Italian Science out in the Cold Election Campaign Gives Researchers Little Hope for Future of the Nation’S Science System

NEWS IN FOCUS PHYSICS Antimatter OCEANOGRAPHY Sensor network GENOMICS CRISPR-based NEUROSCIENCE The surprising experiments seek to probe provides clues about Atlantic technique records data from dexterity with which teens structure of nuclei p.412 Ocean current p.413 events inside cells p.414 manage risks p.426 IVAN ROMANO/GETTY IVAN

Luigi Di Maio leads the populist Five Star Movement, which is tipped to receive the highest number of votes in Italy’s March election.

ITALY’S ELECTION Italian science out in the cold Election campaign gives researchers little hope for future of the nation’s science system.

BY ALISON ABBOTT But, apart from a battle over the nation’s and bureaucracy crippling, many scientists say. compulsory vaccination programme, which Research organizations have had little power s campaigning ahead of Italy’s was introduced last year, science has featured politically, and have been unable to stem the national election enters its final weeks, little in the campaigning — even as economists rising influence of those who have demonized researchers in the country fear that warn that Italy’s research system is in a precari- vaccinations and promoted charlatan cure-alls. Abudget cuts and declining interest in science ous state. “We are on the verge of collapse,” says The gap in scientific achievement and invest- will only continue — whatever the outcome of Mario Pianta, an economist at the University of ment between the country’s affluent north the vote on 4 March. Rome Tre, who helps to prepare Italy’s statistics and poorer south is widening, helping to fuel A complex coalition government is likely to on research and development (R&D) for the regionalist and populist politics, says Raffaella emerge. The country’s traditional centre-left European Commission. Rumiati, vice-president of Italy’s national and centre-right parties have splintered, Italy has hotspots of scientific excellence, research-evaluation agency, ANVUR. In Janu- and myriad small parties make up the ballot such as in particle physics and biomedicine. But, ary, the agency announced the results of its first sheet, as well as the populist Five Star Move- unlike many other European countries, it has competition to reward the best-performing ment. Topics such as immigration, the failed to modernize its science system in the past university departments, and northern institu- refugee influx and eurozone membership few decades. Budgets have constantly been low. tions received an overwhelmingly greater share have dominated mainstream debates. Academic hiring practices can be complicated, of the funds.

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The outgoing centre-left coalition NUCLEAR PHYSICS government, led by Paolo Gentiloni of the Democratic Party, has introduced some research initiatives, including a €1.5-billion (US$1.9-billion) research centre in Milan Physicists plan first focused on genomics and personalized medicine, called the Human Technopole. The Democratic Party has some science- antimatter road trip related policies in its manifesto that prom- ise more money, research positions and institutional competition. Elusive material will be used to probe radioactive nuclei. Pianta says that further reforms to the research system must be supported by BY ELIZABETH GIBNEY known as ISOLDE, which produces rare, increased budgets. But since the 2008 radioactive atomic nuclei that decay too quickly economic crisis, Italy’s already low R&D ntimatter is notoriously volatile, but to be transported anywhere themselves. “It’s spending has declined by 20% in real physicists have learned to control it so almost science fiction to be driving around terms — equivalent to a hefty €1.2 billion. In well that they are now starting to har- antimatter in a truck,” says Charles Horowitz, a 2016, it stood at €8.7 billion. The university Aness it as a tool for the first time. In a project theoretical nuclear physicist at Indiana Univer- budget has shrunk by about one-fifth — to that began last month, researchers will transport sity Bloomington. “It’s a wonderful idea.” €7 billion — as has the number of professors antimatter by truck and then use it to study the nationwide. Funding for public research strange behaviour of rare radioactive nuclei. The UNIQUE PROBE institutes is no higher than it was in 2008, work aims to provide a better understanding of Because antiprotons annihilate so readily, both representing a 9% drop in real terms. And fundamental processes inside atomic nuclei, with protons and with neutrons, they present a Italy’s substantial deficit means the situation and to help astrophysicists learn about the inte- unique way to study the unusual configurations is unlikely to improve soon. riors of neutron stars, which contain the densest of radioactive nuclei. Whereas everyday atomic Even worse, more scientists have left form of matter in the Universe. hearts host protons and neutrons in roughly the country since 2008 than have entered “Antimatter has long been studied for itself, equal measure, radioactive isotopes are stuffed it, according to statistics from the Organi- but now it is mastered well enough that people with extra neutrons. This imbalance can give sation for Economic Co-operation and can start to use it as a probe for matter,” says rise to exotic characteristics, including a surface Development. “It is not just that scientists Alexandre Obertelli, a physicist at the Tech- ‘skin’ that is richer in neutrons than protons, are going to countries with strong bases in nical University of Darmstadt in Germany, or an extended halo in which neutrons orbit science,” says Pianta. “There is also a net who leads the project, known as PUMA (anti- alone, as in lithium-11 (see ‘Antimatter to go’). loss of scientists from Italy to countries like Proton Unstable Matter Annihilation), which By observing how often antiprotons annihilate Spain.” will take place at CERN, Europe’s particle- with a proton versus a neutron, the team will be Paradoxically, science is performing well physics laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland. able to understand the relative densities of these overall. Since 2005, Italy has increased its CERN’s antimatter factory makes antiprotons particles at the very edge of the nucleus. “It’s a contribution to the top 10% of the world’s — the rare mirror image of protons — by slam- kind of test we haven’t been able to do before on most cited scientific documents. And it pro- ming a proton beam into a metal target, and these new, more exotic nuclei, which may have duces more publications per unit of R&D then dramatically slowing the emerging anti- very interesting structures,” says Horowitz. expenditure than any other European Union particles so that they can be used in experi- Radioactive nuclei act as microcosms country except the United Kingdom. “The ments. Obertelli and his colleagues plan to use for learning about neutron stars, objects happy paradox cannot sustain,” says Pianta. magnetic and electric fields to trap a cloud of that squash more mass than is contained in “We are heading towards mediocrity.” antiprotons in a vacuum. They will then load the Sun into the size of a city, and which are The next government will have its work this trap into a van and drive it a few hundred key to understanding how the Universe’s cut out. Polls suggest that the Five Star metres to the site of a neighbouring experiment, heavy elements form. The cores of these Movement, founded by comedian Beppe Grillo and led by Luigi Di Maio, will receive the highest number of votes. Di Maio has ANTIMATTER TO GO actively wooed academics, bringing some To reveal the surface structure of atomic nuclei, physicists send ions of rare isotopes into a bottle 700 millimetres long — where they annihilate with antiprotons stored in the trap. on board as advisers. But most researchers SOURCE: PUMA regard the movement with alarm. Some of 700 mm its members have vociferously supported Superconducting anti-science campaigns, including that 10-nanometre-thick magnet against vaccination. window The movement is unlikely to take part in any governing coalition. So the most likely Rare isotopes Detector 300 mm such as lithium-11 government to emerge will be a mix of centre-right parties led by Silvio Berlusconi’s

Forza Italia and including the regionalist Lithium-11 League, which is expected to receive the Extended second highest number of votes. But what- Around one halo ever the content of the next government, billion antiprotons says Mattia Butta, an Italian engineer at Proton the Czech Technical University in Prague, Neutron Collision zone Storage zone it is unlikely to fundamentally change the scientific culture. ■

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CORRECTION In saying that everyday atomic hearts have equal protons and neutrons, the News story ‘Physicists plan first antimatter road trip’ (Nature 554, 412–413; 2018) didn’t take account of the fact that some elements, such as hydrogen and lithium, have uneven numbers of protons in their most abundant form.