Last year, Nature Structural Biology published a special supplement to accompany the August issue, highlighting the wide variety of biological research that benefits from the use of synchrotron radiation and the unprecedented worldwide increase in demand for use of synchrotron facilities.
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Scientists and policymakers agreed in June to press ahead with a plan to turn a secondhand synchrotron light source from Germany into an international facility intended to promote peace, as well as science, in the Middle East.
A proposal for an international research centre in the Middle East, built around a synchrotron to be donated by Germany, was officially launched at a meeting in Paris last week. Bids to host the centre were submitted by Turkey, Cyprus, Iran, the Palestinian Authority and Egypt.
It's too easy for Nature to urge the world to spend more money on science. On the whole, that temptation is resisted. But there are honourable exceptions. A proposal -- as yet unfunded -- to establish a joint synchrotron radiation facility in the Middle East is one such, and deserves immediate attention.
Scientists and science administrators from the Middle East, Europe, the United States and the Far East are to meet in Paris next week to discuss plans to set up a joint synchrotron radiation facility, which would be the first regional centre for cooperation in basic research in the Middle East.