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Life at the Divide Edwin Hubble’S Finding, in 1925, That Our Galaxy Was Not a Lone ‘Island Universe’ but One of Billions

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Life at the Divide Edwin Hubble’S Finding, in 1925, That Our Galaxy Was Not a Lone ‘Island Universe’ but One of Billions COMMENT BOOKS & ARTS in 1918 allowed Harlow Shapley, who POLITICS would become Pickering’s successor, to extend the boundaries of the Milky Way. Leavitt’s work also laid the foundation for Life at the divide Edwin Hubble’s finding, in 1925, that our Galaxy was not a lone ‘island Universe’ but one of billions. In 1929, Hubble used Leav- Alison Abbott hails a memoir from Italian senator and itt’s work and spectral shifts to show that biologist Elena Cattaneo, scourge of pseudoscience. this populous Universe is also expanding. Annie Jump Cannon arrived in 1896, following studies in mathematics, physics ne hot day in August 2013, the Ogni giorno: Tra cells progressively die. and astronomy at another women’s col- phone rang in the laboratory of scienza e politica Stem-cell research has lege, Wellesley, in the Massachusetts town neuro­scientist Elena Cattaneo at the (Every Day: provided new insights of the same name. She refined and simpli- OUniversity of Milan. The then-president of Between Science into the disease, which fied the Pickering–Fleming system of stel- Italy, Giorgio Napolitano, wished to speak and Politics) is why she had fought ELENA CATTANEO lar classification by proving that most stars to her in Rome as soon as possible. Mondadori: 2016. so hard for the right were of a similar type. The International Cattaneo was already a minor national to do it responsibly. Astronomical Union adopted her system figure, known for her opposition to all Those battles stole precious time and energy. in 1922, three years after Pickering’s death. forms of pseudoscience, however powerful Would being a senator for life — with the Cecilia Payne, educated at the Uni- the perpetrators. In one of her first public inevitable widening of her repertoire of fights versity of Cambridge, UK, came to the fights, in 2009, she criticized the Vatican for — drain too much from her scientific life? observatory on a fellowship in 1923, condemning the use of human embryonic Ogni giorno is a fascinating account of how under Shapley. As part of her PhD, she stem cells in research. At the time of the call, a scientist entered the messy business of poli- determined correctly that stars were pre- she was in the middle of a battle to stop the tics (arguably more so in Italy than in other dominantly composed of hydrogen and government supporting a clinical trial of rich countries) and learnt to survive. Cattaneo helium. In 1956, she became Harvard’s an unproven stem-cell ‘therapy’ run by the accepted the position. As one of only a few first female professor of astronomy. maverick Stamina Foundation in Brescia. appointed by the president, the role signifies Payne provides some of the book’s most The call made her wonder whether she had a person’s importance to national culture. touching passages. Sobel describes, for overstepped some mark. But she set boundaries. She would not give instance, Payne’s distress at the untimely Napolitano had something quite differ- up her lab, and in the Senate she would engage death of her friend and fellow computer ent to discuss at his residence in Rome, the mainly with themes relating to science. She Adelaide Ames in 1932, and her whirl- baroque Quirinal Palace. He told Cattaneo, would apply the same rigour to evidence wind romance with the astronomer and then aged just 51, that he wanted her to supporting a political hypothesis as she Russian émigré Sergei Gaposchkin, whom become a senator for life: what did she think? would to that supporting a scientific one. She she married in 1934. Later that year, Payne “It was as if my every atom had been would not vote if such evidence were miss- won the inaugural Annie Jump Cannon paralysed by the question,” she recalls in her ing, and she would vote only according to her Prize for contributions to astronomy, book Ogni giorno: Tra scienza e politica (Every conscience, never along any party lines. receiving $50 and a gold pin, designed by Day: Between Science and Politics). “Seconds In August that year, she was sworn in along Cannon, in the form of a spiral nebula. passed without me being able to line up a with conductor Claudio Abbado (who died These personal touches flesh out the meaningful sentence. The President realised, five months later), architect Renzo Piano and women’s lives. We are shown Payne, for and touching my arm as if to shake me, he Nobel-prizewinning physicist Carlo Rubbia. instance, pawning her violin and jewel- jokingly said: ‘Professor, can I get you a cor- She threw herself into action, appointing a lery to fund her research, and combining dial?’” small team to help with research and admin- motherhood with astronomy. The low Cattaneo works on Huntington’s disease, istration, and organized a series of workshops wages were a sticking point with many an incurable genetic disorder in which brain with invited scientists from around the world. of them — Fleming often mentions it The aim was to educate parliamentarians in in her diaries. Yet, as Sobel shows, they themes such as science, health and innova- clearly liked and admired Pickering and tion, neuroscience and cell therapy. Shapley, who encouraged their work and She quickly learnt about Senate investiga- facilitated their professional progress. tions and organized one into the Stamina One of the last computers in the debacle, a process that took more than a twentieth century, Radcliffe alumna year. Published in February 2015, the report Ellen Dorrit Hoffleit, gets a brief mention assigns responsibility for every step in the towards the end. She joined the observa- affair that allowed public hospitals to host tory in 1928. In 2004, I met her at Yale the treatment, the government to support University in New Haven, Connecticut, it and numerous courts to rule that patients when I was making a radio documentary had the right to it — even though it had SCATTOLON/CONTRASTO/EYEVINE ANTONIO for the BBC on the Harvard computers. been condemned as dangerous by the Italian An energetic 96, Hoffleit was working health authorities. on a paper about meteors. Like all of Her repertoire of battles, as anticipated, did this band of remarkable women, she was expand and she found herself on steep learn- unforgettable, as is this book. ■ ing curves. One of these was genetically mod- ified (GM) crops. In 2015, Italy’s parliament Sue Nelson is an award-winning science debated the sensitive issue of whether each journalist and broadcaster. European Union member state should have e-mail: [email protected] Elena Cattaneo. the right to ban cultivation in their territories 492 | NATURE | VOL 539 | 24 NOVEMBER©2016 M a2016c millan Publishers Li mited, part of Spri nger Nature. All ri ghts reserved. of GM crops that had been approved by EU authorities. Giving evidence at a Senate hearing, veterinary scientist Fed- erico Infascelli described experiments in which he had apparently showed harmful effects in animals that were fed GM crops. Cattaneo spent the weekend poring over his papers. She could not understand the data, and discussions with Infascelli did not help. So she prompted investiga- CISCA CASTELIJNS/NATURE IN STOCK/FLPA CISCA CASTELIJNS/NATURE tions into his work, which eventually saw some of the papers retracted. Her team went on to produce a 1,556-page docu- ment for the Senate compiling nearly all available scientific evidence about GM crop safety. For her pains, Cattaneo was demonized by some in the Senate as a lob- byist for the agricultural biotechnology firm Monsanto. She has confronted many other issues in the Senate “The book is — for example, a dispatch the continuing from a strong need for animals woman fighting in research, in a hostile the non- environment.” transparency of some govern- ment decisions relating to science, the murky proposal for a major research centre to be built on the site of the 2015 Expo in Milan, and issues such as research financing. Ogni giorno is a dispatch from a strong A Glanville fritillary butterfly (Melitaea cinxia), subject of a unique long-term data-collection effort woman fighting in a hostile environment. She sees an anti-intellectual tendency in ECOLOGY her parliament, an anti-scientific attitude in the Italian judiciary and a reluctance of most scientists in the country to speak up in scientific controversies — “leaving Winged insights the floor open to pseudoscientists and charlatans”. Inevitably, she has made enemies. But H. Charles J. Godfray is inspired by the scientific she has made friends, too. In June, a total memoir of late island ecologist Ilkka Hanski. stranger, an accountant from the small provincial town of Molinella near Bolo- gna, left his entire fortune of more than ombining a personal memoir with There are several €1.5 million (US$1.6 million) to her to serious discussion of a scientific types, but a classical distribute to research in ways she sees fit. subject is a difficult literary trick. The metapopulation is Having reported these various stories CFinnish biologist Ilkka Hanski succeeded sometimes likened to for years, I was fascinated to learn from with aplomb in his last book, Messages a collection of “blink- the book how many more weapons one from Islands, in which each chapter begins ing lights”, with indi- has when fighting battles for science from with insights from an island that moulded vidual short-lived within a political system — but just how his thinking about ecology, evolution and populations winking taxing those battles can be. conservation. Hanski, one of the foremost in and out of exist- Cattaneo might turn out to be the last ecologists of his generation, died in May Messages from ence while the whole senator for life to be appointed.
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