Planet Nature

Climate change researchers in the UK have been subjected to a new cyber-attack.

Last month staff at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, part of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), were sent fake emails that purported to come from Nicholas Stern, the head of the institute.

“The attacker did not gain access to any e-mail messages. The attack was identified very quickly by members of the school’s IT security team who took steps to prevent it from causing any damage,” says Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the institute.

This is not a computer hacking incident such as some commentators have suggested occurred in the so-called climate-gate theft of emails from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit. Instead, this is an email spoofing attack where an incoming email is doctored to make it look like it has come from someone other than the real sender.

Further details on the content of the email were not available. Spoofing attacks can be used to trick the recipient into revealing information of use to the spoofer or to get them to open files that may contain computer viruses, among other things.

The fact that the message purported to come from Stern might suggest this was more targeted than a run-of-the-mill ‘phishing’ attack for bank details, perhaps even an incident inspired by the climate-gate theft, which gave succour to climate sceptics.

However Ward says there are “no indications of the motives behind the attack”.

Details of the attack have been passed to the Police Central eCrime Unit.

Researchers Paul Selden and Diying Huang, of the University of Kansas and the Chinese Academy of Sciences respectively, have datee them to around 165 million years ago and identified them as a new species.

They are also, say Selden and Huang, unmistakably members of the modern spider family Plectreuridae. This group is currently only found in southwest USA, Mexico, Cuba, and Costa Rica.

“This new discovery not only extends the fossil record of the family by at least 120 Ma to the Middle Jurassic but also supports the hypothesis of a different distribution of the family in the past than today and subsequent extinction over much of its former range,” they write in Naturwissenschaften.

Arachnophobes may be slightly relieved to learn that these are tiny, with the spider’s body length struggling to reach even 5 mm.

They are, however, stunningly well preserved. “You go in with a microscope, and bingo! It’s fantastic,” Selden told Wired.

For more great pictures of fossil spiders, check out Selden’s recent review paper – co-authored with David Penney of the University of Manchester – in Biological Reviews.

Images: courtesy of Paul Selden.

-- Needles used to administer vaccines always seem too long to those receiving the jab. But in certain cases, they might not be long enough: In a study of 24 obese adolescents receiving the hepatitis B vaccine, use of a 1.5-inch needle, rather than the standard 1-inch version, produced 50% higher antibody levels, which were closer to those seen after vaccinating non-obese patients. The difference seems to come in better penetrating the fatty tissue, which would otherwise break down the vaccine. The findings show an increasing need for specialized equipment -- such as larger gurneys, cots and even lifting equipment -- tailored to treat obese individuals. (Reuters)

-- Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin dismissed Nikolai Yurgel, director of the country’s Federal Supervision Service for Healthcare and Social Development, after Yurgel criticized the Law on Medicines Turnover last week. Approved last month by the State Duma, the law sets prices on nearly 5,500 pharmaceuticals, among other market regulations, which Yurgel and pharmaceutical companies believe will drive up costs and stifle the industry. It’s another Nutt-y case of government trying to silence its critics. (Moscow Times)

-- According to FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg, “Up to 40% of the drugs Americans take are imported, and up to 80% of the active pharmaceutical ingredients in those drugs come from foreign sources.” This makes it all the more important then that the agency has announced it will use an online tool called Predict (Predictive Risk-Based Evaluation for Dynamic Import Compliance Targeting) to determine which drug imports are high-risk and therefore require close inspection. For more on the FDA's handling of imported drugs, check out this month's print story. (Pharmalot)

-- The Wakefield study linking MMR vaccines and autism may have been pulled from the record, but another linkage study is now making waves. Data from nearly five million California births in the 1990s shows the risk of a child developing autism increases by 18% with every five years of age for the mother; women over 40, for example, have a 77% higher risk than those under 25. (NYTimes)

Image by stevendepolo via Flickr Creative Commons

Older mothers are far more likely to have autistic children than those who give birth younger, say researchers who have examined data on every birth in California in the 1990s.

The team found that mothers over 40 were 51% more likely to have an autistic child than mothers between 25 and 29 (see table for absolute risks).

“This study challenges a current theory in autism epidemiology that identifies the father’s age as a key factor in increasing the risk of having a child with autism,” says study author Janie Shelton, of the University of California, Davis (press release).

What Shelton and her colleagues found is that maternal age consistently increases autism risk but paternal age is only important when the father is older and the mother is under 30. The reason older parents experience these problems is not clear, although genetic, endocrine, immunological and environmental explanations have all been suggested.

“We still need to figure out what it is about older parents that puts their children at greater risk for autism and other adverse outcomes, so that we can begin to design interventions,” paper author Irva Hertz-Picciotto told AFP.

Recent trends for delaying childbearing led to a 4.6% increase in autism diagnoses in California over the 1990s, the researchers say. However the overall increase in autism diagnoses is greater than this, and isn’t just confined to older mothers.

“I don’t think a mom blaming herself is going to help us understand what's causing autism or help prevent further cases,” says Shelton (CNN). “I would urge parents not to blame themselves, regardless of what age they are.”

The study is published in Autism Research.

Table: UC Regents

Cigarettes may be dangerous long after the smoke has cleared and fears are today growing over the threat of ‘third hand smoke’.

The problem, says Hugo Destaillats, is that nicotine in tobacco smoke sticks to walls, floors, ceilings, anything it touches basically. In tests at the of the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab in the United States, Destaillats and his colleagues showed that this residue reacts with nitrous acid to form seriously carcinogenic compounds.

“Our study shows that when this residual nicotine reacts with ambient nitrous acid it forms carcinogenic tobacco-specific nitrosamines or TSNAs,” says Destaillats, of Berkeley Lab (press release). “TSNAs are among the most broadly acting and potent carcinogens present in unburned tobacco and tobacco smoke.”

In tests on a smoker’s truck the team found “substantial” amounts of cancer-causing TSNAs. Then in experiments designed to model indoor tobacco smoking they found that these TSNAs were produced in high quantities when residue-laden surfaces are exposed to nitrous acid, which is produced by equipment such as gas cookers.

Third-hand smoke, they write in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, “represents an unappreciated health hazard”.

And don’t think you can get away with smoking outside either.

“Smoking outside is better than smoking indoors but nicotine residues will stick to a smoker’s skin and clothing,” says study author Lara Gundel (press release). “Those residues follow a smoker back inside and get spread everywhere.

“The biggest risk is to young children. Dermal uptake of the nicotine through a child’s skin is likely to occur when the smoker returns and if nitrous acid is in the air, which it usually is, then TSNAs will be formed.”

Are any smokers out there actually going to quit as a result of this finding though?

Image: Punchstock

Sound mentorship can contribute significantly to the intellectual and professional development of mentees, but mentors also stand to gain strong leadership skills in this process, and the ability to draw the best from a team can only aid in the overall success of one's research agenda, according to February's Editorial in Nature Cell Biology (12, 101; 2010). While picking the appropriate problem and the right approaches is fundamental to a running a successful research programme, capable mentoring of laboratory members and new faculty members is also crucial.
What are some of the objectives of good mentoring? The goal is to be able to recognize the individual potential of mentees and to encourage them in research projects that match their interests, skills and personalities. Successful mentors foster creativity and independence and ensure that trainees have opportunities to develop essential skills beyond bench work for their future success in research, for example, in critical analysis and communication. Instilling high ethical standards is also important. A mentor who can provide an experienced perspective on the challenges of balancing work and family is invaluable.
New PIs face multiple challenges — setting up a laboratory from scratch, recruiting and managing a team, completing administrative tasks, managing a budget, setting research priorities, writing and reviewing grants and papers, and designing and teaching classes — and often these responsibilities have to be juggled with family commitments. Time management is therefore an essential skill for the new PI. Experienced faculty members can help guide new colleagues through this thicket, as well as advise on developing a viable research agenda, navigating an increasingly competitive funding environment, negotiating with administrators and managing people.
Although a strong track record in mentorship is unlikely to be a decisive factor in tenure or funding decisions unless bolstered by a strong publication record, its importance in research is becoming better appreciated by awards and recognition by scientific societies, journals, and other organizations.
Alas, researchers with enviable publication records are not always committed to good mentoring. Graduate students and postdoctoral trainees would be well advised to consider the importance of thoughtful mentoring when choosing an advisor. Mentees exposed to good mentoring are better positioned to absorb these attributes and become successful mentors themselves. Universities, research organizations and funding bodies must promote a culture of mentorship through all levels of academia, as a supportive training environment will define and develop the next generation of scientists.

This is a shortened version of the Editorial at Nature Cell Biology (12, 101; 2010).

Nature Cell Biology journal homepage.

Nature awards for mentoring in science.

A new study makes the link between a gene and human lifespan for the first time. In this week’s Nature Genetics, a team of mostly UK researchers report on a particular genetic variation in people who are biologically years older than the age printed on their drivers’ licenses.

“What our study suggests is that some people are genetically programmed to age at a faster rate,” says co-author Tim Spector (AFP). “The effect was quite considerable in those with the variant, equivalent to between three-to-four years of ‘biological ageing’.”

Chronological age is measured in years, but the pace of biological ageing varies. This age has a lot to do with smoking, unhealthy diets, and the length of your telomeres—the little caps at the end of chromosomes that shorten every time cells copy themselves. Shorter telomeres means biologically older. When telomere length reaches a critical value, the result is cell death.

“I see patients in their 80s with high blood pressure who have healthy coronary arteries and I see people in their 40s who don’t seem to have any risk factors yet have advanced heart disease,” says co-author Nilesh Samani (Guardian).

After studying 500,000 genetic variations, the researchers find that a variant near the gene TERC determines how long telomeres are and how quickly they shorten. This variant may make people more vulnerable to many age-related maladies, including some types of cancer.

“It is the first step to understanding why people age,” Samani says (Telegraph). “Once we have a full understanding we should be able to manipulate it in a manner to influence how someone ages.”

People carrying this genetic sequence probably make less telomerase, an enzyme that repair telomeres, when they are growing in the womb. However, simply “introducing telomerase might protect you from heart disease, but if you turn it on willy nilly you could cause cancer instead,” Samani warns (Guardian).

Still, the discovery paves the way for screening programmes and raises the best hope yet for drugs that prevent the biological wear and tear behind common age-related conditions (Guardian).

-- William Hunter and William Smellie, considered by many to be the fathers of British obstetrics, may have masterminded the murders of up to 40 women in the 18th century. The two allegedly used henchmen to deliver pregnant women for study, according to a new paper, which places their serial killing prowess above even Jack the Ripper. But some believe that the doctors simply were not aware of how the women may have died. (Guardian)

-- Two Congressmen have asked the US Health Resources and Services Administration to look into funding of AIDS nonprofits nationwide. The probe follows a Washington Post series that found the District’s Department of Health had given over $25 million toward local nonprofits, some of which may have had questionable accounting and services. (WaPo)

-- An artificial pancreas showed promise in a study of 17 children and teens with type 1 diabetes. During the 33 nights they used the system, which combines a monitor and insulin pump, none of the patients experienced episodes of significantly low blood sugar. By comparison, they experienced nine cumulative episodes over the course of 21 nights when they instead used a continuous insulin pump, which doses at a predetermined rate. For more on the artificial pancreas, check out our recent post on its development, as well as the efficacy of insulin pumps. (BBC)

-- The taxman is playing both friend and foe to the pharmaceutical industry. A tax credit in the US Senate version of health care reform would allow for R&D grants to small biotech firms, covering up to 50% of project costs (NJ Star-Ledger). On the other hand, President Obama’s budget proposal last week included a 35% tax on overseas profits, worrying companies like Merck, which reportedly generated 88% of its income between 2004 and 2008 from overseas. (NYTimes)

Image by Matt from London via Flickr Creative Commons

Cross-posted from Daniel Cressey on The Great Beyond

Just in case you think that the IPCC/climate-gate story has petered out in the last few days…

Phil Jones, the University of East Anglia scientist whose stolen emails caused the worldwide ‘climate-gate’ kerfuffle, has told The Sunday Times he contemplated killing himself.

“I did think about it, yes. About suicide,” he says. “I thought about it several times, but I think I’ve got past that stage now.”

Full post on The Great Beyond…

“Scientists, just like every other trade - bus drivers, lawyers and bricklayers - are a mix. Most are pretty average, a few are geniuses, some are a bit thick, and some dishonest.”
John Krebs, zoologist and principal of Jesus College, Oxford, takes on those who claim something has ‘gone wrong with science’ in the wake of climate-gate (The Times).

“I did reflect one day when I saw the way the Government was being criticised for the absence of salt on the roads for the snow that comes once every decade and then in the same breath being criticised for over-preparing for influenza, which comes once every 20 years.”
Andrew Witty, chief executive of GlaxoSmithKline, talks to the Telegraph.

“Entirely separate from love graffiti, sex graffiti reaches its one and only peak in December, before declining for the rest of the school year. Perhaps students also ‘get lucky’ in the summer— but if so, the luckiest part is that they’re not in the library to write about it.”
Quinn Dombrowski, has been constructing a ‘pseudo-scientific analysis’ of graffiti left in the main library at the University of Chicago (Inkling Magazine).

British researchers could be forgiven for cowering under their duvets at the moment, desperately hoping the bad news will go away. After years of relatively good funding, multiple tales of impending woe have slithering out into the light recently.

Nature’s Geoff Brumfiel noted at the end of January that the UK’s runaway debt (£800 billion and counting) was set to trigger serious cuts in public spending. Now the Guardian has weighed in, warning that universities are planning to “axe thousands of teaching jobs, close campuses and ditch courses”.

Strike action is already being considered at some universities and the University and College Union is warning today that 15,000 jobs could be at risk.

The Guardian quotes business secretary Peter Mandelson saying universities have to do “no more than their fair share of belt-tightening”.

The Times notes that more students will be disappointed in their search for university places. Numbers from umbrella group Universities UK indicate there could be 1.5 applicants per place, up from 1.3 last year.

On Saturday, Mike Baker at the BBC played down claims that the UK’s higher education sector faced a meltdown.

“It is likely that the universities we know today will have to change considerably over the next five to 10 years as they adapt to a very different financial climate than the one they have known for the past 15 years,” he wrote. “It is going to be a challenge. There will be victims. But if the higher education system is adaptable it should avoid ‘meltdown’.”

Just in case you think that the IPCC/climate-gate story has petered out in the last few days…

Phil Jones, the University of East Anglia scientist whose stolen emails caused the worldwide ‘climate-gate’ kerfuffle, has told The Sunday Times he contemplated killing himself.

“I did think about it, yes. About suicide,” he says. “I thought about it several times, but I think I’ve got past that stage now.”

Jones also told the paper he is now on beta blockers and taking sleeping pills in the aftermath of the email theft. He continues to receive death threats.

The issue of how climate researchers deal with freedom of information requests has become a big part of ‘climate-gate’. Now the Daily Telegraph has opened a new front in this campaign, attacking the Met Office for refusing to release correspondence between its director of climate science and colleagues on the IPCC.

It says the Met Office initially claimed the correspondence had been deleted and then later said they existed but could not be disclosed.

In February's podcast, we investigate a way to get drugs from pond scum and a vaccine approach that does more than scratch the surface.

By Asher Mullard

The World Health Organization (WHO) has come under fire after an internal email surfaced showing that a pharmaceutical lobbying group had access to a confidential draft report on the financing of drug research and development. WHO officials have defended the integrity of its decision process, but critics say that a clear industry bias has tainted the agency's commitment to the developing world.

“I find this incredibly disturbing,” says Tido von Schoen-Angerer, director of the campaign for access to essential medicines at Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) in Geneva. “It's a clear indication that [big pharma] had room to influence the report.” (Click here to continue reading; subscription required)

Space shuttle Endeavour successfully launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 09:14 GMT today.

“It was an important event,” said Jean-Jacques Dordain, director general of the European Space Agency. “… A very beautiful launch.”

Among the cargo is the European-made Cupola, a collection of seven windows that will allow space station dwellers to look directly out into space. The Cupola will attach to the Tranquility node, which Endeavour is also carting up into orbit.

Once Tranquility is installed, astronauts will move in air purifiers, urine converters and a bathroom which are currently cluttering the station’s Destiny science laboratory.

Image: NASA/Jim Grossmann

Mobile computing platforms such as the iPhone are beginning to make inroads into the laboratory—serious prospect or fairy tale? So asks Nature Methods (7, 87; 2010), starting its February Editorial in traditional genre style: "Once upon a time phones were used exclusively for conversing with other people, and computers ran software applications. The computer became an indispensable tool in the laboratory while the phone developed into a mobile device that has disrupted countless lectures at scientific conferences. But recently researchers can be seen talking on their computer and using their cell phone for running fancy—and sometimes powerful—software programs.
This metamorphosis of the cell phone into a mobile computing platform with voice capabilities is epitomized by the iPhone—one of a new breed of smartphone that is not only popular among the general public but seemingly ubiquitous among scientists. Earlier phones had similar capabilities, but the arrival of the Apple App Store in 2008 provided a dizzying array of software applications, or apps, that could be installed at a touch of the screen. Stanford University even offers a free course on developing iPhone apps."
The Editorial goes on to debate whether such devices will be useful in wet-lab procedures, speculating on a few possible "killer apps" that would stimulate general adoption. Even so, says Nature Methods, for the present, the most immediate potential for these devices is in providing a painless way for researchers to keep up with their reading wherever they happen to be. Mass media publishers have embraced the iPhone for delivering their content, but there has been little activity in the scientific publishing arena—RSS news feeds notwithstanding. But the situation is changing." Several publishers, including Nature Publishing Group, have apps that will go live any day. The just-released nature.com app lets you read full-text articles, view full-size figures and save references. This Nascent post highlights some of the features and describes how to use them.

The Nature Methods editors welcome comments at Methagora, the journal's blog - where there is a set of links to various iPhone applications for scientists. Does your iPhone or other smartphone have a place in the lab? What is the must-have app you are looking for?

Download the nature.com iPhone application.

Blocking the synthesis of the neurotransmitter serotonin in the gut increased bone mass in mice, researchers report online today in Nature Medicine. The finding could have implications for treating osteoporosis in people. Watch this video to find out how:

For more discussion of the paper, you can also watch a longer video from BioBusiness.TV here.

Responding to the need for better expertise to assess multidisciplinary grant applications, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) is inviting a select cohort of researchers to serve as retained reviewers for complex proposals.

The NIH Center for Scientific Review (CSR) in Bethesda, Maryland is taking a page from academic journals and recruiting more than 2,000 scientists to serve on its equivalent of an editorial board. Affiliates of this 'College of CSR Reviewers' will act as first-stage experts for translational and other multifaceted research topics by providing written critiques of up to 12 applications a year. (Click here to continue reading; subscription required)

Addendum: After Nature Medicine went to press, John Raymond was invited to join the College of CSR Reviewers. Congrats John!

"The reorganisation will succeed in the aim of making a once great institution manifestly mediocre.”
Academics from University College London weigh in on plans to cut over 200 jobs at nearby King's College London. The proposals include turning the School of Physical Sciences and Engineering into a school of natural and mathematical sciences, meaning the university would no longer teach engineering. (The Times Higher Education)

"Criticise any field of science these days and you grow accustomed to such gentilities of academic discourse from the laboratory cloister as, 'How dare you', 'Get off our patch' and 'Jenkins, you are a grade-one ­arsehole'."
Simon Jenkins of The Guardian prompts scientists to get off their pedestals and be more self-critcal in the aftermath of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Himalayan glacier claim and the University of East Anglia email affair. Annoyance and discussion on Nature Network.

Russia has been accused of dumping radioactive waste into the heavily-polluted Baltic Sea in the early 1990s. The reports come from Sweden's national TV broadcast network, SVT, who quote military intelligence documents. The network says a prosecutor, Mats Palm, is looking into the case and that a preliminary analysis started back in spring 2009.

"Radioactive material from a military base in Latvia is thought to have been thrown into Swedish waters. For many the biggest shock is that the Swedish government may have known at the time and done nothing about it," the BBC says.

A former commander of the Russian navy's Baltic fleet today denied the reports. "This is complete nonsense and a clear provocation, propagated at an international level," Admiral Vladimir Yegorov told the Interfax news agency (AFP).

The Baltic Sea at Darłowo/wikimedia commons

-- The recent spotlight cast on the potential dangers of radiation therapy has created waves. This week the American Society for Radiation Oncology issued a six-point plan to avoid harmful medical errors, including a recommendation to create a centralized database to collect reports of errors involving linear accelerators and CT scanners. (NYTimes)

-- Arden Bement, director of the US National Science Foundation (NSF), announced yesterday that he would be stepping down from his post in June. The change comes at a time when the Obama Administration is trying to make good on a 2006 promise by Bush to double the NSF’s budget. (ScienceInsider)

-- The US government’s new Text4baby program puts new meaning to the term ‘nanny state’. The program, announced yesterday, will send three prenatal health reminders a week via mobile phone to pregnant women who sign up by texting ‘baby’ or ‘bebe’ in Spanish to 511411. (GHIT)

-- The US Department of Defense has said that its military hospitals and clinics around the world will be required to stock Plan B, the controversial emergency contraceptive also known as the ‘morning after pill. The country’s Food and Drug Administration approved over-the-counter sales of Plan B in 2006. (WaPo)

Image by gregwest98 via Flickr Creative Commons

New pictures of Pluto taken by the Hubble space telescope show that the dwarf planet became significantly redder between 2000 and 2002. The images are the most detailed pictures taken of Pluto and are made up from a suite of images taken in 2002 and 2003. Comparing these images with those from 1994 reveals that Pluto’s northern hemisphere has brightened and its southern hemisphere has darkened.

Cross-posted from Climate Feedback.

Indian Premier Manmohan Singh has backed the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and its chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, who has come under fire for his dealing with a recently discovered error and a number of other alleged inaccuracies in the last IPCC report.

The IPCC had mistakenly stated in its 2007 report that all Himalayan glaciers are likely to melt away by 2035 as a result of global warming. The error, and allegations of conflict of interest against Pachauri, who also acts as director of The Energy Research Institute (TERI) in Delhi, have resulted in calls for Pachauri to resign as chairman of the IPCC.

Addressing a TERI-hosted meeting in Delhi on sustainable development Singh acknowledged that "some aspects of science reflected in the work of the IPCC have faced criticism".
But he said that "India has full confidence in the IPCC process and its leadership and will support it in every way."
Pachauri conceded last month that the IPCC's Himalayan estimates were wrong, but asserts that he was not personally responsible for the error.

Posted on behalf of Quirin Schiermeier

"Science is a way to distinguish things we know not to be true from other things. Large challenges lie ahead as we apply the scientific method to understanding biochemical systems, cellular organization and the functions of complex organs such as the brain." So begins the February Editorial in Nature Genetics (42, 95; 2010). If the success of the early years of molecular biology can be attributed to the simplicity of the problems to solve, combined with rigorous experimental design including disprovable hypotheses and decisive experiments, what of todays immensely more complex scientific landscape and greatly increased number of scientists, not to mention orders of magnitude more computer power? Are we better equipped to generate, experimentally test, and choose or discard competing hypotheses?
The Editorial argues that "the complexity of a research project does not change the basic requirement for inference so long as the results are intended to be understood by human brains. A model or predictor aids secure inference when it is treated as a falsifiable hypothesis with falsifiable sub-hypotheses. Therefore, we would expect to publish a list of conditions in which the model or predictor is not valid, and tests demonstrating conditions in which it is not valid, as well as hypotheses drawn from the model or predictor and tests that disprove these hypotheses.
There are a number of benefits to separating the logical gems that authors are prepared to have tested by others from their setting of consistent observations and rhetoric that is not directly part of the scientific work of the paper. These pluses are: to allow peer referees to do their job and readers to understand the work; to make clear the caveats and limits to application of results to other fields; to limit proliferation of useless observational studies and reduce duplication and waste of effort.
It may also be possible to distinguish the direct influence of the research independently of the publications that describe it. In order to do this, each of these two components—hypotheses and experiments—will need to be coded with unique identifiers and separately cited. Such an extreme cultural change may not be needed if publications are carefully structured. Surely it is obvious that a study providing strong inferences will be both well used and highly cited."

Quirin Schiermeier

Indian Premier Manmohan Singh has backed the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and its chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, who has come under fire for his dealing with a recently discovered error and a number of other alleged inaccuracies in the last IPCC report.

The IPCC had mistakenly stated in its 2007 report that all Himalayan glaciers are likely to melt away by 2035 as a result of global warming. The error, and allegations of conflict of interest against Pachauri, who also acts as director of The Energy Research Institute (TERI) in Delhi, have resulted in calls for Pachauri to resign as chairman of the IPCC.

Addressing a TERI-hosted meeting in Delhi on sustainable development Singh acknowledged that "some aspects of science reflected in the work of the IPCC have faced criticism".

But he said that "India has full confidence in the IPCC process and its leadership and will support it in every way."

Pachauri conceded last month that the IPCC's Himalayan estimates were wrong, but asserts that he was not personally responsible for the error.