Fla. marine scientists blocked from Cuba research

TAMPA, Fla. –  Marine biologists who study the Gulf of Mexico have a joke: The FBI, the DEA, the CIA -- none of them have anything on scientists when it comes to tracking the flow of secretive traffic between Cuba and the United States.

"They have not gotten the memo," quipped David Vaughan, with Sarasota-based Mote Marine Laboratory, whose international criminals are not spies but spiny lobsters -- as well as sharks and dolphins. "They are constantly breaking the travel embargo."

But one group of scientists isn't laughing any more, instead watching helplessly as they become the next punch line in marine biology.

Like all employees of Florida's public universities, scientists are prohibited by a law passed in 2006 from using state money for travel to Cuba.

More than most scientists, though, marine biologists see access to the communist island nation just 90 miles of Florida's shores as the difference between success and failure in their field.

'It is more difficult for us in Florida than any other state in the US to work with Cuba.'

- Donald Behringer, an assistant professor at University of Florida

Now, they're being left further behind as researchers from other states and from private institutions in Florida scramble to take advantage of new signs that Cuba relations are improving: an easing of travel restrictions by the White House, an agreement to cooperate in oil spills, even a tour by the University of Tampa baseball team.

Scientists already have begun collaborating with their counterparts in Cuba on research that could reverse the deterioration of coral reefs, prevent overfishing, and lead to better understanding of the gulf ecosystem.

They're doing work that could benefit Florida. They're just not from USF, the University of Florida or Florida State University.

"We are connected," said Donald Behringer, an assistant professor at UF's School of Forest Resources and Conservation & Emerging Pathogens Institute. "In order to understand our own ecosystem we also have to understand Cuba's.

"Unfortunately, it is more difficult for us in Florida than any other state in the United States to work with Cuba."

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Senate Bill 2434, titled "Travel To Terrorist State," forbids money that flows through a state university -- including grants from private foundations -- to be used for travel to a nation on the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism. Cuba is on the list.

Sponsored by former Senate President Mike Haridopolos, the bill was passed in 2006 without a single no vote in either the Florida House or Senate then signed into law by Gov. Jeb Bush.

Florida is the only state in the country with such a prohibition.

Professors can use their own money to travel to Cuba for research, but only on personal time. And it's an expensive trip.

"I've been able to cobble together money for a plane ticket and go to Cuba a few times," said Behringer, "but it's hard. Faculty members from other states can use research money to pay their way. This puts Florida schools at a disadvantage."

An American who worked on a new oil spill cleanup protocol involving five gulf nations, including the U.S. and Cuba, said he is confident this agreement will pave the way for future collaboration on environmental issues between the U.S. and Cuba.

When that day comes, said Dan Whittle of the Environmental Defense Fund, protocols will be based on research projects already under way.

The oil spill agreement, brokered and advanced through meetings in Tampa, awaits publication by the Coast Guard before it becomes official.

"There is so much expertise at public universities in Florida," said Whittle, who directs the fund's work on marine and coastal ecosystems in Cuba. "It's a shame their hands are so tied."

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Researcher Vaughan, director of tropical research with the private Mote Marine Laboratory, said new agreements and protocols will be an opportunity for U.S. scientists to make contributions to the environment they once thought impossible because of politics. Vaughan specializes in coral reefs and works with Cuban scientists.

Shut out of these new opportunities, Florida's public school professors fear losing out on more than a role in new discoveries. Florida may also lose out on attracting the brightest marine biology students.

The University of North Carolina, for example, has an annual student summer expedition to Cuba to study the coral reefs off its shores. The University of Tampa has a marine biology department and though it has no plans to visit Cuba, other departments at the private school and the baseball team have.

"Obtaining knowledge is always important," said Frank Muller-Karger, a professor at the USF College of Marine Science. "Sure, we can learn what another researcher discovered in Cuba. But top students want to develop knowledge."

Proponents of the 2006 act said at the time that any travel to Cuba financially supports an oppressive regime.

Gov. Rick Scott, asked about the lingering impact on Florida universities, echoed that sentiment in a statement to the Tribune last week.

"Governor Scott is committed to growing opportunities so Florida families can succeed and live the American Dream," said John Tupps, Scott's deputy press secretary, "and he is firmly opposed to the Castro regime that works to oppress such opportunity and freedom."

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State Sen. Arthenia Joyner, a Tampa Democrat whose district includes the University of South Florida, was part of the unanimous vote in 2006 but says now that times have changed.

"It's a different world today," Joyner said. "We need to acknowledge that."

There are no signs today of efforts to overturn the law, even at the university level.

USF issued this statement to The Tampa Tribune last week: "The University of South Florida stands for the core values of academic freedom and the open exchange of knowledge and ideas in the least restrictive environment possible. The current restrictions were enacted in the political process and we recognize that is where they will be resolved."

Of the six marine biology professors from state universities who were asked for comment on the issue, all agreed the law hurts their institutions, but only Behringer from UF and USF's Muller-Karger would speak on the record against it.

The others said they were concerned about getting involved in politics.

Muller-Karger had this response: "The reaction you describe shows that people are actually quite worried about how the state may interpret their interest in working these issues, or just worried stiff about speaking about a binding Florida law."

He added, "This has nothing to do with politics. It is about knowledge, managing our resources and doing what is best for our environment."

The law forbidding state money from funding trips to Cuba affects other disciplines.

Those studying Latin American art, music, language, politics, geology and history could benefit from visiting the Communist nation. But marine biology stands out as a field where advances in research stand to directly benefit the state of Florida more than any other region on earth.

"So no one else is as affected by what goes on in Cuban waters than Florida" said Muller-Karger.

Marine biologists call it "connectivity."

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For instance, spiny lobsters served in Tampa restaurants could have hatched from eggs laid in Cuba and made their way to Florida in the Gulf's currents. Much of the snapper and grouper that supports Florida's fish industry could also originate in or pass through Cuban waters.

To better understand this marine life, scientists track their travels between the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico, Florida and Cuba. Learning where each species originates can help in reaching agreements on fishing limits and other protective measures.

Still, coral reefs are the top priority for U.S. marine biologists working with Cuba.

Scientists predict that by 2050, all coral reefs will be in danger from pollution and changes in water temperature and sea levels.

Natural reefs in Martin, Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties generate an estimated $3.4 billion in income a year through recreation, education and science.

More importantly, reefs protect coasts by reducing wave energy from storms and hurricanes. And as home to more than 4,000 species of fish and countless species of plants, coral reefs support some 25 percent of all known marine species.

Whether a coral reef is off the shores of Cuba or the U.S., the waters they share suffers from its degradation. In addition, coral larvae from Cuba finds its way to reefs in Florida and vice versa.

So if a reef in Cuba disappears, it has a ripple effect, said John Bruno, a professor in the Department of Biology at the University of North Carolina.

"If the coral babies in Florida come from Cuba," Bruno said, "then that would be a big problem for the state."

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Bruno's students travel annually to Cuba and the reef they seek out most is the pristine "Gardens of the Queen," or Jardines de la Reina.

Most of Cuba's reefs are in decline, said Vaughan of Mote Marine, but "la Reina" remains healthy.

He believes U.S. researchers can help other reefs by learning its secret to survival.

Cuba, in turn, can benefit from more advanced U.S. technology, said Whittle with the Environmental Defense Fund.

A forum was established in 2007 to formalize this kind of cooperation -- the Tri-National Workshop, attended by top marine biologists from Mexico, Cuba and the U.S.

They meet at least once a year on issues affecting turtles, sharks, dolphins, coral reefs, fisheries and marine protected areas.

"We can learn more by working with other country's scientists," Whittle said. "We share their knowledge, we share ours, and we work together to find out how we can help one another."

Mote Marine, the Environmental Defense Fund and the Nature Conservancy are private, U.S.-based participants.

Florida's public universities are not at the table. Neither is U.S., making it the only of the three nations without government involvement.

"We're working together," Vaughan said, "to find out answers to things we could not know as individuals."

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Obama Champions Science Research in Address

President Barack Obama expressed his unequivocal support for the science industry in a public address today (April 29), saying the nation cannot afford to make sweeping budget cuts that threaten to stall the depth and pace of research.

Obama spoke before an audience of scientists, engineers and doctors this morning to mark the 150th anniversary of the National Academy of Sciences.

"What I want to communicate to all of you is that as long as I'm president, we're going to be committed to investing in promising ideas that are generated by you and your institutions, because they lead to innovative products, they help boost our economy, but also because that's who we are," Obama said. "I'm committed to it because that's what makes us special, and ultimately what makes life worth living." [25 Amazing Facts About Science]

After policymakers failed to reach an agreement to avoid government-wide spending cuts earlier this year, $85 billion in across-the-board cuts — referred to as "the sequester" — was signed into law on March 1.

Making deep cuts to research and development programs could jeopardize the country's competitive edge, and it hinders the widespread benefits that these efforts could have, Obama said.

"What we produce here ends up having benefits worldwide," he explained. "We should be reaching for a level of private and public research and development investment that we haven't seen since the height of the space race, that's my goal."

The sequester is expected to take a significant toll on scientific research, with numerous federal agencies and organizations now facing the possibility of huge cuts to their budgets. In particular, the National Institutes of Health is expecting to face $1.5 billion in cuts; the National Science Foundation is estimating its budget could shrink by $283 million; and the American Association for the Advancement of Science is estimating an $8.6 billion cut in 2013.

Obama called the fallout from the sequester a product of "misguided priorities" in the nation's capital, adding that the country cannot afford to gut programs that are on the brink of important discoveries.

"It's hitting our scientific research," Obama said. "Instead of racing ahead … our scientists are left wondering if they'll be able to start any new research projects at all, which means we could lose a year, two years, of scientific research."

In his address, the president reaffirmed his commitment to "grand challenges," such as solar energy projects, NASA's Curiosity rover mission on Mars, and initiatives to better understand how the human brain processes information and memories.

Furthermore, he stated the government should continue to invest in the projects that promise the most return on taxpayer investment, without being influenced by politics.

"In all the sciences, we've got to make sure that we are supporting the idea that they're not subject to politics, that they're not skewed by an agenda," Obama said.

The president added that his administration will continue to focus on promoting science, technology, engineering and math — the so-called STEM subjects — to the next generation of Americans.

"We want to make sure we're exciting young people around math and science and technology," Obama said. "We don't want our kids to just be consumers of the amazing things that science generates. We want them to be producers as well."

Follow Denise Chow on Twitter @denisechow. Follow LiveScience @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on LiveScience.com.

Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Scientists urge end to limits on gun safety research

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Research restrictions pushed by the National Rifle Association have stopped the United States from finding solutions to firearms violence, more than a hundred scientists from virtually every major U.S. university told Vice President Joe Biden's task force on gun violence in a letter on Thursday.

In the wake of the December school massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, and other mass homicides, the group of economists, health researchers, educators, doctors and criminologists said funding should be restored to a range of study areas, from gun safety to tracking illegal guns.

President Barack Obama has asked Biden to head a task force to come up with gun policy proposals, and Biden was to meet with NRA representatives on Thursday. He said the task force will have recommendations ready for the president by Tuesday.

"While mortality rates from almost every major cause of death declined dramatically over the past half century, the homicide rate in America today is almost exactly the same as it was in 1950," the academics wrote in a letter organized by scholars at the University of Chicago Crime Lab research center.

"Politically-motivated constraints" left the nation "muddling through" a problem that costs American society on the order of $100 billion per year, it said.

The federal Centers for Disease Control has cut firearms safety research by 96 percent since the mid-1990s, according to one estimate. Congress, pushed by the gun lobby, in 1996 put restrictions on CDC funding of gun research into the budget. Restrictions on other agencies were added in later years.

The NRA, the main lobbyist for gun rights, has taken credit for the research halt. "These junk science studies and others like them are designed to provide ammunition for the gun control lobby by advancing the false notion that legal gun ownership is a danger to the public health instead of an inalienable right," it said in 2011.

Research into links between teenagers' use of guns and alcohol, and firearm storage practices, were examples the gun rights group cited, arguing that the studies were meant to show gun ownership was a "disease."

The NRA did not respond to a request for comment ahead of the letter's release.

'ANTI-GUN PROPAGANDA'

A political fight over firearms research has waxed and waned for years. Public health researchers began digging into gun violence in the late 1980s as homicides surged. By 1996, the NRA and allies had concluded that the work was producing "anti-gun propaganda."

Congress in 1996 nearly cut the CDC budget by $2.6 million, the amount the agency spent on firearms research at the time, researchers say. The funds were later restored, but a restriction was added to the budget and remains.

"None of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control," the budget read.

Similar language was added to the budget in 2011 for the National Institute of Health and other federal health agencies.

Officials have largely pulled the plug on gun research.

A forthcoming study by Mayors Against Illegal Guns, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's group, estimates that CDC funding for such research was cut to $100,000 a year in 2009-2012 from an average of $2.5 million, in current dollars, in 1992-1996.

Gun related studies as a percentage of total peer-reviewed research dropped 60 percent, the mayors' group estimates.

"Scientific inquiry in this field has been systematically starved, and as a result almost no one does it," said emergency room physician and University of California, Davis, professor Garen Wintemute, who signed the letter. He estimated that there were fewer than a dozen researchers in the country whose primary commitment was to firearm violence prevention.

Separate federal actions have stopped federal law enforcement officials from collecting, keeping and distributing gun ownership data. Wintemute said that made it much more difficult to effectively study gun trafficking.

Without the research, there is no clear evidence of what to do to curb gun-related violence, the scientists said. Gun rights advocates put the matter differently, saying there is no evidence that gun control works.

The letter will be available on the University of Chicago Crime Lab's Web site, http://crimelab.uchicago.edu.

(Reporting By Peter Henderson; Editing by Martin Howell and Vicki Allen)

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National Lab Scientist Recognized for Solar Silicon Research

In 2010, scientist Howard Branz, a research fellow at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, was part of a team honored for reducing reflection waste by turning silicon cells black. Now, Branz has been honored again -- this time for his work on thin films and nanostructures -- by the American Physical Society. Here are the details.

* Branz was elected a fellow of the American Physical Society, an honor bestowed yearly on fewer than one-half of 1 percent of the organization's 50,000 members, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory reported this week.

* According to the laboratory, Branz was elected for his research on "thin film silicon: defects, metastability, growth processing, nano-structuring and solar cells."

* The award in 2010 for black silicon was given to Branz's National Center for Photovoltaics team by R&D 100 Magazine after the team showed that the process of turning silicon black produced a confirmed record of 18.2 percent efficiency for a nano solar cell.

* In 2010, Branz also won the Southeast Regional Laboratory Consortium Award for Excellence in Technology Transfer.

* Described as a talented, productive scientist who is gifted at creating novel renewable energy technology, and a brilliant research organizer, Branz has been recognized worldwide for research in nano-structured anti-reflection silicon, solar hydrogen production and defects and diffusion in semiconductors, the national laboratory reported.

* Branz was also recently named to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's Research Fellows Council , which advises the lab on enhancing the quality and defining the direction of science and technology. A spot on the 10-member council is reserved for those who have national and international recognition in their fields of science.

* Branz obtained his Ph.D. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and joined the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in 1987. He has published 106 journal articles and 104 conference papers.

* Branz also has 17 patents issued or applied for and five pending National Renewable Energy Laboratory Records of Invention.

* The National Renewable Energy Laboratory, based in Golden, Colo., is operated for the U.S. Department of Energy by the Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC.

* The American Physical Society is a non-profit membership organization working to advance the knowledge of physics. Its membership includes physicists in academia, national laboratories and industry throughout the world.

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Spanish cuts widen Europe's north-south research divide

MADRID (Reuters) - Amanda Bolanos, a young Spanish scientist, knows she will not be coming home.

"Exiled in Cambodia" read the banner the molecular biologist carried at a protest in Madrid against government cutbacks. Back on leave from Phnom Penh, the 30-year-old researcher plans to head for Latin America if her present contract in Cambodia is not renewed. She sees little chance of finding work in Spain.

Bolanos and other scientists say sharp cuts in Spanish state spending on research and development, part of efforts to lower the national debt, leave them little choice but to go abroad. And they worry the cuts put Spain's competitive future at risk.

"There are two problems," said another demonstrator, Amaya Moro-Martin, 38, an astrophysicist with a prestigious Ramon y Cajal fellowship. "One is that there isn't enough investment. The other is that the investment there is isn't efficient."

She returned to Spain after 11 years in the United States but Moro-Martin, who carried her infant daughter on the march, said there was no chance her contract in Spain would be renewed at the end of this year and she will probably go abroad again.

Spain's modest place in the world of scientific research is far from new. Moro-Martin's fellowship is named after one of just two Spaniards ever to win a Nobel science prize.

And while state spending on R&D, even since the financial crisis hit, is comparable to that of wealthier EU governments such as Germany, private research by Spanish firms trails their northern rivals: current total national R&D spending is only about 1.4 percent of Spain's GDP, half the level in Germany.

But what particularly worries Spanish scientists who fret for their jobs, and economists who see research spending as an engine of growth, is that far from redoubling efforts to catch up, Spain now risks falling even further behind its competitors.

The government chopped fully 25 percent off its research and development budget last year and will trim a further 7 percent in 2013, leaving it at under 6 billion euros ($8 billion). The German government, by contrast, is increasing spending on R&D by over 6 percent this year to close to 14 billion euros.

With an economy just over 40 percent the size of Germany's, Madrid is still spending a comparable amount to Berlin, but the government's critics fear it is not doing enough to make up for a historic lag in investment, especially by private firms.

An official at the Economy Ministry, which swallowed up the science ministry after conservative Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy took power a year ago, insisted the government was doing what it could: "In the current circumstances we are keeping the system going and preparing for the future, to guarantee that every euro spent is well invested," the official said. "We have to create the best conditions possible so our scientists come back."

Spain is not alone. As France, Britain, Germany and others in the north fund more research to fend off competition from Asia, Italy has also scaled back its government R&D budget, prompting Roberto Natalini, a mathematician at Italy's National Research Council (CNR) to warn: "We will pay for this in the medium term, not immediately. We will lose our competitiveness."

TWO-SPEED EUROPE

Without more private R&D spending, Spain, Italy and others in the south may continue to lag. But critics of government cuts say these risk creating a vicious circle, discouraging business:

"Public money attracts private sector money," said biologist Antonio Baraber from Spain's National Oncology Centre. "You can't just hope people will invest if there's no base."

In 2010, OECD figures show, only 242 international patents were filed from Spain, compared to over 5,600 from Germany. Where the private sector accounts for over two thirds of total German R&D spending, in Spain it provides less than half.

All the more reason, Spain's researchers say, for their government not to be cutting while competitors invest more:

"There's a crisis everywhere but other countries aren't cutting off the lifeline," said Ester Artells, a 36-year-old Spanish biologist based at Marseille University in France.

The German government has raised its R&D budget by 6.3 percent this year and France is finding 1.2 percent more. After cutting back, Britain too is adding investment in science.

Venture capitalist Francisco Marin, whose Ambar fund invests in Spanish technology firms, said Madrid's failure to catch up in generating ideas to drive new businesses was a big risk for a country where one worker in four is already out of a job:

"Employment and wealth come from the creation of new companies," he said. "Existing companies don't create employment, they keep it at the same level."

Carlos Andradas, the mathematician who is president of the Spanish Confederation of Scientific Societies (COSCE), says it will take years, if not decades, to bridge the widening gap Spain has allowed to open up with its northern competitors.

"When you fall behind in a race, catching up is very hard," Andradas said. "It will take a long time for Spain to catch up, starting from a position of insufficient development."

Protesting astrophysicist Moyo-Martin believed her country had begun to improve its international performance in research in recent years, half a century after New York-based Severo Ochoa became the last Spaniard to win a Nobel science prize.

Now, however, it was back in a "very precarious position", she said: "The problem is, what's happening now isn't reform - it's just cuts."

(Additional reporting by Naomi O'Leary in Rome and Gareth Jones and Michelle Martin in Berlin; Editing by Chris Wickham, Fiona Ortiz and Alastair Macdonald)

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US Scientists to Use Chinese Moon Lander for Space Research

A cooperative deal has been inked between a U.S. group and China to use that country's moon lander to conduct astronomical imaging from the lunar surface.

The International Lunar Observatory Association (ILOA) of Kamuela, Hawaii has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Beijing-based National Astronomical Observatories (NAOC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. A signing ceremony took place in Kamuela on Sept. 4.

The deal is the first such U.S.-China collaboration centered on using China's Chang'e-3 moon lander now being readied for launch next year.

Dedicated to astronomical research and public education, China's NAOC hosts the Lunar and Planetary Research Center and is the institute responsible for the ultraviolet lunar telescope to be carried onboard the Chang'e-3 lander. That instrument will be operated by the China National Space Administration's Chinese Lunar Exploration Program. [Gallery: China's Moon Photos by Chang'e 2 Lunar Probe]

The Chang'e 1 and Chang'e 2 lunar orbiters were launched by China in 2007 and 2010, respectively. The most recent orbiter cranked out a detailed map of the moon's surface, including the landing zone picked for the rover-carrying Chang'e 3 lander — Sinus Iridium (Bay of Rainbows).

Natural progression

"I've been visiting China observatories and astronomy facilities like NAOC for about 15 years, so this memorandum of understanding has been a natural progression," Steve Durst, ILOA founding director, told SPACE.com.

This science collaboration will be part of a mission that will conduct the first soft controlled landing of any spacecraft on the moon in almost 40 years, Durst said in a press statement. It will be the first ever program to conduct astronomical imaging from the moon's landscape, he said.

The ILOA co-sponsors with its Space Age Publishing Company affiliate a number of educational initiatives, international forums to provide increased global awareness of space science, exploration and enterprise, Durst said.

Forums are held in Silicon Valley, Canada, China, India, Japan, Europe, Africa, Hawaii, Kansas and New York. Current plans, Durst said, are for expansion to South America, Southeast Asia, Mexico and Antarctica through 2014.

"We're optimistic that resulting Space Age USA-People's Republic of China -international interaction should be very productive for all," Durst said. The deal struck involved quite an effort, he said, calling it "hopefully quite significant and historic."

Google Lunar X Prize

Durst said that the exchange in kind calls for China's NAOC to receive observing time on the ILO-X and ILO-1 mission instruments — science gear that's part of the International Lunar Observatory Association's work with Moon Express, a Google Lunar X Prize enterprise based at NASA Research Park at Moffett Field, Calif. That prize has groups vying for a $30 million purse for the first privately funded team to send a robot to the moon.

The ILO-X is an optical telescope precursor instrument, part of a joint venture with Moon Express in a bid for the Google Lunar X-Prize.

In a July statement, Moon Express said it has designed and is building the ILO-X as the first independently developed astronomical telescope that will operate on the moon, looking out at the galaxy and heavens beyond and back at the Earth.

About the size of a shoe-box, the ILO-X will use leading-edge optical and imaging technology to deliver dramatic and inspiring deep sky pictures of galactic and extragalactic objects, according to Moon Express co-founder and CEO, Bob Richards.

ILO-1 is the primary ILOA mission under development by MDA Canada to land a multifunctional 2-meter dish at the moon's south pole to conduct astronomical observation and commercial communications activities.

Regarding the newly signed memorandum of understanding, Durst said: "Of course, I'm both amazed and sad that there's no American lander operating on the moon too…public, private, any kind," Durst said. He called the moon's south pole "the next new frontier."

Leonard David has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. He is a winner of last year's National Space Club Press Award and a past editor-in-chief of the National Space Society's Ad Astra and Space World magazines. He has written for SPACE.com since 1999.

Copyright 2012 SPACE.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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US scientists head to Mount Everest for research

KATMANDU, Nepal (AP) — A team of American scientists and researchers flew to the Mount Everest region on Friday to set up a laboratory at the base of the world's highest mountain to study the effects of high altitude on humans.

The team from the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota says it plans to monitor nine climbers attempting to scale Everest to learn more about the physiology of humans at high altitudes in order to help patients with heart conditions and other ailments.

"We are interested in some of the parallels between high altitude physiology and heart failure physiology," Dr. Bruce Johnson, who is heading the team, told The Associated Press before leaving Nepal's capital, Katmandu, for the mountain. "What we are doing here will help us with our work that we have been doing in the (Mayo Clinic) laboratory."

Johnson and the eight other team members flew to the airstrip at Lukla, near Everest, on Friday.

It will take them about a week to trek to the Everest base camp, with several porters and yaks helping to carry their 680 kilograms (1,500 pounds) of medical equipment. They will set up their lab at the base camp, which is located at 5,300 meters (17,380 feet), and expect to be at the camp until at least mid-May.

The team says Everest's extreme altitude puts climbers under the same conditions experienced by patients suffering from heart disease.

The team members plan to study the effects of high altitude on the heart, the lungs, muscle loss and sleep during their stay at Everest, which peaks at 8,850 meters (29,035 feet).

Johnson said that the team's laboratory at the Mayo Clinic focuses on lung congestion during heart failure and that lung congestion often kills mountain climbers.

Hundreds of climbers and their guides attempt to climb Everest every year, while thousands more trek up to the base camp. Several of them suffer from high altitude sickness and other complications because of the low level of oxygen.

An experienced Sherpa guide who had scaled Everest at least 10 times died of high altitude sickness Wednesday at the mountain's base camp, becoming the first fatality in this year's spring climbing season.

Hundreds of climbers and their guides are currently camped at the base camp preparing to scale Everest. Climbers generally try to scale the mountain in May, when weather conditions usually improve just enough to enable them to attempt to reach the peak.

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Elan to create research centre with Cambridge University

DUBLIN | Sun Nov 27, 2011 4:14am EST

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Elan Corp Plc has signed an agreement with Britain's Cambridge University to create a research center focused on therapies for Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, the Dublin-headquartered biotech group said on Sunday.

Elan, whose main research facility is in San Francisco, will spend $10 million over the next five years on the research center and has an option to extend the deal for another five years.

Researchers from Cambridge and Elan want to discover ways of altering the behavior of proteins that can spread neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

"This agreement is a natural next step in the existing working relationship between our scientists in South San Francisco and scientists at the University of Cambridge," Dale Schenk, chief scientific officer at Elan, said in a statement.

"This collaborative effort complements our portfolio of programmes in neuroscience and supports the process of discovery which we believe may lead to a class of therapeutics that no one has thought possible before."

(Reporting by Carmel Crimmins; Editing by David Holmes)

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