‘Peer miles’ could makereviewers fly through workLondon Punctual reviewing of grantproposals will earn researchers points andtheir departments prizes, under a newincentive scheme to be launched in Britain.Already dubbed ‘peer miles’ by some, thescheme will award cash to the departments ofresearchers who deliver assessment reportson time, suggest alternative reviewers andattend meetings.

The Engineering and Physical SciencesResearch Council (EPSRC), a government-funded grant-awarding body, expects to giveaway about £750,000 (US$1 million) to itsreviewers during the scheme’s one-year trial.

“The sums involved aren’t vast, but bigdepartments could perhaps get up to£20,000,” says David Clark, director ofresearch and innovation at the EPSRC, whoadmits that the idea is “borrowed from airmiles and supermarket loyalty schemes”.

Nobel laureates backstem-cell researchWashington Eighty Nobel laureates wrote toUS President George W. Bush last weekasking him to continue federal support forembryonic stem-cell research. Researchershave until 15 March to apply for funds for

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European biologyservice gets publicbackingParis The European Commission hasapproved a grant of 2.4 million euros(U$2.2 million) over three years to helpdevelop a Europe-based global biologicalinformation service.

E-Biosci, as the service is to be called, willbe a European counterpart to the PubMedservice run by the US National Center forBiotechnology Information. It will linkliterature, gene and protein databases andother biological resources, and is scheduledto open in July.

The service was initially proposed by theEuropean Molecular Biology Organization(EMBO) in response to US plans to createPubMed Central, a free website for life-science papers (see Nature 401, 413; 1999).

NSF to support botanists incoordinating genome work San Francisco The National ScienceFoundation (NSF) has said it will support awide network of botanists in efforts tocoordinate future plant genome research.

The network, announced at last month’sannual meeting of the American Association

for the Advancement of Science, will becharged with agreeing on the most importantplants to target for genome sequencing. Itswork should also help the NSF to selectresearch projects in plant genetics andevolution, participants say.

The NSF will grant $500,000 to thenetwork, which will be called Deep Gene,over five years. It also announced acompanion project, called Deep Time, toexamine fossil records and correlate themwith discoveries from plant genetics.

Animal-lab directorinjured in attackLondon The managing director of a UKresearch laboratory targeted by animal-rightsprotesters was attacked last week by threemasked assailants wielding baseball bats.

Brian Cass, head of Huntingdon LifeSciences (HLS), was attacked as he arrived athis home in St Ives, Cambridgeshire. Policesay they have no doubt the attack was linkedto his involvement with animal experiments.

Cass was beaten about the head and upperbody and needed several stitches in a headwound. A passer-by who tried to help himwas sprayed in the face with CS gas. Animalrights groups, including Stop HuntingdonAnimal Cruelty which has led the HLSprotests, condemned the attack.

© 2001 Macmillan Magazines Ltd

stem-cell research, but fear that Bush mayban the research before then.

The US National Institutes of Health lastyear approved guidelines for governmentfunding of stem-cell research, but not theirderivation from human embryos. Insteadthe cells have to be extracted from ‘left over’embryos created during in vitro fertilization.Anti-abortion groups have lobbied againstthe work, and the Bush administration hashinted that it will reverse the decision.

The letter echoes the stance of patientgroups who back embryonic stem-cellresearch because of its potential to treatdisease.

Centres to study threat ofillegal aliens in the waterWashington Two major US ecological researchcentres are launching a new collaboration tostudy the threat of non-indigenous aquaticspecies in US waters.

The Smithsonian Environmental ResearchCenter in Edgewater, Maryland, and theFlorida Caribbean Science Center run by theUS Geological Survey (USGS) are teaming upto research non-native plants, animals andmicroorganisms in US ecosystems. TheUSGS believes invasive species are the secondbiggest threat to native biodiversity, after lossof habitat.

The collaboration will make use of anexisting USGS database on invasive species infreshwater species and the Smithsonian’sdata on non-native organisms brought intoUS waters by ballast water used on ships.

Mouse cancer modelrepository opensWashington The US National CancerInstitute’s mouse cancer model repositoryhas declared itself open for business.

Located at the Cancer Research Center inFrederick, Maryland, the repository hasbreeder pairs of two strains available, andplans to add 30 more strains by the end of theyear. Researchers have been invited to submitstrains and suggest desirable ones. Samplesof less popular strains will be cryopreserved.➧ http://web.ncifcrf.gov/researchresources/mmhcc/

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Very short flight of NASA’slong-duration balloonSydney A NASA project to study cosmicradiation is on hold after a giant data-gathering balloon sprang a leak just hoursafter being launched on its maiden flight lastweekend. The inappropriately named UltraLong Duration Balloon was brought down byremote control. NASA scientists are now

trying to figure out what went wrong.The 60-metre-wide balloon, which is seen

as a potentially cheap alternative to satellites,should have circumnavigated the globe fortwo weeks, skimming along the top of theEarth’s atmosphere. NASA is hoping tolaunch a replacement balloon within a week.

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Correction: The News item “BSE crisis sinksGerman public biotech programme” (Nature409, 549; 2001) quoted Andreas Tierfelder,spokesman for the German subsidiary ofMonsanto, as saying that the cancellation of theprogramme “is a substantial loss of image to ourbusiness”. Nature accepts that Monsanto doesnot view its image to have been damaged in anyway. Monsanto intends to participate in theprogramme, if it continues at a later date.

Grounded: what burst NASA’s big balloon?

© 2001 Macmillan Magazines Ltd