Two teams make quantum leap in quest for merged molecules

London

Two teams of physicists have announced the creation of an elusive form of matter called a molecular Bose–Einstein condensate.

A Bose–Einstein condensate is a group of identical particles that occupy the same quantum level and so behave as if they were a single particle. Condensates made from atoms were first created in 1995, but repeating the trick with molecules has proved more difficult.

“This is going to cause a lot of excitement,” says physicist Randall Hulet of Rice University in Houston, Texas. “We've all been racing to make a condensate from molecules.”

Rudolf Grimm of the University of Innsbruck, Austria, and his colleagues used lasers to cool a gas cloud of lithium atoms, as they report in a Science paper published online last week (S. Jochim et al. Science 10.1126/science.1093280; 2003). As the temperature fell, the atoms formed weak bonds, pairing up into lithium molecules and forming a condensate that lasted 20 seconds.

Meanwhile, Deborah Jin of the University of Colorado in Boulder and her colleagues created a condensate from potassium molecules. They will publish their results in an upcoming issue of Nature.

Islands make waves for Chinese space base

Tokyo

The tiny republic of Kiribati in the Pacific Ocean looks set to disrupt China's space programme.

Earlier this month, the republic decided to establish diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Although the islands that make up Kiribati have a population of less than 100,000, and together cover just 717 square kilometres, the decision could force China to close down one of the bases for its space programme.

China established a base on Kiribati in 1997 to help it observe satellites. Last month, the base was one of many used to watch China's first manned spaceflight. It is rumoured that the base is also used by China to spy on an American ballistic-missile base in the nearby Marshall Islands.

China usually refuses to keep relations with countries that have formal ties with Taiwan and is expected to cut ties with Kiribati if it doesn't change its mind. China has told Kiribati to reverse its decision or “face serious consequences”, according to Xinhua news, the Chinese government's official English-language newspaper.

Satellite mission is star buy in online auction

Washington

Online auction addicts tired of the usual Star Wars memorabilia and vintage video games got to bid on something more exciting this week — a satellite mission.

The company SpaceDev, based in Poway, California, posted a complete mini-satellite mission — featuring up to a year of orbiting time — on eBay on 10 November, with an asking price of $9.5 million. The six-year-old company usually survives on small contracts from the US Air Force and others. One such project saw it team up with the University of California, Berkeley, to build CHIPSat, which was launched by NASA last January. Even so, the company posted a $208,000 loss last quarter.

Six days into the ten-day auction period, only one person had posted a bid: venture capitalist Michael Potter of California-based company Paradigm Ventures, who offered just $250,000. He says he will use the satellite as either a broadband relay or an Earth-sensing device if he wins.

SpaceDev has not disclosed its 'reserve' price — the bid below which it will not sell — but the auction site notes that the current leading bid does not meet this sum. For comparison, bidders may note that CHIPSat cost NASA $6.8 million.

'Money down the drain' fears for AIDS vaccine trials

Washington

An AIDS vaccine candidate has failed its second large clinical trial, causing concern that a third trial now in progress could prove a waste of money.

The California-based company VaxGen announced on 12 November that its AIDS vaccine candidate — AIDSVAX — failed to protect 2,546 drug users in Thailand from HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Earlier this year, the vaccine failed a similar trial in North America (see Nature 421, 877; 200310.1038/421877b).

But the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the US Department of Defense and the Thai government have already started another clinical trial with AIDSVAX, this time in combination with another vaccine candidate — Aventis Pasteur's ALVAC. The trial will involve 16,000 volunteers and cost $120 million.

The trial's sponsors say there is evidence that the combination could prove better than either vaccine alone. But John Moore of Cornell University's Weill Medical College in New York says this evidence is “extremely poor”. A lot of people are concerned that the money will be washed down the drain, he adds.

Cancer grant chief denies Harvard bias

San Francisco

A Congressional committee is investigating whether a former director of the National Cancer Institute with links to Harvard University had a hand in giving the university a $40-million grant.

Richard Klausner, who was appointed to the institute by the Clinton administration, was director when the grant was being awarded — it eventually went to Stuart Schreiber's genetics lab at Harvard in 2002. After Klausner left the institute in 2001, he became a paid consultant to Schreiber's firm, Infinity Pharmaceuticals.

The House Committee on Energy and Commerce, led by Representative Billy Tauzin (Republican, Louisiana), has asked Harvard University and the National Institutes of Health to provide records relating to the grant.

Klausner says he had no say in the grant's destination. He excused himself in 1999 from any decisions relating to Harvard, as he was standing as a candidate for president of the university.