SCIENCE sciencemag.org

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RetractionThe authors of the Report “Secondary

siRNAs result from unprimed RNA syn-

thesis and form a distinct class” (1) have

been made aware of duplications in Fig.

2D and supplementary figures S1C and

S3C. We attempted to find the original

data from 2007, but all authors have left

the Hubrecht Institute, where the work

was performed, and the data could not

be located. Although other data in the

paper were consistent with the conclu-

sions supported by Fig. 2D and figs.

S1C and S3C, all data were taken into

account in the review of the paper, and

the loss of these figures weakens the con-

clusions. Therefore, in the spirit of full

transparency, we have decided to retract

the paper.

Titia Sijen1, Florian A. Steiner2, Karen L. Thijssen3,

Ronald H. A. Plasterk4*1Netherlands Forensic Institute, 2497GB The Hague, Netherlands. 2University of Geneva, 1211 Geneva, Switzerland. 3Rotterdam, Netherlands. 4Frame Cancer Therapeutics, 1098XG Amsterdam, Netherlands. *Corresponding author. Email: ronald.plasterk@frametherapeutics.com

REFERENCES AND NOTES

1. T. Sijen, F. A. Steiner, K. L. Thijssen, R. H. A. Plasterk, Science 315, 244 (2007).

10.1126/science.abf4837

Ducipsap erspelit ut faccat as nobit vitiunt et

magniam volorro rercili quost, sandit is quasint

Eroded protections threaten U.S. forests Despite record-breaking mega-fires in 2020

(1), the U.S. Department of Agriculture

(USDA) recently removed the 2001

Roadless Rule protection for 9.37 million

acres of Tongass National Forest in Alaska

(2). The intact and fire-resistant Tongass

temperate rainforest is home to valuable

biodiversity and functions as an important

carbon sink, making it vital in combatting

both global extinction risk and climate

change (3, 4). In light of catastrophic fires

and rapid climate change, the government

needs to rigorously and transparently

evaluate costs and benefits before repeal-

ing any environmental protections.

Ending the rule prohibiting roads in

the Tongass exposes 165,000 acres of

old-growth rainforest to logging (2) and

leaves the remaining rainforest vulnerable

to degradation from road-building and

potential mining and fossil fuel extraction

(5, 6). Industrial expansion has ecological

repercussions through increased emissions,

diminished carbon sequestration, and

reduced fire resistance (6) as well as poten-

tial downstream socio-economic effects for

local fishery and tourism industries (7).

The Roadless Rule repeal was opposed by

several local tribes and 96% of the quarter

million letters submitted by the public (2, 7).

The repeal will also enable an economically

unviable timber program that has cost U.S.

taxpayers more than half a billion dollars in

losses since 1980 (8).

The government’s decision to erode

protection of Tongass National Park sets a

precedent to roll back protections for other

remaining intact forests (9) that provide

critical carbon storage, protection against

species extinction, and refuge against the

effects of climate and fire-season intensifi-

cation (2, 3, 10). Instead of forcing taxpayers

to subsidize an ecologically and financially

shortsighted initiative, activities such as

native reforestation should be implemented.

Strategic reforesting, particularly after fires,

can provide short- and long-term benefits

for the environment, society, and economy

by increasing carbon storage (11), reducing

erosion, providing habitat for displaced

wildlife, and supporting the long-term

sustainability of industries like tourism and

carbon farming (12). In the face of global

climate change and intensifying fire sea-

sons, the U.S. government should be seeking

to fortify rather than repeal evidence-based

protections in a way that supports ecologi-

cal, social, and economic objectives.

Katharina-Victoria Pérez-Hämmerle1,2*, Katie

Moon3,4, Hugh P. Possingham,2,5, Maria Jose

Martinez-Harms6, James E. M. Watson1,2,71School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, The University of Queensland, St. Lucia, Brisbane, QLD 4067, Australia. 2Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science, The

LETTERS

The repeal of a rule prohibiting

roads within Alaska’s Tongass

National Forest has put the

temperate rainforest at risk.

Edited by Jennifer Sills

20 NOVEMBER 2020 • VOL 370 ISSUE 6519 921

Published by AAAS

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University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia. 3Public Service Research Group, School of Business, University of New South Wales, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia. 4Centre for Ecosystem Science, School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia. 5School of Biological Sciences, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia. 6Center for Applied Ecology and Sustainability (CAPES), Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile. 7Wildlife Conservation Society, Global Conservation Program, Bronx, NY 10460, USA.*Corresponding author. Email: k.perezhammerle@uq.edu.au

REFERENCES AND NOTES

1. P. E. Higuera, J. T. Abatzoglou, Glob. Change Biol. 10.1111/gcb.15388 (2020).

2. USDA, Forest Service, “Special Areas; Roadless Area Conservation; National Forest System Lands in Alaska,” Federal Register (2020).

3. S. L. Maxwell et al., Sci. Adv. 5, eaax2546 (2019). 4. J. W. Coulston et al., in “Moving from status to trends:

Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) symposium 2012,” R. S. Morin, G. C. Liknes, Eds. (Gen. Tech. Rep. NRS-P-105. Newtown Square, PA: USDA, Forest Service, Northern Research Station [CD-ROM]), pp. 170–176.

5. W. F. Laurance, M. Goosem, S. G. Laurance, Trends Ecol. Evol. 24, 659 (2009).

6. P. Potapov et al., Sci. Adv. 3, e1600821 (2017). 7. USDA, Forest States, “Alaska Roadless Rule: Draft

Environmental Impact Statement, Public Comment Report” (2020).

8. Taxpayers for Common Sense, “Cutting our losses after 40 years of money-losing timber sales in the Tongass” (2020).

9. M. B. Mascia, S. Pailler, Conserv. Lett. 4, 9 (2011). 10. J. E. M. Watson et al., Nat. Ecol. Evol. 2, 599 (2018). 11. G. M. Domke et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 117,

24649 (2020). 12. R. Chazdon, P. Brancalion, Science 365, 24 (2019).

10.1126/science.abf5654

Space debris puts exploration at riskHumans have now lived aboard the

International Space Station (ISS) for 20

years (1). As we look toward the next 20

years, we must address the dangers that

space debris poses to both manned missions

and crucial satellites. National policy-makers

and international organizations must

develop actionable rules and regulations

that preserve our ability to explore space.

With tens of millions of pieces of space

junk rocketing around our planet at

thousands of kilometers an hour, debris

is a substantial threat to our expanding

networks of satellites and even the ISS itself

(2–4). The European Space Agency (ESA)

puts much of the blame on the failure to

properly dispose of expiring satellites (2).

The recently signed Artemis Accords simi-

larly point to the value of “end-of-mission

planning and implementation [and…]

post-mission disposal” in reducing debris

(5). With the rapid expansion of the satellite

orbital population—many of which are rela-

tively cheaply produced with comparatively

high failure rates (6)—this problem will

likely get much worse before it gets better.

Unfortunately, Cold War cooperation

led to rules designed primarily for nation

states, not for the corporations that are

now launching literally thousands of new

satellites. Meanwhile, the nation states

have mostly neglected to implement the

necessary local space regulations that

would promote the long-term sustain-

ability of equitable space exploration. This

tragedy of the commons will damage the

space environment and eventually impair

commercial space endeavors. Space debris

threatens efforts ranging from the emerg-

ing mini-satellite mega-constellations that

aim to democratize internet access to space

tourism. In a worst case scenario, orbital

debris could start a self-sustaining cascade

of destruction that would litter the Low

Earth Orbit with enough debris to make it

effectively unusable (7).

To maintain a sustainable space envi-

ronment, all states and their nationals

must take responsibility for reducing the

creation of new space debris. Both nations

and private corporations should design

more reliable satellites that are less likely to

malfunction, deorbit satellites before they

become inoperable and hazardous, and

promote the emerging private-sector indus-

tries that are collecting defunct satellites

and repairing and refueling older satellites.

Developing public-private collaborations can

enhance the tracking of even small man-

made particles zooming around in orbit.

The United Nations’ Committee on the

Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) may

be the most appropriate forum to accom-

plish these goals. COPUOS can provide

both the desperately needed development

of norms, the required regulatory support,

and the necessary scientific and technical

expertise to direct these efforts. During the

past 20 years, astronauts on the ISS have

conducted space-based research represent-

ing the work of scientists from more than

100 countries (1), and science diplomacy has

often prefaced cross-boundary collaboration

on Earth. We must preserve the amazing

opportunities space exploration provides

by developing better sustainable practices

before it is too late.

Dov Greenbaum Zvi Meitar Institute for Legal Implications of Emerging Technologies, IDC Herzliya, Herzliya, Israel; Harry Radzyner Law School, IDC Herzliya, Herzliya, Israel, and Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06510, USA. Email: dov.greenbaum@aya.yale.edu

REFERENCES AND NOTES

1. National Aeronautics and Space Administration,

“International Space Station facts and figures” (2020);

www.nasa.gov/feature/facts-and-figures.

2. ESA, “The current state of space debris” (2020);

www.esa.int/Safety_Security/Space_Debris/

The_current_state_of_space_debris.

sciencemag.org SCIENCE922 20 NOVEMBER 2020 • VOL 370 ISSUE 6519

INS IGHTS | LETTERS

3. ESA, “Space Debris by the numbers” (2020);

www.esa.int/Safety_Security/Space_Debris/

Space_debris_by_the_numbers.

4. R. Khatchadourian, “The elusive peril of space junk,”

The New Yorker (2020).

5. “The Artemis Accords: Principles for cooperation in the

civil exploration and use of the Moon, Mars, Comets,

and Asteroids for peaceful purposes” (2020), pp. 6–7;

www.nasa.gov/specials/artemis-accords/img/

Artemis-Accords-signed-13Oct2020.pdf.

6. S. A Jacklin, “Small-satellite mission failure rates,” NASA

Technical Memorandum (2019); https://ntrs.nasa.gov/

citations/20190002705.

7. D. J. Kessler, J. Spacecraft Rockets 18, 357 (1981).

10.1126/science.abf2682

TECHNICAL COMMENT ABSTRACTS

Comment on “Ancient origins of allosteric activation

in a Ser-Thr kinase”

Yeonwoo Park, Jaeda E. J. Patton, Georg K. A.

Hochberg, Joseph W. Thornton

Hadzipasic et al. (Reports, 21 February 2020,

p. 912) used ancestral sequence recon-

struction to identify historical sequence

substitutions that putatively caused Aurora

kinases to evolve allosteric regulation. We

show that their results arise from using an

implausible phylogeny and sparse sequence

sampling. Addressing either problem

reverses their inferences: Allostery and the

amino acids that confer it were not gained

during the diversification of eukaryotes but

were lost in a subgroup of Fungi.

Full text: dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.abc8301

Response to Comment on “Ancient origins

of allosteric activation in a Ser-Thr kinase”

Christopher Wilson and Dorothee Kern

Park et al. question one out of seven

findings from Hadzipasic et al.: whether

TPX2 allosterically regulates the oldest

Aurora. We had already addressed the

two concerns raised—sparse sequence

sampling and not forcing the gene to the

species tree—before publication. Moreover,

we believe their ancestral sequence

reconstruction would be consistent with

a nonallosteric common ancestor, and we

show large sequence differences caused by

species tree–enforced gene trees.

Full text: dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.abd0364

ERRATA

Erratum for the Report “Activation of methane:

A selective industrial route to methanesulfonic

acid” (previously titled “Activation of methane

to CH3+: A selective industrial route to methanesul-

fonic acid”) by C. Díaz-Urrutia and T. Ott, Science

369, eabe0416 (2020). Published online 7 August

2020; 10.1126/science.abe0416

Erratum for the Report “Global distribution

of earthworm diversity” by H. R. P. Phillips et al.,

Science 369, eabd9834 (2020). Published online

31 July 2020; 10.1126/science.abd9834

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RetractionTitia Sijen, Florian A. Steiner, Karen L. Thijssen and Ronald H. A. Plasterk

DOI: 10.1126/science.abf4837 (6519), 921.370Science

ARTICLE TOOLS http://science.sciencemag.org/content/370/6519/921.1

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