News at a glance

SCI COMMUN### Astronomy The iconic Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico was damaged on 10 August when a snapped steel cable smashed into a receiver and tore a 30-meter gash in its 307-meter-wide dish. No one was injured during the early morning incident. The damage to the dish is not critical, but the broken cable has destabilized a platform holding receiver antennas high above the dish. Managers have halted observations for at least 2 weeks while investigations are carried out, and no cost estimate or restart schedule will be available before then, says Ramon Lugo of the University of Central Florida, which manages the observatory for the National Science Foundation. Engineers are examining what went wrong with the 23-year-old cable, whether a temporary replacement can be rigged up, and what damage was done to the antennas. Set in a depression in the hills, Arecibo was the world's largest single dish for 5 decades until a Chinese telescope surpassed it in 2016 and is still widely used for astronomy, planetary science, and atmospheric research. > “We have tried to make this work, but it is not working.” > > Barbara Rimer , dean of public health at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, as it moved to online-only instruction, just 1 week after in-person classes resumed, because campus COVID-19 cases surged. ### Infectious diseases After a long fight, Africa has wiped out the wild poliovirus. The last case occurred 4 years ago, and on 25 August, the independent Africa Regional Certification Commission, acting on behalf of the World Health Organization, is expected to officially declare the continent free of the wild virus. Africa came close before, going 2 years without a case until 2016, when the wild virus appeared seemingly out of the blue in Borno state in northeastern Nigeria, where the militant group Boko Haram reigns, and paralyzed four children. Polioviruses derived from the oral polio vaccine continue to circulate and cause paralysis across Africa; wiping them out has proved extremely difficult. Pakistan and Afghanistan are now the last bastions of the wild virus. ### COVID-19 Facing criticism over its response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.K. government announced on 18 August that it will replace England's disease-control agency with a United Kingdom–wide one focused on infectious diseases. The move merges Public Health England (PHE) with England's contact tracing program, NHS Test and Trace, and the U.K. Joint Biosecurity Centre, to create the new agency, the National Institute for Health Protection. Its interim leader will be businesswoman and Conservative parliamentarian Dido Harding, who had headed NHS Test and Trace. PHE's work on obesity and other noncommunicable health conditions will be shifted to local authorities, but the government has not yet clarified how. Critics said the change was poorly conceived and questioned whether the new agency is set up to succeed, citing a need for close coordination with the National Health Service's hospital-based scientists. ### Geochronology The first update of carbon dating in nearly a decade, published last week, allows scientists to probe 5000 years further into the past and revises the timing of big events in human history. Living things incorporate radioactive carbon-14 from the environment, and the decay of this carbon after death provides a clock for dating specimens from the recent past. The update extends the technique's use to about 55,000 years ago. The recalibrated timeline shows that Homo sapiens and Neanderthals overlapped in Europe for centuries longer than once thought. It also shows the volcanic eruption that devastated the island of Thera in Greece may have occurred as recently as 1544 B.C.E., in line with archaeological evidence. ### Criminal justice Eva Lee, an applied mathematician at the Georgia Institute of Technology who admitted to making false statements related to a U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) grant, won't begin to serve her sentence until next spring so she can continue to build models to help control the COVID-19 pandemic. On 12 August, U.S. District Court Judge Steve Jones rejected the government's request for 8 months of immediate home confinement, saying the country “needs her” talents now. Instead, he ordered Lee confined for 2 months starting in April 2021 and said that schedule could be further modified. Lee pleaded guilty in December 2019 to misrepresenting information to NSF in a report related to the $40,000 grant and then lying to federal agents investigating her actions. She told Jones she didn't understand the reporting requirements and that her university withheld the necessary administrative support for her grant, which it has disputed. ### Racial justice The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) is gearing up for an in-depth study of systemic racism in U.S. academic research. Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson (D–TX), who leads the science committee in the U.S. House of Representatives, has asked it to analyze “the extent to which the U.S. scientific enterprise perpetuates systemic inequities to the detriment of society as a whole, as well as how those inequities are manifested.” National Academy of Sciences President Marcia McNutt says such a study could set the table for needed changes in the same way that a 2018 NASEM report on sexual harassment catalyzed discussion and action. Structural racism in academia is “hindering our ability to deal with some of our biggest challenges, including the current COVID-19 pandemic,” says Freeman Hrabowski, president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. ### Trump environmental plans spark new controversies The White House this month announced it will move ahead with controversial changes to two major environmental policies, but suffered a legal setback on a third. #### Arctic drilling OK'd The U.S. Interior Department on 17 August announced it will move ahead with plans to sell leases to drill for oil in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The decision followed an environmental review that concluded drilling on much of the refuge's 6300-square-kilometer coastal plain wouldn't endanger caribou or polar bears, or exacerbate climate change. Scientists have warned the effects of oil drilling could harm the animals, and environmental groups swiftly vowed legal challenges. #### Methane rule relaxed Several state governments and environmental groups are preparing court challenges to a new Trump administration rule, finalized last week, that gives oil and gas companies greater leeway to allow leaks of methane, a potent climate-warming gas, from their facilities. Critics say the rule has fatal flaws, including how it calculates costs and benefits, and many larger firms opposed the change, saying it would create uncertainty and discourage efficiency improvements. If Democrats win control of the Senate and the White House in January 2021, they could overturn this and other recent regulatory decisions. #### Bird protections upheld A federal judge on 11 August overturned an administration reinterpretation of the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty Act that had helped companies avoid fines for inadvertently killing birds. “It is not only a sin to kill a mockingbird,” U.S. District Court Judge Valerie Caproni wrote in her decision, quoting To Kill a Mockingbird , “it is also a crime” under federal law. Conservationists had objected to the reinterpretation, because it meant businesses could not be fined for failing to protect birds from foreseeable fatal hazards, such as oil spills and uncovered oil waste pits.