The month ahead

The latest in science.
May 24, 2012

 

 

Hang on a second. That’s what the International Telecommunication Union (ITU)—the official keeper of the Earth’s time—will be doing when it adds a leap second on 30th June, reigniting the debate about whether this horological interloper has outstayed its welcome. The leap second was invented in 1972 to bring two chronological systems—time as measured by the Earth’s rotation, and time as measured by more precise atomic clocks—back into alignment (our planet wobbles as it spins, meaning that the exact length of a day can vary by a few milliseconds). But lobbing in a corrective second is disruptive for technology such as sat-nav; that’s why America, Japan and France, unlike the UK, want leap seconds abolished. The reprieve lasts until 2015, when the ITU revisits the controversy.

 

Why are identical twins sometimes so different? What is the perfect population for the Earth? These and other questions will be tackled at the Cheltenham Science Festival, running from 12th to 17th June. Highlights include the ever-popular Famelab, a kind of X Factor for scientists, and comedian Marcus Brigstocke, who will be showing environmentalists how to up their PR game by Marketing the Apocalypse (“it shouldn’t be any more difficult than selling drinking water to a person who has a tap”).

 

Leading scientists and politicians gather in Washington this month for a symposium on where synthetic biology is headed. Synthetic Biology for the Next Generation, on 12th and 13th June, will hear from companies like Shell and Agilent on how they want to use synthetic biology, and from MPs like David Willetts on how it could be regulated. It follows previous symposiums in London and Shanghai last year, jointly organised by six scientific bodies including the UK’s Royal Society, the US National Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering.