Construction of the Iter reactor will take place at Cadarache in Southern France

European Union member states have agreed the additional funds needed to construct Iter (the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor).

The French-based machine will prove the concept of harvesting energy from the fusion of hydrogen nuclei – the same process at the heart of the Sun.

Iter has seen its baseline price tag rise dramatically since a consortium of nations green lit the project in 2006.

The extra 1.4bn euros will cover a shortfall in building costs in 2012-13.

After months of protracted negotiations, the monies were finally sanctioned at an Agriculture and Fish Council meeting on 12 July.

The funds will come from a variety of sources within the EU budget, including from its research budget (the Framework Programme 7).

The EU's executive body, the Commission, had wanted member states to inject fresh funds into the project from outside the existing Brussels budget.

The decision paves the way for a special Council meeting of Iter itself, which will take place on 27-28 July. This will define the latest scope and schedule for the project.

Iter is a collaboration between the EU, the US, Russia, Japan, China, India and South Korea. It is the culmination of decades of research.

Iter’s tokamak will use a magnetic field to confine the plasma

Its fusion reactions will take place inside a 100-million-degree gas (plasma) suspended in an intense doughnut-shaped magnetic field.

The reactor is designed to produce 500MW of fusion power during pulses of at least 400 seconds. Critically, Iter is expected to demonstrate the principle that it possible to get far more energy out of the process than is used to initiate it.

The original plan was to build the experiment within 10 years for a budget of 5bn euros. But a range of issues, from technical to personnel matters, have conspired to inflate Iter's final price.

Many now expect it to be in the region of 15bn euros; and the total cost of construction for the EU – a major partner in Iter – is put at no less than 7.2bn euros.

EU ministers had tried – and failed – to resolve arguments over where the extra immediate funds should come from at their 26 May Competitiveness Council.

A task force was then established to find a solution to the issue.

It has been agreed that the additional 1.4bn euros required for 2012-2013 will be taken from a mix of sources within the current EU budget, including from the Framework Programme.

Many scientists have expressed the fear that raiding the 53bn-euro FP7 pot could damage other projects.

At the European Science Open Forum last week in Turin, Italy, Prof Helga Nowotny, the new president of the European Research Council, again voiced her concern at the impact rising Iter costs could have on other types of European scientific activity.

A spokesperson for the UK government told BBC News: "We are pleased to note the conclusions call for important improvements to the financial management and oversight of the project.

"We agree with the view expressed in the conclusions that the additional financial commitments for ITER for 2012 and 2013 should come from a mix of sources within the current EU budget 2007-2013."

The Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) was not planning a badger cull in Pembrokeshire as a scientific experiment that would determine whether culling works or not.

It saw the cull as part of a comprehensive plan that would eradicate tuberculosis in the cattle herds of the region, a disease that cost taxpayers £24m in 2008.

Now, following a judgement in the Court of Appeal in London, the cull is on hold – perhaps permanently.

WAG says it is considering its options.

And although the Badger Trust says it has a written pledge from WAG that it will not appeal, Wales' Chief Veterinary Officer Christianne Glossop told BBC News on exiting the court: "it isn't over".

If WAG still intends to go forward, it could appeal to the Supreme Court, or it could construct a new control order that aims to get round the points on which the Court of Appeal made its ruling.

Balance judgement

The Badger Trust appealed on three grounds, which essentially boiled down to these:

• WAG did not expect the cull to generate a "substantial" reduction in TB incidence, which is required in law
• WAG had failed to balance concern for badgers and nature against the projected benefit to farmers
• WAG's control order covered the whole of Wales, but should have been directed only to the North Pembrokeshire target zone.

On the third point, the three judges were unanimous – WAG was in error.

The exact location of the proposed cull has not been announced

But WAG had conceded as much before the judgement, and was preparing to launch an amended control order within days.

The first two points, which are far more significant, split the judges.

Two agreed with the Badger Trust on both points, while the third agreed with WAG.

Lord Justice Stanley Burnton – one of those siding with the Badger Trust – left the door open for Rural Affairs Minister Elin Jones to get round the balance question, simply by presenting a case showing that harm to badgers had been considered when drawing up the control order.

"Had she done so, this ground would have failed," he opined.

However, Ms Jones and Dr Glossop may find it harder to counter the most fundamental argument of all – that badger culling would not make a substantial cut in the incidence of bovine TB.

The scientific study of most use here is the Randomised Badger Culling Trial (RBCT, also known as the Krebs trial) – a vast UK study that saw 11,000 badgers killed in the name of finding out whether culling can be an effective control strategy.

Essentially, the answer was "no".

Reactive culling – killing badgers when there was a TB outbreak – made things worse.

Proactive culling – trying to wipe them out from areas irrespective of TB incidence – made things better inside the cull zone, but worse in a ring just outside.

It's from the balance of the two effects in the proactive arm that the 9% figure arose.

Follow-up research on the Krebs sites is still going on, because finding out how along any effect lasts for is clearly important.

As the years go by, you might expect the effects to subside. But the evidence is not entirely clear.

In February this year, the Krebs team published a scientific paper showing that by July 2009, the benefit of proactive culling appeared to have disappeared.

But by the end of 2009, it had apparently come back.

One of these findings is presumably an anomaly.

But finding out which, and painting the true picture, will take yet more follow-up research; and in the meantime, it is going to be impossible for WAG to argue that culling will produce a more substantial impact than a 9% reduction.

Playing possum

Dr Glossop has spoken approvingly of the experience in New Zealand, whose government is also trying to wipe out bovine TB, largely through a wildlife cull.

But the carrier in New Zealand is not the badger but the possum.

Ecologically, badgers and possums are absolutely not the same. If anyone in WAG or any farmers in Wales ever presumed that a New Zealand approach could just be transplanted to Wales, they were wrong scientifically – and, perhaps, ethically.

Introduced from Australia for the fur trade, New Zealand possum numbers soared to about 70 million by the 1980s.

The common brushtailed possum: definitely not a badger

They are culled by lacing carrots with a potent toxin called 1080 and strewing them across the land. Other wildlife are poisoned in the process.

It is a controversial programme, even in a country where some people will happily rig amateur traps for possums and shoot them for fun.

Did Dr Glossop and WAG ministers underestimate the level of opposition that might arise when they proposed culling not a pesky alien invader but an iconic native mammal?

Any new control order would have to go through the Welsh Assembly. Given the unrest that has been documented in the prospective cull region and further afield, will assembly members have the political appetite?

That's one way in which the stars appear to be aligning themselves against Elin Jones and the other cull proponents – and against those in the Westminster government who, like Agriculture Minister James Paice, have been itching to get started in England.

As time goes by, the evidence for a sustained effect of culling is likely to weaken. And TB rates in Pembrokeshire would be expected to fall as the other measures taken by WAG come into effect, including enhanced biosecurity on farms and additional testing of cattle.

Meanwhile, vaccinating badgers becomes a nearer-term prospect, with trials underway in the Irish Republic and poised to begin in England.

Even the Irish government, which endorsed culling nearly a decade ago, does not see killing badgers as a TB eradication tool. For that, it says, an effective vaccine is needed.

Silent killer

Another question is how North Pembrokeshire farmers will react now.

It is an open secret that silent (and illegal) killing of badgers goes on, and not just in Wales.

It is an understandable reaction from a human point of view. But scientifically, it is just about the worst thing a farmer could do.

"The science says it'll make the problem worse," says Dr Rosie Woodroffe, one of the scientists on the Krebs trial who is now based at the Zoological Society of London.

"Small-scale illegal killing will work like reactive culling and will increase the incidence of cattle TB, as it disrupts badgers' social structure, making them range further afield and transmit the bacterium to more badgers and more cattle."

Chillies cultivated by Native Americans are among those entering the vault

Seeds from some of North America's hottest food crops have arrived on the Arctic Archipelago of Svalbard to be stored in a "doomsday vault".

The consignment of chilli seeds was delivered to the frozen outpost by a delegation of seven US senators.

Built deep inside a mountain, the vault is designed protect the world's main food plants from future disasters.

Since opening in 2008, it has stored seeds from more than half a million of the planet's crops.

"The chillies really are an interesting story," said Cary Fowler, executive director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, which funds the operation and management of the seed vault.

"They are traditional varieties; they have colourful names and histories," he told BBC News.

"A number of the varieties were provided by a fantastic group of nine US government organisations called Native Seed Search who work with Native American communities.

"These (chilli plant) varieties have been safeguarded for a long time and long may it continue," Dr Fowler added

"But that – of course – depends on an unbroken chain going into the future and you can never really count on such a thing."

In from the cold

Among the varieties to be deposited in the vault was Wenk's Yellow Hots, a pepper that starts out yellow and hot before losing some of its potency and turning red.

The remote, frozen landscape provides an ideal backdrop for the vault

Another specimen was the "unpredictable" San Juan Tsile, described as a pepper with a heat that has been described as "ranging as anything from mild to medium to hot".

This particular variety is still cultivated by elder farmers in a Native American community in New Mexico.

The group delivering the seeds was led by Benjamin Cardin, Democrat Senator for Maryland, who said the all parts of the world were interdependent when it came to crop diversity.

"As we manage the impact of climate change around the world, the seed vault in Svalbard will be the safety deposit box that ensures that we can keep that food supply intact," he said.

The seeds from the chilli plants, along with other samples such as soy, melon and sorghum, were provided by the US Department of Agriculture's (USDA) National Plant Germplasm, based in Colorado.

"[We] have a strong commitment to sharing our crop diversity to ensure that Svalbard is well positioned to protect the world's genetic diversity," explained Edward Knipling, administrator for the USDA's Agricultural Research Service (ARS).

The seeds are preserved at a temperature of -18C (-0.4F) in two secure store rooms located 130m (426ft) inside a mountain.

The vault has been designed to store duplicates of seeds from collections from all around the world.

If the nation's seeds are lost as a result of a natural disaster, such as widespread flooding, the seed collections could be re-established using the specimens stored in the Arctic.

The £5m ($7m) facility took 12 months to build and opened in February 2008.

Willdlife has a two-way relationship with fresh water

Businesses can and should take a key role in stemming biodiversity loss around the world, a report concludes.

The latest report from The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (Teeb) project argues that many sectors have a stake in protecting nature.

A survey by Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC) finds that in some nations, more than half of CEOs see nature loss as a challenge to business growth.

The UN-backed Teeb project presents its latest results in London on Tuesday.

The first Global Business of Biodiversity symposium, held at the Excel Centre in London's Docklands, will hear that about half of European and US consumers say they would stop buying products from companies that disregard biodiversity concerns.

"Better accounting of business impacts on biodiversity, both positive and negative, is essential to spur change in business investment and operations," said Joshua Bishop, chief economist of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and co-ordinator of the Teeb for Business report.

"Smart business leaders realise that integrating biodiversity and ecosystem services in their value chains can generate substantial cost savings and new revenues, as well as improved business reputation and license to operate."

Mining for positives

Among the "smart companies" to be discussed at the symposium is Rio Tinto, a mining conglomerate whose reputation (like others in the field) has been criticised on environmental and human rights grounds.

In 2004, the company adopted a "Net Positive Impact" (NPI) commitment on biodiversity.

This sees it working with environment organisations to protect important areas from direct mining impacts and putting funds into conservation to "offset" damage caused.

Another is the agribusiness giant Syngenta, which recently launched Operation Pollinator, a scheme to restore important bee habitat.

The scheme is seen as a potential contribution to curbing the ongoing bee decline in Europe and North America.

One recent study put the global value of insect pollinators at $189bn per year – a classical example of the kind of "ecosystem service" that nature provides for free, and that humans would have to pay to replace if the natural system broke down.

There are others. The World Atlas of Mangroves, published on Tuesday, puts the value of mangroves at up to 9,000 per hectare per year.

Items in the credit column including protection from storms, habitat for young fish, and carbon storage.

Teeb has calculated the annual value of forest loss around the world at $2-5 trillion.

Plants and machinery

Teeb, and the UN Environment Programme to which it is affiliated, argue that this kind of analysis makes nature protection a good investment for businesses.

Consumer opinion could be another factor.

A recent Ipsos survey found that in countries possessing high levels of biodiversity, awareness of biodiversity decline was correspondingly high, rising to 90% in Brazil.

Among business leaders, the PwC survey found that more than half of CEOs in Latin America see declines in biodiversity as a challenge to growth.

China’s floods partly stemmed from over-use of forests by industry

But the figure drops to 20% in Western Europe, and just 15% in the UK.

And only two of the world's largest 100 companies see biodiversity and ecosystem loss as a strategic issue.

"Businesses need to start thinking about ecosystems as an extension of their asset base, part of their plant and machinery, and appreciating the value they deliver," said Jon Williams, PwC's partner for sustainability and climate change.

Teeb's leader, Deutsche Bank economist Pavan Sukhdev, believes companies will find it easier to invest in biodiversity protection once a mechanism for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (Redd) becomes established through the UN climate convention.

Many countries favour a variant called Redd-Plus where issues such as biodiversity and forest peoples' rights would be protected.

"We can move to a stage where big companies and countries are able to say 'we're meeting 20% of our emissions targets' or whatever it might be through investing in green carbon," he told BBC News.

"Then we can look at other issues, such as the forest's water storage function for local people, for example.

"So it won't be a market in the classical sense but it will be a mechanism, and companies investing would be able to see whether their investments bring about things such as an improvement in water availability or an increase in the tiger population or whatever it might be."

Teeb will produce its final report for October's meeting of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Japan, which will see governments examining the reasons why they have failed to live up to their 2002 pledge to curb nature loss by 2010.

The Indian PSLV rocket carried five spacecraft into orbit

Norway has launched the innovative AISSat-1 spacecraft to monitor shipping in its territorial waters.

The small satellite will track vessels over 300 gross tonnes by picking up the signals from their AIS (Automatic Identification System) transponders.

AIS is a safety and navigation tool, and can be used by the authorities near the coast to keep watch on cargo, passenger and fisheries activity.

AISSat-1 will enable Norway to see what is happening over a vast area.

"Norway has the largest sea area to manage in Europe, and this area is the source for a lot of Norwegian income, from oil to fisheries," explained Bo Andersen, the director general of the Norwegian Space Centre.

"We want to manage these resources in the best possible manner; and we do that now with radar satellites that give us quite a good overview about where ships are. But they don't give us knowledge about which ships they are.

"Of course, the fisheries authorities and the coastguard can go out in aeroplanes and check the ships, but we are talking about an area that's bigger than the Mediterranean. So we want a more efficient system."

The nano-sat – it is a 20 by 20 by 20cm cube – was one of five payloads launched on an Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle from the Sriharikota Spaceport in Andhra Pradesh.

The primary payload was India's 700kg Cartosat-2B, a high-resolution imaging spacecraft.

Mr Andersen confirmed that the Norwegian mission team had successfully made contact with AISSat following its separation from the rocket.

AIS data is transmitted via a VHF signal and identifies the ship, its position, course, and speed.

Norway has already demonstrated how this information can be picked up from orbit. A receiver called NORAIS was recently installed on the International Space Station (ISS), and plotted the movement of ships around the globe.

NORAIS is part of a project that could eventually lead to a space-AIS solution for the whole of Europe.

Norway is keen to stress, however, that AISSat-1 will be keeping watch over its national waters only.

"AISSat-1 is a simple demonstrator," Mr Andersen told BBC News on Monday.

"If it works, it will be put into operation and we may launch new ones, also.

The satellite is very small, weighing less than 7kg

"Right now, it seems everything is working as planned and we will use the next few days to check out its systems. Then we'll turn on the instrument and I expect we'll get the first AIS data quite soon, in one to two weeks."

At a recent Earth observation symposium in Bergen, Trond Giske, the Norwegian space minister, said he was hopeful AISSat could develop into an ongoing operational system.

"If this is successful, we will definitely look into doing another one; we will consider that strongly," he told reporters.

The spacecraft's 600km-high polar orbit means it will get sight of Norway's economic zone every 100 minutes.

The 4.4m-euro (35m Kroner; £3.7m) satellite has been funded by the Norwegian Space Centre.

The satellite bus, or chassis, was provided by the University of Toronto, Canada. The payload was developed by Kongsberg Seatex AS in co-operation with the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI).

Norway has already demonstrated this type of system on the space station

Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

Forecasts suggest that this year will see the amount of sea ice in the Arctic retreat to one of the lowest extents since satellite records began. So what will be the impact of an Arctic devoid of sea-ice during the summer in the future? Science writer Richard Hollingham has joined a scientific expedition trying to find out.

Arctic sea-ice extent during recent summers has been on a downward trend

"It's incredibly cold!" to paraphrase the words of Heiko Moossen as he emerged from a dive hole in the ice.

"As I went in my whole face was burning because it was so cold."

Mr Moosen, from the University of Glasgow, was diving under the ice to catch clumps of algae in a plastic bag.

"It was really hard because as you breathe out, the bubbles travel along the bottom of the ice and disturb the algae," he explained.

Scientists are keen to track the impact of declining summer sea-ice

That there is any plant life at all, a metre beneath the Arctic sea ice at 80 degrees North, is in itself remarkable. "It looks like an inverted landscape with hills and valleys but with quite a lot of light coming through the ice," he added.

The landscape above is every bit as beautiful: in the sunshine glistening ice floes stretch in every direction, separated by jagged ridges of ice and leads of gently rippling water.

Birds – including the almost perfectly white ivory gull – circle overhead, seals flop by the ice edge and, every day or so, a polar bear wanders by.

"I think it's very, very beautiful and a very unusual place to be," said expedition leader Ray Leakey from the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS).

"It's also fascinating scientifically because we know so little about it. Few expeditions come here so we're among the first people."

Locked in the ice

Even getting this far North – we are currently around 1,000km from the Pole – has been a challenge.

Our ship, the James Clark Ross operated by the British Antarctic Survey, is specially designed for the Polar regions.

It has an ice strengthened hull and the ability to roll from side to side to break through or, if necessary, escape from the ice.

To reach this far we had to crunch our way through ice floes until we were completely surrounded. The ship is now moored up against a sheet of ice around half-a-kilometre wide and less than a metre thick.

Diving is only one aspect of the work that's been going on here. The ice floe is dotted with experimental stations designed to investigate the biology, chemistry and physics of the ice.

The Polar regions act as thermostats for the planet, regulating its temperature. The ice helps drive ocean currents and cools the Earth by reflecting heat back into space.

A team led by Ronnie Glud, also from the Scottish Association for Marine Science, has recently discovered another effect.

"The sea ice acts as a giant gas pump," Professor Glud explained. "It pumps carbon dioxide from the atmosphere into the deep ocean – and it's on a large scale."

He said his research was initially treated with scepticism but is now widely accepted. "It's a new insight we're gaining into this and the implications have astonished and surprised us."

The implication being that as the ice cover recedes, this pump will shut down and with it an important mechanism for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Adapt or die

The plants and animals that live here are also at risk if the ice disappears, from microscopic creatures living in brine channels within the ice to the bears that roam across it.

Continue reading the main story

Bears are great to look at but when you’re trying to do serious science on the ice they are a bit of a nuisance

Dr Ray Leakey
Expedition leader

Many of the species that live here are unique and if this lid on the top of the world disappears, Dr Leakey warned that as well as the effect on the climate, the whole biology of the Arctic could change.

"You will get an easier flow of ocean currents between the Pacific and Atlantic and the possible transfer of organisms between the two," he suggested.

"As the area warms up, you'll also get more and more organisms trying to get into the Arctic – some will be successful and some won't but for the organisms living up here at the moment, it'll be a case of adapt or die."

The symbol for the changing Arctic is the polar bear. In the nine days we've been moored against the ice, we've seen eleven bears.

They amble across the landscape in a smooth – almost rippling – movement, leaving no doubt who's in charge.

Cream, rather than white in colour, they head towards the ship at no great speed. Twice they've tried to chew through our mooring lines and one tore open a metal box which had, a few days earlier, contained a couple of chocolate bars. A sobering illustration of their sense of smell – a bunch of scientists would be easy prey.

"Bears are great to look at but when you're trying to do serious science on the ice they are a bit of a nuisance," said Dr Leakey.

Whenever anyone's working out on the ice, two look-outs are posted on the top deck to keep an eye on the bears.

As an added precaution, each landing team carries flares and a gun, only to be used as a last resort.

"If a bear appears, we clear the ice; the last thing we want to do is lose one of our scientists," Dr Leakey explained.

Few vessels are designed to cope with the harsh Arctic conditions

An Arctic free of sea-ice in future summers is a very real possibility, studies have suggested.

But there's much more at stake than polar bears. It would affect the entire food chain from the microbes in the ice and the algae beneath, to the fish, seals and, yes, bears.

Without ice, the Earth's ability to regulate its temperature would be reduced; the sea ice pump, identified by Professor Glud and his team, will switch off; and perhaps the ocean currents will change.

Other changes may be more positive: increases in fish stocks, new trade routes across the top of the world and the opportunity to exploit mineral resources.

As I look out of my porthole, blocks of ice are crushed against the side of the ship. As they topple into the water they reveal a myriad of colours. A jigsaw of floes, ice blocks and water channels blends into the mist.

Scientists are only now beginning to understand the Arctic, to uncover its secrets. There is a lot more to this place than just ice.

Richard Hollingham, a freelance science writer and broadcaster, is the presenter of this week's One Planet

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