Alaskan gold mine Q’s but few A’s in
sparks a dispute Q-fever outbreak
muddle. There’s no doubt they’re hungry for
information. Out of curiosity, Lombardi did a
Google search on “XMRV” the day before the
Science paper hit and found about 22,500 hits.
Three months later, there are 400,000.
But some scientists, including Coffin and
McClure, fear that the Viral Immune Pathol-
ogy Diagnostics clinic (VIP Dx) took advan-
tage of that hunger by offering the $650 diag-
nostic test for XMRV, 300 of which have been
administered so far and which already has a
4 to 6 week backlog. “Leaving aside the issue
of who’s right and who’s wrong,” says Coffin,
“the original paper did not establish the virus
[caused CFS] and didn’t establish it as a viable
marker.” So it’s not clear what a patient or
physician could do with a positive result.
ARCHAEOLOGY
Neandertal Jewelry Shows Their Symbolic Smarts
Neandertals had big brains and were skilled
hunters, but their sites reveal few objets
d’art. So some researchers have suggested
that Neandertals weren’t cognitively up to
the job of producing art and symbols,
although a growing number disagree. Now a
handful of marine mollusk shells, possibly
CREDITS: J. ZILHÃO ET AL., PNAS (ADVANCED ONLINE EDITION) © 2009 NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, U.S.A.
used as necklaces and paint cups, shows that
Neandertals did express themselves symbol-
ically, say the authors of a paper published
online this week in the Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences. They argue
that the f indings suggest that social and
demographic factors, rather than cognitive
differences, best explain why so-called mod-
ern behavior was relatively rare among
Neandertals. The paper suggests that “Nean-
dertals too had such [symbolic] capacities,”
says archaeologist John Speth of the Univer-
sity of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
The shells were found in the Aviones cave
and the Antón rock shelter in southeast Spain,
both identified as Neandertal sites from their
ages and stone tools. Radiocarbon dating of
shells at Aviones puts the Neandertal occupa-
tion there at between 45,000 and 50,000 years
ago—before modern humans entered the
area—and charcoal at Antón came out at
between 37,000 and 43,000 years old.
Signs of symbolism. Neandertal perforated shells,
some painted (right), suggest artistic expression.
www.sciencemag.org
263
Steve Kaye, a colleague of McClure’s at Impe-
rial College London and a co-author of the
PLoS ONE paper, noted with some alarm that
the authors of the Science paper had specu-
lated about treating XMRV with antiretroviral
drugs, which can have harsh side effects.
However, VIP Dx developed its XMRV test
only after a different company began offering
one; VIP Dx officials saw their test as a more
expert alternative. What’s more, Lombardi—
an unpaid consultant for VIP Dx who helped
set up and manage the testing program—
argues that the test is useful. Patients could in
theory avoid infecting other people with
XMRV and can have their diagnoses validated,
if nothing else. His test results also bolster the
science in the original paper; he says 36% of
An international team led by archaeologist
João Zilhão of the University of Bristol in the
United Kingdom examined three cock-
leshells from Aviones that were perforated
near their hinges and were found alongside
lumps of yellow and red pigments.
A fourth, unperforated, thorny oys-
ter shell contained residues of
red and black pigments
and was perhaps used as
a paint container, the
team says. At Antón, a
perforated scallop shell
was painted on its exter-
nal side with a blend of
orange pigments, per-
SCIENCE VOL 327 15 JANUARY 2010
Published by AAAS
266
tests have detected XMRV, including a few
from the United Kingdom. (Test proceeds roll
back into research and development at Whitte-
more, which licenses the test to VIP Dx. VIP
Dx has also received financial support from
the Whittemore family in the past.)
To resolve the dispute, both sides say they
are willing to work with the other and possibly
test each other’s samples. In the meantime,
more papers exploring the link are slated to
appear in the next few months, and each side
Downloaded from www.sciencemag.org on February 6, 2010
says it knows of work supporting its results.
All that suggests that the field will continue to
churn. As McClure told Science, “we take no
pleasure in finding colleagues wrong or dash-
ing the hopes of patients, but it’s imperative
the truth gets out.” –SAM KEAN
haps to make the shell’s outside resemble its
naturally red inside surface. Zilhão’s team
concludes that although the perforations were
not humanmade, Neandertals selected shells
with holes of 4.5 to 6.5 millimeters, ideal for
stringing as ornaments.
“The authors make a good
case” that the shells and pig-
ments were used in “an
aesthetic and presum-
ably symbolic” way, says
archaeologist Erella
Hovers of The Hebrew
University of Jerusalem.
Hovers cites similar
f inds from Israel’s
▲
255
NEWS OF THE WEEK

Qafzeh Cave, which was occupied by modern
humans as early as 92,000 years ago and
where perforated cockleshells and red ochre
pigments have been widely accepted as evi-
dence of modern human behavior.
Although signs of Neandertal symbolism
are rare, ornaments become more common at
Neandertal sites when modern humans arrive
in Europe about 40,000 years ago, leading
some to argue that the Neandertals copied
modern human symbolic behavior rather than
inventing it themselves.
But as the older perforated shells suggest,
that does not mean Neandertals were not
capable of creating symbols, Speth says.
“The assumption [has been] that when you
first see symbolic media such as ornaments,
that’s the first time humans had the mental
wherewithal to make them. By that logic,
humans lacked the cognitive capacities nec-
essary to invent the atomic bomb until World
War II. That is obviously nonsense.”
So why are ornaments plentiful at mod-
ern human sites and rare at Neandertal
ones? Social and demographic factors,
Zilhão and others say. In this view the
Neandertals, with relatively low population
densities, may have lacked the widespread
social networks that required symbolic
communication within and among popula-
tion groups. Early humans engaged in sym-
bolic behavior only “when it was advanta-
geous,” says Hovers, and when “popula-
tions were stable enough over time to keep
these canons and traditions alive.”
–MICHAEL BALTER

ACADEMIC FACILITIES

NIST Grants Help Schools Build for Tomorrow’s Research

Downloaded from www.sciencemag.org on February 6, 2010

Habib Dagher, a structural engineer at $12.7 million toward 13 new physics
the University of Maine, Orono, wants laboratories, part of a 12-year strategic
to replace the heating oil that warms plan, and the $15 million NIST grant
most Maine homes with a cheaper, gives it a green light to proceed.
renewable fuel—electricity generated “Without this grant, I don’t know how
by wind turbines 30 km offshore in the many years it would have taken us” to
Gulf of Maine. To withstand the pun- complete the project, says N. John
ishing ocean conditions, the 100-meter Cooper, dean of arts and sciences.
turbines would be made from a poly- Despite an overall 5% spending cut
mer composite, stiffened by cellulose this year that has slowed hiring,
fibers, created by researchers at the Cooper says the NIST grant “positions
university’s Advanced Structures and us to be more competitive when the
Composites Center he directs. But upturn comes.”
researchers need more lab space to For the Woods Hole Oceanographic
design, prototype, and test the unique Institution (WHOI) in Massachusetts,
building material. an $8.1 million award for a laboratory
Fortunately for the center, Dagher In the wind. Researchers at Maine’s Advanced Structures and Compos- for ocean sensors and observing sys-
not only thinks green but also knows ites Center are getting a new lab to test offshore wind-turbine blades. tems will help it do a better job as a
where to find the green. Last week, major contractor for a project sup-
the center learned it was one of 12 winners in ernment’s academic research portfolio, which ported by the National Science Foundation
the second and final round of a $180 million traditionally has favored supporting scientists (NSF). The Ocean Observatories Initiative
competitive construction grants program at over bricks and mortar. “This is the hardest (OOI) will deploy networks of sensors to col-
the National Institute of Standards and Tech- type of money to get,” says Dagher. “And with- lect long-term data from the sea floor (Science,
nology (NIST). The $12.4 million NIST out the NIST grant, the whole project would 16 November 2007, p. 1056), and Laurence
grant, combined with $5 million from the have been slowed down considerably.” Madin, WHOI’s executive vice president and
state of Maine, will allow Dagher to build the The NIST competition attracted 167 pro- director of research, explains that “once we got
Advanced Nanocomposites in Renewable posals from universities clamoring for help in the NSF award, we realized that we needed a
Energy Laboratory at the center. The center funding new construction during tough eco- special facility to do everything that OOI
has received a $5 million earmark inserted nomic times. (A smaller competition in 2008 would require.” Although WHOI has received
into the Department of Energy’s 2010 budget chose three winners from 93 proposals, and in NOAA funding for many years, says Madin,
by the state’s congressional delegation, July, NIST gave $55 million in stimulus “this is actually our first NIST award.”
and it’s part of a consortium that won a money to four institutions that had just missed Some of the NIST construction funding will
$7 million grant in October from DOE to the cut.) The new facilities are intended to help improve construction practices them-
test the offshore wind turbines. In addition, enhance the mission of either NIST or the selves. An $11.8 million NIST grant to build
Dagher hopes that Maine voters will National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminis- the Center for High-Performance Buildings
approve a $6 million bond issue this sum- tration (NOAA), its sister agency within the will allow Purdue University scientists to
CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF MAINE

mer to equip the new lab. Commerce Department. The federal dollars reconfigure office space to maximize comfort,
The NIST program is a small component of leverage money already on the table: The safety, and energy efficiency, says James
the $787 billion stimulus package designed to $123 million allocated last week will make Braun, a professor of mechanical engineering.
revive the U.S. economy (Science, 27 Novem- possible more than $250 million in new labo- The new lab space, he adds, may even boost the
ber 2009, p. 1176). Aimed at funding “shovel- ratory construction. team’s application, now pending at NSF, for an
ready” projects such as the nanocomposites The University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylva- Engineering Research Center on the topic.
lab, the grants address a gap in the federal gov- nia, for example, had already committed –JEFFREY MERVIS

256 15 JANUARY 2010 VOL 327 SCIENCE www.sciencemag.org

Published by AAAS