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NATURE | VOL 416 | 21 MARCH 2002 | www.nature.com 251

Helen Pearson, London The World Health Organization (WHO)has added its voice to the heated debateover when women should start havingmammograms.

The International Agency for Researchon Cancer (IARC) — part of WHO —convened a panel of 24 scientists thismonth to review the available evidence forthe health benefits of mammography.Chaired by Bruce Armstrong of theUniversity of Sydney, the panel concludedthat women aged 50 and over benefit frombreast-cancer screening usingmammograms.

But it fell short of endorsing therecommendation made last month by theUS health department that women over 40should have regular mammograms (seeNature 415, 950; 2002).

Some researchers still question whetherthe total number of lives saved byscreening outweigh those lost as a result oftreatment — even in older women.

But the IARC hopes that its final report,to be published within three months, willhelp to inform policy-makers around theworld who are implementing or refiningscreening programmes. ■

Jim Giles, WashingtonThe future leadership of the Intergovern-mental Panel on Climate Change is up inthe air this week, after the United Statesfailed to renominate Robert Watson, thepanel’s current chair.

Watson’s six-year term as chair of thepanel, which was set up by the UnitedNations in 1988 to establish an internationalconsensus on climate-change research, endsthis year. The panel’s Geneva-based sec-retariat had asked member nations to putforward their nominations for the positionby 15 March.

India’s nomination of Rajendra Pachauri,director of the Tata Energy Research Institutein New Delhi and current vice-chair of thepanel, was the only one to arrive by the dead-line, secretariat officials say. Pachauri is a former adviser to the World Bank and adirector of the Indian Oil Corporation.

Watson, an ecologist who is chief scientistat the World Bank, says that he would be will-ing to serve a second term as chair and that hestill hopes the United States will support hisre-election. Watson was nominated by theUnited States when he was elected in 1996,but observers say that his former role as associate director for environment at

the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy under President Bill Clinton, and his closeness to environmentaladvocacy groups, may dissuade the Bushadministration from nominating him thistime round.

Renate Christ, deputy secretary of thesecretariat, says that there is no clear proce-dure for how nominations should be made,and that the secretariat may continue toaccept nominations up until the election ofthe chair in April. She also points out thatBert Bolin, the Swedish meteorologist whopreceded Watson as chair, was re-elected forhis second term without being renominated.

The panel’s governing body will vote onthe position when it meets in Geneva inApril. It is unclear how member states wouldvote if both Watson and Pachauri stand.Christ says that several countries haveexpressed a desire for Watson to stay on. But some nations may feel that it is time for a representative of a developing nation tohead the panel.

Whoever is elected will have to overseethe panel’s fourth climate-change assess-ment, which is due to be completed over thenext five to seven years. ■

➧ www.ipcc.ch

Missed US nomination leavesclimate post up for grabs

Cash shortfall means time out for physicists

Breast-cancer surveysets screening age for women

Geoff Brumfiel, WashingtonNuclear physicists in the United States have a synchronization problem. Just as much-wanted operating time is becoming availableon major facilities, the physics division of the National Science Foundation (NSF) isrunning out of cash to support theresearchers who want to use the equipment.

This year, the funds available to thephysics division for supporting primaryinvestigator grants have fallen by 11.5%compared with 2001. Given that most of the money is already committed to grantslasting several years, this translates into acut of one-third in the number of new grantsto be awarded in the next couple of months.

Nuclear physicists claim that they will behit especially hard, because they will miss arare opportunity to run their best facilitiesat close to full capacity. Earlier this year, theDepartment of Energy proudly announcedthat the United States’ two largest facilitiesfor nuclear science — the Relativistic HeavyIon Collider at Brookhaven NationalLaboratory in New York state and theContinuous Electron Beam Accelerator

Facility at the Thomas Jefferson NationalAccelerator Facility in Newport News,Virginia — will have their operating timessubstantially increased next year.

The NSF’s physics division will receive a4% budget increase this year. But because of its obligations to run its own facilities inMichigan, Louisiana and Washington state,and its increased grants to larger physicsgroups, the division is facing a sharp cut inthe number of individual researchers it cansupport. “It’s a difficult situation,” concedesJoseph Dehmer, the division’s director.

“It’s going to have a very, veryunfortunate effect,” says Lawrence Cardman,associate director of physics at the Jeffersonlab. Cardman says that over a quarter of thelab’s staff are funded by the NSF, and manywill lose their grants this year. He fears thatyoung scientists will be forced to abandonnuclear physics as a result.

“This is a disastrous situation,” says BahaBalantekin of the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Most graduate students aresupported by primary investigator grants, hesays, and nuclear physics is already running

short of them. “This is cutting off blood flowto the field,” he says.

But Dehmer claims that the situationmay improve next year. President GeorgeBush’s budget proposal allows for a 5%increase in NSF funding in 2003 — includinga 1.3% reduction at the physics division —but the House of Representatives budgetcommittee last week suggested a moregenerous 9% increase for the agency. ■

Physicists may lack the funds needed to useBrookhaven’s Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider.

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