based in London, concluded that there is “a complex interaction of subtle biases occurring throughout the publishing pipeline, which combine to put women at a disadvantage when disseminating their research”.

Source: RSC

Elusive Vietnam mouse deer ‘rediscovered’

Meet two of Vietnam’s silver-backed chevrotains. Once thought lost to science, the animal has been found again, an international research team reports. Images of the species gathered by the team in forests near the city of Nha Trang are the first scientific evidence of the small, hoofed mammal in nearly 30 years. The deer-like creature was described in 1910 from four specimens, but since then there has been only one verifiable account, in the early 1990s. The Red List of Threatened Species maintained by the International Union for Conservation of Nature classifies the silver-backed chevrotain (Tragulus versicolor) as ‘data deficient’. But, in a paper published on 11 November, conservationist Andrew Tilker at Global Wildlife Conservation, a non-governmental organization in Austin, Texas, and his colleagues report that they obtained a total of 280 photographs of the creature during two separate periods between late 2017 and mid-2018 (A. Nguyen et al. Nature Ecol. Evol. http://doi.org/dd2d; 2019). Tilker says people living near the forests were aware of the silver-backed chevrotain’s existence, and helped the researchers to plant camera traps in places the animal was likely to visit.

Credit: SIE/GWC/Leibniz-IZW/NCNP

Next FDA chief will face several crises

For more than two years, Stephen Hahn has helped to run one of the world’s leading cancer research and treatment centres, steering it through a financial crisis and contending with a scathing government report on safety lapses at one of its facilities.

On 5 November, US President Donald Trump nominated the radiation oncologist to lead the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The Senate has yet to confirm the nomination. If it does, Hahn — who is currently chief medical executive of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston — could bring welcome stability to the agency as it faces an onslaught of challenges.

The FDA is at the centre of a national debate over e-cigarettes, prompted by a mysterious vaping-related illness that has made more than 2,000 people sick — 39 of whom have died. As a result, lawmakers are questioning the FDA’s lenient regulation of the burgeoning industry. And the ongoing epidemic of prescription-opioid abuse has left open questions over how best to treat people who are addicted, and how to prevent others from following in their footsteps.

If the Senate confirms Hahn’s nomination, he will become the FDA’s fifth leader — three of his predecessors were interim heads — since the start of Trump’s administration in 2017.

Stephen Hahn (pictured) has fewer industry ties than former US Food and Drug Administration chief Scott Gottlieb, who resigned in April.Credit: The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center

Plan for post-Brexit UK science funder takes shape

The United Kingdom should boost funding for basic research and create an equivalent of the prestigious European Research Council (ERC) if the country doesn’t remain part of the European Union’s flagship research-funding programme after it leaves the bloc.

That’s the conclusion of an independent review that looked at how UK science could adapt and collaborate internationally after Brexit, which is now scheduled for 31 January 2020.

UK researchers have long been successful in EU research programmes, but the United Kingdom’s future relationship with the EU — and the funding programme, Horizon Europe — remain uncertain.

The report on alternatives was commissioned in March by UK science minister Chris Skidmore, and published on 5 November. It says that if the country does not “associate” with Horizon Europe, which would give it a status similar to that of EU members, the government should replace lost research funding at its current level. That amounts to around £1.5 billion (US$1.9 billion) a year, says the report, authored by Adrian Smith, director of the Alan Turing Institute in London, and Graeme Reid, chair of science and research policy at University College London.

Reid and Smith also propose the creation of the ERC equivalent. This would award long-running and large grants to exceptional researchers, and be overseen by a panel of international scientists. “We thought the ERC was a really elegant funding scheme,” says Reid.

UK science minister Chris Skidmore commissioned an independent report on how the country’s research landscape might change after Brexit.Credit: Wiktor Szymanowicz/Barcroft Media/Getty

US begins process to exit climate pact

US secretary of state Michael Pompeo submitted the paperwork on 4 November to officially withdraw the United States from the 2015 Paris climate agreement.

The move comes as little surprise: President Donald Trump had said in June 2017 that he intended to pull the United States out of the global pact, arguing that remaining would harm the country’s economic competitiveness.

Scientists and conservationists have blasted the move. “President Trump’s decision to walk away from the Paris Agreement is irresponsible and short-sighted,” said Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy at the advocacy group the Union of Concerned Scientists in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in a statement.

Pompeo submitted the paperwork on the earliest possible day a country could notify the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) of its intention to leave. The actual withdrawal will take effect on 4 November 2020 — one day after the US election that will determine whether Trump gets a second four-year term as president. Countries can rejoin the pact 30 days after notifying the UNFCCC of their intentions, according to the World Resources Institute, an environmental think tank in Washington DC.