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Biosphere 2 Finds a Buyer a Move Towards Greater Freedom

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Biosphere 2 Finds a Buyer a Move Towards Greater Freedom NATURE|Vol 447|14 June 2007 NEWS MEETING FOR A PARTY Famed chemist celebrates 65th birthday by showcasing next AI-LAN LEE generation of scientists. www.nature.com/news says Ziauddin Sardar, a UK-based writer on the cultures of Islam and science. “But it cannot provide the atmosphere of criticism and open- ness that scientific research needs to flourish.” PRN/NEWSCOM “The university sounds wonderful on paper, but I’m sceptical it will bear fruit,” adds Nader Fergany, director of the Almishkat Centre for Research in Giza, Egypt. “Saudi Arabia has pro- duced expensive white-elephant universities before.” The King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology, for instance, established in 1977, has not had any significant international impact. And Fergany doubts that the regime can deliver on its promise of autonomy. A first test, he says, will be whether a non-Saudi is allowed to be founding president. Fergany, who was lead author of the land- mark series of Arab Human Development Tourists still flock to the desert complex that once housed an experiment in self-sustainability. Reports published by the United Nations Development Programme between 2002 and 2005, also doubts that the university represents Biosphere 2 finds a buyer a move towards greater freedom. “I would be less pessimistic if the kingdom had an overall The terrarium Biosphere 2 is to become project failed — oxygen had to be pumped atmosphere of opening up and reform,” he says. a research conversation piece for a new in from outside, and the experiment ended “But the restrictions of the regime are so perva- housing development in Arizona. early amid much squabbling both inside sive that an isolated campus on the Red Sea is Last week, the 1.4-hectare glass and outside the bubble. not going to make an impact on the country.” enclosure and about 700 hectares of By 1996, Columbia University in New Another sticking point is relations with land around it in the desert foothills York City had taken over managing the Israel, a research powerhouse in the region outside Tucson were sold for US$50 facility. It planned extensive research that shares many interests, such as water, with million. Its new owner, CDO Ranching & projects on climate, soil and plant KAUST. Mulla says that Saudi Arabia cannot Development, is securing permits to build dynamics. But Columbia withdrew from cooperate “at the present time” with countries 1,500 houses around the edifice. the arrangement at the end of 2003 as part with which it does not have diplomatic relations The University of Arizona in Tucson is of a litigation settlement with the facility’s — which would mean no formal collaboration negotiating with the new owners to lease corporate owner, Decisions Investments. between KAUST and Israeli institutions. the facility for climate experiments. The University of Arizona had been “It’s a delicate issue,” says Mulla, and it is Texas oil billionaire Ed Bass spent negotiating for several years to attempt being left to the side for the moment. The about $200 million on the project. In to buy the Biosphere 2 complex, now board has agreed to accept this situation, after 1991, the glass bubble became the centre largely used for tours by the curious. Local receiving assurances that KAUST will be free of worldwide attention when eight politicians also want it preserved as it as a to recruit Israeli faculty and students. ■ people were sealed inside for a two-year landmark that attracts tourists. ■ Declan Butler ‘experiment’ in self-sustainability. But the Rex Dalton The proposed Advanced and the US Air Force Research National Science Board, which will an added concern is that further Technology Solar Telescope (ATST) Laboratory. If the $230-million need to approve the project, the development will erode the would tower above a cluster of project wins approval, construction National Park Service’s regional spiritual value of the mountain top smaller facilities already in use may begin as early as 2009. director Jonathan Jarvis argued for native Hawaiians. a few hundred metres from the Installing the ATST high up, that replacing Haleakala’s summit “We’re not against science Haleakala summit, traditionally where there is less air turbulence, with a man-made structure as and the acquisition of knowledge, revered by Hawaiians as the home and in Maui’s relatively dust-free, the tallest feature on Maui would but science has ethics,” says Ed of the mist goddess Lilinoe. stable atmosphere, would give completely alter the visitor Lindsey, a native Hawaiian and With its four-metre aperture, physicists the best chance of experience. And with the only president of Maui Cultural Lands, ATST would be the largest solar resolving magnetic features on access to the observatory site being a Maui-based organization set up telescope ever built, and it is the Sun’s surface spanning some through the national park, he is to protect and restore Hawaiian intended to allow solar physicists 30 kilometres across, explains worried that construction vehicles cultural resources. “If you destroy to better understand the dynamics Craig Foltz, programme manager will damage the narrow 1930s road things that have meaning to native of the Sun’s magnetic field. The at the US National Science and harm endangered nene and people, you ultimately destroy the project is spearheaded by the Foundation. “Believe me, if we ’ua’u bird populations. people.” Lindsey says Maui Cultural National Solar Observatory, and could build it smaller and lower, we Because the Haleakala summit Lands is prepared to file a lawsuit if collaborators include the University would,” he adds. carries cultural and spiritual all else fails. ■ of Hawaii’s Institute for Astronomy But in a letter last month to the significance for Hawaiian people, Lucy Odling-Smee 759.
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