19 January 2013 | NewScientist | 7

revised the effect that soot has on climate change. They say its warming effect is almost twice the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s estimates, making it the second biggest warmer after carbon dioxide (Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, DOI: 10.1002/jgrd.50171). Unlike CO2, soot only stays in the air for a few days. So action to curb soot from coal fires, diesel exhausts and cooking stoves could be a quick fix, says Bond.

It would save lives, too. Soot is estimated to kill 2 million people a year, mostly through indoor pollution from cooking stoves.

No to Death StarNO IDEA is too outlandish to ignore. That might be a good motto for the White House, which has announced that the US won’t be building a version of the Death Star, the planet-destroying space station in Star Wars.

The White House was replying to a request that began last year on its We the People website, which allows anyone to set up a petition and vows to respond to those that gain enough support. The Death Star petition suggested that the project would create jobs and strengthen US defences. It got more than 34,000 signatures.

The response was a good-natured but firm “no”. Paul Shawcross, chief of the White House budget office’s science and space branch, cited a lack of US support for blowing up planets, the project’s estimated cost – close to a quintillion dollars – and a fatal design flaw exposed by one Luke Skywalker (who destroys the fictional Death Star).

In his response, Shawcross also tries to inspire, mentioning the International Space Station, the Mars Curiosity rover and the exoplanet-hunting Kepler telescope. “If you do pursue a career in a science, technology, engineering or math-related field, the Force will be with us!” he adds.

Wind over nuclearIT’S goodbye nuclear, hello renewables as Japan prepares to build the world’s largest offshore wind farm this July.

By 2020, the plan is to build a total of 143 wind turbines on platforms 16 kilometres off the coast of Fukushima, home to the stricken Daiichi nuclear reactor that hit the headlines in March 2011 when it was damaged by an earthquake and tsunami.

The project, which will generate 1 gigawatt of energy, is part of a plan to increase renewable energy resources following the post-

tsunami shutdown of the nation’s nuclear reactors.

Project manager Takeshi Ishihara of the University of Tokyo insists that the area’s seismic activity won’t be an issue for the turbines: “All extreme

conditions have been taken into consideration”. Another issue is the impact on the fishing industry but Ishihara says the farm will be a “marine pasture”, attracting fish.

“Seismic activity won’t be an issue for the turbines. All conditions have been taken into consideration”

DON’T panic! Alarm over flu has gripped parts of the US this week: hospitals were overwhelmed with cases, drug and vaccine supplies ran low, and Boston and New York state declared public health emergencies. But the situation is not as severe as it may seem.

In the northern hemisphere, the annual flu season usually peaks around February. Even though it took off in December this time, such an early start is not unheard of, and the number of new cases is already starting to fall. Hospital admissions and deaths have not been exceptional, either. And this winter’s flu viruses are not a major worry as they are almost unchanged from those behind last year’s mild

season – although it is notoriously hard to predict how a season will play out, says Jake Dunning, an infectious disease specialist at Imperial College London.

So why have hospitals struggled? One reason is that the number of cases rose twice as fast as last winter, and with budget cuts over the past four years there are no spare beds to absorb the surge, public health experts say.

Jack Herrmann of the US National Association of County and City Health Officials fears that recent efforts to build capacity to deal with disasters have been rolled back to such an extent that hospitals can’t handle a moderately severe flu season – never mind a disaster.

It’s only flu – not Flu-maggedon

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Confession time?Lance Armstrong, seven-time winner of the Tour de France, is reported to have admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs in an interview with Oprah Winfrey, set to air on 17 January. By coming clean, Armstrong could see his lifetime professional cycling ban reduced.

Cancer prophylacticHealthy women with a family history of breast cancer may be offered drugs to reduce their chances of developing the disease. Guidelines issued by the UK’s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence propose offering “high risk” women tamoxifen and raloxifene for five years. This is the first time a preventative drug for cancer has been recommended in the UK.

Vostok life questIs there life beneath Antarctic ice? We may soon find out. Russian scientists have pulled up the first core of ice from Lake Vostok – a subglacial lake hidden under 3.5 kilometres of ice – which they intend to analyse for microbes.

Web activist tributeHundreds of researchers are flagging up open-access versions of their work on Twitter as a tribute to Aaron Swartz, the internet freedom activist who committed suicide on 11 January. Swartz, who helped develop RSS and Reddit, was facing hacking charges after accessing the network of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and downloading nearly 5 million articles.

Boeing battery fireUS air safety watchdog NTSB is investigating a lithium battery fire that broke out on an empty Boeing 787 aircraft in Boston on 7 January. The Federal Aviation Administration, which attached strict safety conditions to the use of lithium batteries in the airliner, has also begun a “comprehensive review” of the 787’s design and manufacture.

For daily news stories, visit newscientist.com/news

–We can cope in the usual way–

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