News in perspective

Upfront–

about a delay for NASA’s costly Mars Science Laboratory rover .

It’s the US International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) that could be the deal breaker. Under the Bush administration, the regulations have been used to restrict exports of spacecraft components and information.

“If the US government attitudes about ITAR of the past eight years continue, it will get in the way of Mars cooperation,” says Louis Friedman of the non-profit Planetary Society. President-Elect Barack Obama has promised to review the rules, and Friedman is optimistic that the government’s stance will change.

BEIJING residents might well be wondering whether they will ever see the much-needed water they were due to receive by the time the Olympics rolled around. The completion date for a project to bring water to the arid capital city in northern China has been postponed again.

China’s northern plain, its breadbasket for thousands of years, is running dry. The country now depends heavily on underground water reserves. Since the scheme

SOCIETY should embrace the use of drugs that boost brain power. That’s the message from a group of neuroscientists, psychiatrists and ethicists.

A recent survey found that at some US universities, up to 25 per cent of students routinely buy Ritalin or Adderall – prescription drugs to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder – on black markets to boost memory and concentration. The stimulant Modafinil has also been touted as a mind enhancer.

However, studies of the effect of some of these drugs on cognitive function in healthy people have shown mixed results. Henry Greely of Stanford Law School in California, and his colleagues, call for more research

on this, as well as into the drugs’ safety. Cognitive enhancers found to be safe and effective should be welcomed, not feared, they say (Nature, DOI: 10.1038/456702a).

“This isn’t like steroids and

sports… enhancement is not a dirty word,” says Greely , adding that using drugs in this way is not “unnatural”.

He and his colleagues argue that a safe pill should be seen as no different to other strategies we already use to improve our minds, like a good night’s sleep or a strong cup of coffee. Inexpensive drugs may even have the potential to be a more egalitarian way to get ahead than expensive tutoring, they say.

Brain pills could give an edge to nations whose citizens opt to raise their intelligence, suggests neuroethicist Julian Savulescu of the University of Oxford.

IF YOU want to send a robot to Mars, two space agencies are better than one. That’s what NASA and the European Space Agency have decided – so long as US law doesn’t block the cooperation.

NASA’s science chief Ed Weiler said last week that the agency had agreed with ESA in principle to join forces in sending robotic spacecraft to Mars. If the plan goes forward, both agencies could fund missions like ESA’s ExoMars rover, to launch in 2016, and a tentative plan to bring a Martian sample back to Earth in the 2020s. Weiler was speaking at a briefing

If you’re having trouble getting a bank

loan, you have something in common

with the US coal mining industry. The

Bank of America has announced that it

will refuse loans to mining companies

that pursue the damaging practice of

lopping off mountaintops to extract

coal. The hope is that other banks will

now do the same.

Mountaintop mining exposes coal

deposits by blasting rocks from the surface.

The practice, which is common in the

Appalachian mountains in the US, destroys

ecosystems and pollutes rivers. “It’s the

worst form of mining you can do,” says

Robert Perks of the Natural Resources

Defense Council, an environmental group

based in New York City.

In response to these concerns, the

Bank of America has said that companies

BANK SIDES WITH MOUNTAINSthat carry out mountaintop mining can

go elsewhere if they want to borrow

money. “While we acknowledge that

surface mining is economically efficient

and creates jobs, it can be conducted in

a way that minimises environmental

impacts,” the bank said in a statement .

Some have called it a PR stunt that

will have little impact. Luke Popovich of

the US National Mining Association points

out that the Bank of America is not a

major source of loans for mining projects.

Perks, however, believes that other

banks will soon follow suit, which

together with current economic problems,

could have a serious impact on the

companies concerned. This would help

mitigate the effects of a law passed last

month that allows coal companies to

dump waste in rivers, he says.

GEO

RGE

STEI

NM

ETZ/

COR

BIS

–The Han’s off limits for now–

REU

TER

S

“This isn’t like steroids and sports. Enhancement is not a dirty word”

–Financial discouragement–

Go brain-boosters Mars barred?

China water crisis

6 | NewScientist | 13 December 2008 www.newscientist.com