28 November 2009 | NewScientist | 7

tumours that are not life-threatening. Screening costs were not considered, yet healthcare reform critics have portrayed the move as a sign of the “rationing” to come if government takes a bigger role in the system.

This suggests it may be hard to convince the public that a broader elimination of unnecessary tests and treatments can mean better health outcomes. Doctors should involve patients in decision-making and present evidence in a digestible form, says Shannon Brownlee , a health-policy specialist at the New America Foundation in Washington DC.

New planets ahead

A WHOLE range of objects never seen before could soon reveal themselves to a telescope with night vision.

NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) , which headed to the launch pad last week, will map the entire sky in infrared. It will spot everything from nearby cool, failed stars to intense, 10-billion-year-old starburst galaxies.

The telescope will also be able to distinguish objects like asteroids and comets from more distant stars. WISE is expected to find about 100,000 new asteroids in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and hundreds of asteroids that pass close to Earth. It will be especially good at seeing dark objects that are nearly impossible to find using existing ground-based telescopes, as the objects radiate heat that WISE will see.

The telescope will also be able to spot Jupiter-sized objects up to 60,000 astronomical units away (1 AU equals the Earth-sun distance). The distribution of comet paths has suggested that a very large planet could be lurking at 25,000 AU, says WISE project scientist Peter Eisenhardt of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. WISE will be looking for it.

Decode’s demise

WHAT happens to sensitive customer data when a personal genomics firm goes bust? We’re about to find out: Decode Genetics of Reykjavik, Iceland, went bankrupt last week.

Decode’s demise prompted speculation that its customers’ genetic and medical data might be sold on and end up in the hands of an unscrupulous company or individual.

More likely is that the data will be bought back by the company’s previous investors . “That means there will be no

change in the current arrangements or conditions for oversight of the genetic and medical data,” says company spokesman Edward Farmer.

However, there is no guarantee that this would be the case if such

firms change hands in future, says Daniel Vorhaus , a personal genomics specialist at the law firm Robinson Bradshaw & Hinson in Charlotte, North Carolina.

“ There is no guarantee that medical and genetic data won’t be sold on if other firms change hands”

THE beleaguered space probe

Hayabusa , aka peregrine falcon, has

struggled to live up to its name. Only

some nifty space engineering has put

the craft back on course for Earth.

In 2005, Hayabusa landed twice

on the asteroid Itokawa but failed to

dislodge any material for collection . It

then spun temporarily out of control.

Eventually, engineers managed to

set it on a path for home. But the

going was slow as only one of its

four ion engines was working.

Now, the mission team has

cobbled together another engine

using parts from two sick ones, the

Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency

(JAXA) announced on Thursday.

One of Hayabusa’s sick engines

can still spit out positive ions for

thrust, but it can no longer squirt

out electrons to stop the build-up

of electric charge on the spacecraft.

The team got around this problem by

getting a second sick engine to spit

out the electrons.

Now that Hayabusa has two

effective ion engines, it is back on

track to return to Earth in June 2010,

as planned, JAXA says. If all goes well,

it will drop its sample capsule in the

Australian outback.

Scientists are eager to see if some

loose bits of asteroid entered the

collection chamber during the

landings, but Hayabusa’s project

manager, Jun’ichiro Kawaguchi,

warns that the cobbled-together

engine may not last. “It’s a very new

configuration for us,” he says.

Hayabusa hobbles home

–Back on track–

JAXA

60 SECONDS

Smashing successThe LHC is now officially a collider.

After a year of repairs, the Large

Hadron Collider at CERN, near

Geneva, Switzerland, finally

smashed protons head-on at

13:22 GMT on Monday. Two beams

of protons with a total energy of

900 gigaelectronvolts collided at the

heart of the ATLAS detector. At full

throttle, the LHC is designed to reach

energies of 14 teraelectronvolts .

Snails in a spinWhen does a snail’s shell get its twist?

By gently prodding snail embryos

with fine glass rods, Japanese

researchers were able to temporarily

change the shell’s direction of

rotation. This could shed light on

when a snail’s “handedness” gene

kicks in during development (Nature,

DOI: 10.1038/nature08597 ).

Baby immunityBreast milk contains stem cells that

may help to shape infants’ gut and

immune systems. One type of stem

cell develops into epithelial cells and

another into immune cells, Mark

Cregan, now at Swiss company

Medela Healthcare, told Unicef’s

Baby Friendly Initiative conference

in Bournemouth, UK, this week.

Swine flu mutatesFears that pandemic swine flu is

becoming nastier may be premature.

A mutation found in one severe and

two fatal cases of the virus in

Norway does allow the virus to bind

more deeply in the lungs. However, it

has also been reported in mild cases

in other countries, says the World

Health Organization .

Gorilla warningA colony of 125,000 western

lowland gorillas found last year in

the Republic of the Congo is facing

threats from loggers, migrants and

industry, warns a paper in Oryx (DOI:

10.1017/s003060530999010x).

The researchers call for the swamp

forest where the gorillas live to be

fully protected.

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