Brazil Delays Stargazing Pact Reluctance to Pay Entrance Fees Stalls European Southern Observatory’S Giant Telescope

NEWS IN FOCUS CLIMATE CHANGE Himalayan ASTRONOMY NASA won’t let COGNITION A ‘brain MARINE SCIENCE The biologist nations brace for coming Kepler go gentle into that training’ computer who ran off to sea to floods and droughts p.14 good night p.16 game that works p.18 ‘study it all’ p.20 ESO

The 39-metre Extremely Large Telescope in Chile (artist’s impression) will suffer setbacks without Brazilian money.

ASTRONOMY Brazil delays stargazing pact Reluctance to pay entrance fees stalls European Southern Observatory’s giant telescope.

BY RAFAEL GARCIA non-European member. Brazil’s membership full entrance fees and annual dues, which are fees would allow ESO to begin construction expected to total about €270 million over a n 28 August, Jorge Meléndez stepped of its €1.1-billion (US$1.5-billion), 39-metre decade. ESO officials say that further delays into a room full of journalists to Extremely Large Telescope (ELT). In return, will cause the nation to miss out on lucrative announce a remarkable discovery: an Brazil’s small but growing cadre of astronomers construction contracts for the ELT, which will O8.2-billion-year-old star that was depleted in would get access to ESO’s existing telescopes be solicited by the end of this year. “The longer elements such as iron and aluminium in almost in Chile. Meléndez’s discovery came after just Brazil waits, the more it risks compromising exactly the same way as the Sun — a hint that two nights of observation at the Very Large the opportunity for Brazilian companies to the older star could host terrestrial planets. In Telescope, ESO’s premier observatory, in the be awarded such large contracts,” says Tim de an age when astronomers are obsessed with Atacama Desert. He has been granted a further Zeeuw, director-general of ESO at its head- finding another Earth, Meléndez had found 88 nights at ESO’s La Silla Observatory, where quarters in Garching, Germany. something nearly as exciting: a solar twin. he is looking for planets that orbit solar twins. No one in Brazil’s executive government is Even more significant than the discovery “Before the ESO agreement, it would have been pushing the agreement. The science minister were its circumstances. Meléndez, an astron- impossible for me to do this,” he says. who signed it, Sergio Rezende, left the cabinet omer at the University of São Paulo, Brazil, But the relationship has started to fray. just days later, and his successor did nothing had found the star using an elite telescope that Nearly three years after the agreement was with the document. It was not until this Febru- belongs to the European Southern Observa- signed, Brazil’s Congress still has not ratified ary, more than a year after the arrival of cur- tory (ESO) — a sign of a functioning, if fragile, it. The country has made nominal member- rent minister Marco Antonio Raupp, that the transatlantic co-dependency. ship payments of €4 million a year, maintain- agreement was formally sent to Congress for In 2010, Brazil signed an agreement ing access to ESO telescopes for astronomers ratification. But Raupp, whose emphasis has with ESO, becoming the organization’s first such as Meléndez, but has not coughed up its been on innovation and applied science

over basic research since his term began, is instrument in Chile part-owned by Brazil; and who has blamed the delay in ratification on the not seen as a champion of ESO membership. a 1.6-metre telescope at Brazil’s own Pico dos lack of consensus. “The strong divide in the That has essentially left Brazilian astrono- Dias Observatory near Itajubá. Brazilian astronomical community is certainly mers to lobby Congress on their own. And not But Marcio Maia, an astronomer at the an important fact that cannot be ignored,” says all of them are in favour of joining ESO; some National Observatory in Rio de Janeiro, says José Roberto Ferreira, a spokesman for Raupp. see it as an expensive step that will bankrupt that his country should be ambitious. “If Brazil But contrarians such as Steiner seem to be more modest, home-grown efforts to nurture wants to remain in the Stone Age of astronomy, in the minority, according to a 2010 poll by the Brazilian astronomy. we can do it at the city of Itajubá, where there Brazilian Astronomical Society. In interviews João Steiner, an astronomer at the Uni- is nothing to be seen, we can keep our meagre of 180 of the society’s 660 astronomers, 75% versity of São Paulo, is the most vocal critic share at Gemini or we can use SOAR, a telescope supported the ESO agreement. Another 17% of ESO membership. He argues that Brazil’s with no good instrument,” he says. “We can (mostly theoretical cosmologists) declined to fees — which are based on the country’s gross only learn how to do cutting-edge astronomy vote; just 8% were against membership. domestic product — are comparable to those by entering the competition and fighting for it.” Even with strong support from astrono- of Italy and the United Kingdom, even though Steiner acknowledges that joining ESO mers, however, it will be difficult to persuade Brazil has fewer astronomers, and fewer still would bring benefits, but says that the fees are Congress to approve membership by the end with research programmes mature enough to too high at a time when Brazil is unlikely to of 2013. compete for observation time. “It doesn’t make take on expensive projects. In July, the govern- If Brazil fails to ratify the agreement, ESO sense for us to subsidize European science with ment announced a 10-billion-real (US$4.3-bil- could boost its funding by adding other mem- Brazilian taxpayers’ money,” says Steiner. lion) cut to overall federal expenses. And the ber states. Russia, Poland, Canada and Aus- He would prefer Brazilian astronomers to Ministry of Science, Technology and Innova- tralia have all expressed interest. “We are being work with more affordable telescopes. These tion has little room in its own budget; it says regularly approached by other countries,” says include Gemini, two 8-metre telescopes that it would have to commit 12% of its gen- de Zeeuw. But it would be years before money in Chile and Hawaii, run by six countries eral funding to honour the ESO agreement if from any new member would arrive. If ESO including Brazil; the Southern Astrophysi- Congress does not approve new spending for wants to build the ELT, it has few choices but cal Research Telescope (SOAR), a 4.1-metre it. Such a commitment is unlikely from Raupp, to wait for Brazil. ■

CLIMATE CHANGE Floods spur mountain study Himalayan nations take action in response to changing climate and its deadly effects.

BY JANE QIU TROUBLE IN STORE snapshot of weather-related disasters Across the Himalayas (main river basins shown), average temperatures and in the Himalayas suggests that things rainfall are rising by 0.6 ºC and 65 millimetres a decade, respectively, leading to increased glacier melt and ooding, and prolonged droughts. 167–190 (2011)

are amiss on the roof of the world. 20, AThis spring, for example, western Nepal The Langtang basin saw was hit by a severe drought, leading to crop Syr Darya a 26% fall in glacier area failures and exacerbating an already serious between 1977 and 2009. 2011); (J. BLANCO ED.) (INTECH, food crisis. In June, the same region was Brahmaputra devastated by its worst floods in 50 years, Amu Darya Yellow ET AL. J. ENVIRON. DEV. AL. J. ENVIRON. DEV. ET caused by unusually intense monsoon rains. Islamabad Indus The deluge wreaked havoc in the northern Yangtze Indian states of Uttarakhand and Himachal New Delhi Kathmandu ET AL. CLIMATE CHANGE AL. CLIMATE ET Pradesh, killing at least 5,700 people and Ganges The waters of the eastern S. DASGUPTA and central Himalayas causing an estimated loss of US$2 billion. could sustain 60 million After decades of such climate-related Irrawaddy fewer people by 2050. incidents, the eight member countries of the Mekong International Centre for Integrated Moun- <2,000m above sea level Salween tain Development (ICIMOD), a regional >2,000m above sea level body, have agreed that enough is enough. SOURCE: S. R. BAJRACHARYA On Monday, they launched a three-year study that aims to comprehensively assess Vinod Tewari, a geologist at the Wadia Insti- glaciers are retreating rapidly. Glacier lakes the current state of the Hindu Kush Himalayas, tute of Himalayan Geology in Dehradun, are becoming larger and more numerous, the enormous area sustained by the world’s India. The Himalayas are getting warmer at inundating pastures and threatening down- highest mountain range, and to make recom- a rate of 0.6 °C each decade, three times the stream communities. The changing climate mendations on how it might be safeguarded global average1. Rainfall there is increasing is also “taking a toll on alpine pastures and and developed. at a rate of 65 millimetres per decade and the forests”, says Maharaj Pandit, an ecologist at the And none too soon, say many scientists. monsoon season is getting wetter1. However, University of Delhi in New Delhi. Some plants As climate change tightens its grip, “disasters winters are getting drier (see ‘Trouble in store’). are shifting to higher altitudes2, others are on the will become increasingly frequent”, says As a result of the warming, most Himalayan verge of extinction, and the incidence of invasive