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news Pope praised for CHILD/AP partial conciliation of B. science and religion Quirin Schiermeier,Munich Catholic researchers and bioethicists have responded to the death of Pope John Paul II with tributes to his efforts to achieve reconciliation between faith and science. And some are optimistic that his successor will keep on the same path. The Polish Pope had a strong personal interest in science and worked to reduce hostility between the scientific community and the Roman Catholic Church. Nonetheless, his strict rejection Water bombs: US submarines such as the Virginia are armed with W76 thermonuclear warheads. of abortion, embryonic stem-cell research and contraception, including the distribution of condoms to help Nuclear chiefs scotch story contain AIDS, drew him into conflict with some scientists. AIDS activist groups around the on frailty of ageing warheads world still condemn John Paul’s refusal to endorse the use of condoms.“It should Geoff Brumfiel,Washington told the The New York Times.Morse did not not be forgotten that millions have died Senior weapons scientists emphatically respond to Nature’s requests for an interview. in Africa as a result of this theological denied a report this week that the most Other scientists familiar with the weapon rigidity,”the London-based Independent important US nuclear warhead has a design dispute Morse’s assertions. “I think he’s newspaper said in an editorial. fault that could make it unreliable. wrong,” says Richard Garwin, a prominent However, John Paul frequently The New York Times reported on 3 April former hydrogen-bomb designer. Agnew, discussed scientific matters with such that the W76, a thermonuclear warhead who was present at several tests of the W76, luminaries as Stephen Hawking, who is launched from submarines, has a flaw in the says that it never failed to detonate. He adds one of the 80 members of the Pontifical design of its casing that could cause it to that six to nine warheads are carefully Academy of Sciences. And the Vatican explode with much less force than expected analysed every year to make sure that ageing received regular scientific advice (see — or not at all. will not affect their performance. Nature 432, 669; 2004). Leading scientists who designed the war- “We have looked into this concern exten- “Many of us have witnessed a special head say that the accusations are completely sively, and our best technical judgement is feeling between the Pope and scientists,” unfounded, however, and that the report’s that it is simply wrong,” Linton Brooks told says Giuseppe Tanzella-Nitti, a sources weren’t heavily engaged in the design the Senate on 4 April. Brooks is the adminis- theologian and astrophysicist at Rome’s project. “There is nothing wrong with the trator of the National Nuclear Security Pontifical University of the Holy Cross. W76,”says Harold Agnew, who was director Administration, which oversees the US In 1980 at Cologne Cathedral, of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in nuclear stockpile. Germany, John Paul declared that there New Mexico when the lab designed and But Brooks added that his agency is now was “no contradiction” between faith tested the warhead 30 years ago. planning a study to create a more robust type and science. He said on several occasions Exact numbers are classified, but arms- of warhead. This might eventually replace that the concepts of the Big Bang and control experts estimate that the W76 makes weapons such as the W76, which was darwinian evolution were more than up almost one-third of the US stockpile of designed for minimum size and weight. He mere hypotheses. In 1992, he officially 10,000 warheads, as well as dominating the says that the Reliable Replacement Warhead rehabilitated Galileo Galilei, conceding far smaller British nuclear arsenal. The war- programme will design weapons that have that the Church was wrong to arrest him. heads are compact and lethal: up to eight of wider performance margins and can be more More recently, the Vatican has stopped them can sit in a single missile, each yielding easily maintained without testing. opposing modern techniques such as an explosive force more than five times Arms-control experts are sceptical of the organ transplantation and genetic bigger than that of the bomb dropped on project, which will cost $9 million in 2006. modification of animals. Hiroshima in 1945. “The existing stockpile is safe and reliable, Ludger Honnefelder, a Catholic For about a year, some scientists have and it is likely to be so for some time,” says theologian and philosopher at the been expressing concern to government offi- Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Institute of Science and Ethics in Bonn, cials about the uranium case surrounding Arms Control Association in Washington, Germany, claims that John Paul helped the warhead.The case is thin and light so that DC.“This programme seems unnecessary.” religion and science to coexist. He notes it can be carried on smaller, submarine- The replacement warhead programme that the next Pope will have to deal with launched missiles. The critics claim that it would itself replace an ‘advanced concepts’ issues such as the implications of genetic might fail when the fission trigger of the project, which has been criticized as a step modification in humans.“We expect bomb detonates, meaning the bomb’s pow- toward development of new nuclear weapons well-balanced answers from the Church erful fusion fuel would not ignite. (see Nature 428, 455; 2004). Opponents of to new ethical challenges,”Honnefelder The bombs are “at best unreliable and new weapons note that doubts about the says,“just as we expect science not to probably much worse”, Richard Morse, a W76’s reliability could boost political sup- think of itself as an almighty system.” ■ retired plasma physicist from Los Alamos port for the replacement programme. ■