Horizon 2020: A €80 Billion Battlefield for Open Access

As negotiations proceed to shape the next installment of Europe's gargantuan research funding programs, scientists, librarians, and publishers are eagerly
awaiting the answer to a critical question: How strong will the new 7-year program, called Horizon 2020, be on Open Access (OA)?

The European Commission has said that making the research it funds widely available is one of its priorities; its

proposal for the rules of participation and dissemination in Horizon 2020 says that the program will have "dedicated support to dissemination (including through open access to research results), communication and dialogue
actions" and that "open access shall apply under the terms and conditions laid down in the grant agreement." Last week, the commission's director-general
of research and innovation at the commission, Robert-Jan Smits, said in an interview in the Times Higher Education that open access, which typically involves making research papers freely available within months or a year of publication,
"will be the norm" for research funded through Horizon 2020. "With our €80 billion we can make one hell of a difference," Smits said.

What that will mean exactly is still unclear, however, and the topic of much lobbying and speculation. OA advocates say a clear mandate to make all
E.U.-funded papers publicly available would be hugely significant, and would be another step in what they hope is a complete transition to OA. "We very
much welcome" Smits's comments, says Alma Swan, Director of European Advocacy of SPARC, an international alliance of academic and research libraries
promoting open access.

Horizon 2020, the successor of the current Framework Programme 7 (FP7), will start in 2014 and run through 2020;

the commission has proposed to spend €80 billion on its three themes, dubbed excellent science, industrial leadership, and societal challenges. The entire program, including the budget, will be voted on by the European Parliament and European science ministers in November.

The Brain's Bat Signal

Microglia are the brain's resident security guards, surveilling the organ for damage and then crawling to the injury site to engulf dead neurons. Exactly
how they detect problems was unclear, but researchers now show that they respond to an SOS signal from dying cells that is relayed throughout the brain.
The finding may have implications for the treatment of Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative diseases.

The study builds on previous work in zebrafish. Developmental biologist Francesca Peri of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany,
and colleagues created genetically engineered versions of the animals that produced microglia labelled with green fluorescent protein, a glowing compound
frequently used in laboratory research. Zebrafish embryos have transparent brains, which allowed Peri and her team to track the microglia in real time
under the microscope. The researchers reported in 2008 that the embryonic zebrafish brain is patrolled by about 20 of the cells.

Other researchers have shown that the ability of microglia to engulf dead neurons depends on adenosine triphosphate (ATP), a ubiquitous energy source and
signalling molecule that is released from damaged cells. But ATP is rapidly degraded after being released from cells and cannot act as a long-range signal.

In the new study, Peri and her colleagues used lasers to destroy small numbers of neurons in the genetically modified zebrafish. In response, all the
microglia migrated to the injury site, suggesting that they are indeed attracted by a long-range signal. But what could it be?

Further experiments revealed that injured cells initiate a wave of elevated calcium ion concentration that travels through the brain, and that the
microglia only begin migrating when the wave reaches them. The wave sweeps through the brain at approximately 14 micrometers per second; the microglia turn
their fingerlike appendages in the direction of the wave and then begin migrating toward the injury site within one minute. The spread of the wave was
related to the extent of the damage, so killing fewer cells produced a smaller wave detectable only by microglia in the immediate vicinity.
Adding a drug that blocked the calcium wave prevented microglia from migrating to the injury site, the team reports today in Developmental Cell.

In a final set of experiments, the researchers showed that the calcium waves are generated by a neurotransmitter called glutamate, which is released from
damaged cells. Glutamate activates receptors on neighboring cells, causing them to propagate the wave and release ATP.

Microglial cells may malfunction in neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's disease, and there is some evidence that they worsen the damage caused
by a stroke. The new findings, says Peri, implicate the calcium waves as potential targets for drug treatments. A drug could stop microglia in their
tracks, for example, or reroute their migration.

The findings provide "a convincing explanation of how dying neurons attract microglia," says Frank Kirchhoff, a glia physiologist at the University of
Saarland in Homburg, Germany, who was not involved in the study. He cautions, however, that the experiments should be repeated in mammals. Still, says
neurophysiologist Alexej Verkhratsky of the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom, the microglial response to brain injury in zebrafish is
"strikingly similar to that of mammals," suggesting that what Peri and her team observed is applicable to humans.

Kirchhoff is skeptical, however, that the calcium wave could be a drug target. Calcium is a "promiscuous" signal used by all cells for a wide variety of
processes, he notes, and thus drugs that target it could have major side effects. And despite the utility of the zebrafish model for sussing out how
microglia work, drug researchers are going to have to look elsewhere, says Verkhratsky. "[They're] limited as a disease model, because neurodegeneration
does not occur in fish."

Homegrown Organic Matter Found on Mars, But No Life

When Curiosity, NASA's next Mars rover, arrives at the Red Planet on 6 August, it will be searching for the ancient remains of environments that could have supported microscopic life eons ago. The rover will also be checking for a particular kind of fossil: molecular traces of long-dead life. But a discovery announced online this week in Science will add another layer of complexity to the interpretation of any geochemical markers of past life that Curiosity may find. Researchers have discovered organic matter encased in once-molten martian rocks, demonstrating that the planet has been producing its own organic matter for eons with no help from life.

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How Many Stars Never Make the Big Time?

Becoming a star can be a challenge. But new observations reveal that it's much easier in space than in Hollywood. Only about 14% of all aspiring celestial
stars fizzle out, researchers report.

In principle, it's easy to deduce how many stars succeed: just compare the numbers of normal stars with the number of failed stars, also known as brown
dwarfs. These flops are born with less than 8% of the sun's mass, so their centers never heat up enough to sustain the nuclear fusion of hydrogen-1, the
isotope that powers so-called main-sequence stars like the sun. Most brown dwarfs do burn hydrogen-2, or deuterium, but it soon runs out, and all nuclear
reactions cease. When young, a brown dwarf glows red—chiefly from the heat of its birth—and then cools and fades as it ages. That makes them hard to
find—and thus hard to know whether they're rare or as plentiful as full-fledged stars.

Astronomer J. Davy Kirkpatrick of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena and colleagues decided to take a look at infrared wavelengths, where
the objects emit most of their radiation. The team used NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) spacecraft, launched in late 2009, to detect
brown dwarfs near the sun, some of which have cooled to room temperature. WISE spotted 16 previously unknown brown dwarfs within 26 light-years of Earth.
As the astronomers will report in the 10 July issue of The Astrophysical Journal, comparing the number of brown dwarfs with the number of
full-fledged stars suggests that the solar neighborhood has one failed star for every six success stories.

"It was surprising to me," says Kirkpatrick, who had expected to find far more brown dwarfs. If they were more common, one might reside even closer than
Alpha Centauri, the nearest star system to the sun. "It's a lot less likely we're going to find any brown dwarf that's that close." The two nearest known
brown dwarfs orbit Epsilon Indi, a star 11.8 light-years away, which is nearly three times farther from Earth than Alpha Centauri.

Astronomer Aleks Scholz of the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies says the new estimate for the number of brown dwarfs agrees with his team's result
from a very different approach: searching star clusters so young their brown dwarfs haven't had time to fade, making them easier to spot. He and other
astronomers have found an approximately 1:5 ratio between brown dwarfs and normal stars.

However, astronomer Todd Henry of Georgia State University in Atlanta is critical of the new work's conclusion. "I think it's premature," says Henry, who
suspects that many of the brown dwarfs WISE has found are farther away from Earth than claimed. That would mean they are less abundant than the researchers
estimated, and Henry says the ratio of brown dwarfs to normal stars could be anywhere between 1:5 and 1:20.

Is Homeland Security Science Going to the Dogs?

A

2013 spending bill for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) approved this week by a Senate panel includes good news for the agency's science and technology programs. It also tosses a bit of kibble to dog
researchers.

Overall, the $45.2 billion bill (S. 3216) approved on 22 May by the Senate's Committee
on Appropriations would cut DHS's total budget of $46.2 billion by about $1 billion over 2012 levels in the fiscal year that begins 1 October. At the same
time, it would give a $212 million boost to the department's core research programs, boosting their budget to $478 million. That increase reverses deep
cuts that Congress made last year and matches the White House's request made earlier this year. It is also more generous than the $406 million approved
earlier this month by a House of Representatives spending panel.

The Senate included no funds for DHS's proposed National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF) in Manhattan, Kansas, which is expected to cost more than $1
billion. Two government advisory bodies are studying the need, cost, and safety plans for the controversial laboratory, which would carry out research on
dangerous livestock pathogens. In contrast, House appropriators gave NBAF $75 million. The president's budget also withholds any funding.

Radioactive Waste Expert Nominated to Be Top U.S. Nuclear Regulator

President Barack Obama today nominated a geologist and nuclear waste expert with strong ties to academia to be the next head of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC). The choice of Allison Macfarlane, a professor at George Mason University (GMU) in Fairfax, Virginia, is drawing positive reviews from key
members of Congress and both supporters and critics of nuclear power.

If confirmed by the Senate, Macfarlane would replace Gregory Jaczko, a physicist and former aide to Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), the Senate's Majority
Leader. Jaczko announced on 21 May that he would step down following controversy over his management style and policy positions. He had been a
controversial figure since joining the commission in 2005.

"The nuclear energy industry urges the administration to submit her confirmation paperwork as expeditiously as possible," Marvin Fertel, head of the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), an industry group, said in a statement. Macfarlane "has been an active
contributor to policy debates in the nuclear energy field for many years," he added.

ScienceShot: Tippy-Top Target for Next Mars Rover

When NASA's next rover, now dubbed Curiosity, arrives at Mars on 6 August, its prime target will be the base of Mount Sharp, the 5-kilometer-high mound of
sediments in the middle of Gale crater. Mars researchers have no idea how those sediments got there. But a pair of geologists is now suggesting that at
least

the top third of Mount Sharp is volcanic ash that fell out of the sky surprisingly early in Mars's history. The so-called Medusae Fossae Formation (left) covers a third of the martian equatorial region, some patches of it being near Gale crater. Orbital imaging
suggests it is ash from massive eruptions. It bears a striking resemblance to layered deposits high up Mount Sharp (right), the researchers note online
today in Science. By counting accumulated impact craters, the team has also found that the two deposits were laid down at about the same time, 3.8
billion years ago. If they are indeed one in the same deposit, Curiosity could probe beneath the thin coating of dust that obscures all of the deposit and
confirm its true nature. That's assuming the rover survives long enough to range far up the mysterious mound.

See more ScienceShots.

Military's Plan to Buy Biofuels Hits Roadblock in U.S. House

The U.S. House of Representatives last week blocked the Department of Defense from buying more costly substitutes for petroleum-based fuels. The ban, if enacted, would not only throw a monkey wrench into the military's plans to go green but also stunt commercial development of a homegrown source of transportation fuel.

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Will a Volcano Erupt? The Answer's in the Crystals

Active volcanoes often send out signals advertising that they are awake: small earthquakes and venting gasses usually aren't good news. But often, the
messages aren't clear. Now, researchers have another tool to help predict when a volcano may blow. A new study shows that chemical patterns in volcanic
crystals match up with patterns in volcanic earthquake and gas recordings—giving scientists a chance to save thousands of lives before it's too late.

Tiny volcanic crystals, often just 50 to 100 micrometers across, float suspended in magma, the ultrahot mix of molten rock and dissolved gases that can
rise beneath volcanoes. Many of these crystals have concentric bands that look like tree rings. Events like a new pulse of hot magma into the chamber— like that which can precede an eruption—can cause elements inside a crystal, such as iron and magnesium, to migrate toward the crystal's core or toward
its edges, creating new rings. Once a minor eruption preceding the main event spews a crystal-bearing magma above ground, it all solidifies and locks in
the record of the volcano's past, which geologists studying the threat from the volcano can collect and interpret.

Kate Saunders, a volcanologist at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom, wondered whether the crystals could also be used to predict the future.
She and colleagues studied a mineral crystal called orthopyroxene from Mount St. Helens in Washington. The active volcano erupted catastrophically on 18
May 1980, and continued to produce smaller eruptions through October of 1986. The team characterized the chemical patterns of 98 crystals collected over
the course of the eruptions and compared those patterns with records of earthquakes and gas release that other researchers collected during this same time
period.

Crystals start to build up a year prior to eruptions and peak just before an explosion happens, the team reports online today in Science. Crystals with magnesium-rich rims and iron-rich cores, which signify heating from the intrusion of new
magma, were associated with deep earthquakes. A spike in these magnesium-rimmed crystals also occurred just prior to the massive 18 May eruption,
indicating that pulses of new magma preceded the blast. Crystals with iron-rich rims and magnesium-rich cores, which form when the magma is degassing and
cooling, corresponded with peaks in sulfur dioxide gas release. These crystals peaked prior to later eruptions at Mount St. Helens.

Knowing how the chemical fingerprints of crystals link up with other recorded signals will help scientists read a volcano's past to better interpret its
future warning signs, says Saunders. "We can tell if we expect to see new pulses of magma, or if we expect the magma to sit there and degas, and we can
start to work out what signs we should be looking for in the monitoring data" to predict eruptions.

"It's a neat package, the fact that they can work backwards with these crystals to nail down the timing of magmatic [activity]," says Carl Thornber, a
volcanologist with the United States Geological Survey at the Cascades Volcano Observatory in Vancouver, Washington. "It gives us much more solid
information to interpret what's going on down below, and how to interpret all the measurements we're making."

"The technique can be transferred to any volcano," Saunders says. Scientists can't monitor the moving and shaking of every volcano worldwide, but they can
often collect the products of lesser eruptions, such as these deep-formed crystals, to understand the volcano's behavior. They can also watch for spikes in
the types of crystals that might foretell an explosion. "If we look at these erupted products, we can build up a picture of what's happened and what we
expect to happen if the volcano suddenly reawakes."

Live Chat: Is Nanotechnology the Future of Medicine?

Nanotechnology—the science of manipulating the very, very tiny—could revolutionize medicine. Nanomagnets could fry tumors, for example, and an army of nanosensors within the body could detect the onset of life-threatening infections and diseases. Some of these ideas are already in clinical trials. But how far are they from becoming reality? What are the potential side effects? And what will nanotechnology mean for personalized medicine?

Join us for a live chat at 3 p.m. EDT on Thursday, 24 May, on this page. You can leave your questions in the comment box below before the chat starts. The full text of the chat will be archived on this page

Additional reading:

• Nanotechnology Takes Aim at Cancer (Log-in required)


• Nanoparticle Trojan Horses Gallop From the Lab Into the Clinic (Log-in required)