News briefs

The Swedish chemicals agency Kemi has warned of 'severe practical and economic consequences' if the government prohibits the use of certain brominated flame retardants. A unilateral ban on tetrabromobisphenol A, TBBPA, for example, would stop most imports of electronic goods but fail to deliver health or environmental benefits, Kemi said.
The UK scientists' union Prospect has warned that the nation's core scientific capability is at risk because of the government's short-sighted approach to public sector science, which has shut research institutes and made scientists and engineers redundant. The warning was given in Prospect's report Who's looking after British science?
Nicholas Cozzarelli, molecular biologist at University of California, Berkeley, US, editor-in-chief of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) and a keen supporter of open access publishing, has died aged 67. Cozzarelli made fundamental discoveries about how gyrases and topoisomerases untangle the DNA double helix. Since joining PNAS in 1995, Cozzarelli changed the submissions system for the journal, so that non-Academy members could submit papers, and he encouraged publication of non-biological papers.
Crystal Faraday is running a writing competition for young science writers who can 'entertain as well as inform' readers about green chemical technologies. The competition is open to postgraduate students and young academics. To enter, send two 500 word articles about topical green chemistry research to john.whittall@crystalfaraday.org by 9 June.
The British government is selling the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing complex in Cumbria. The sale means the operation and decommissioning of Sellafield would become the responsibility of the private sector.