In science news around the world, Korea's premier poultry research center loses its flock to the new H5N8 avian flu strain; the World Health Organization releases draft guidelines that halve recommended sugar intake; the U.S. House of Representatives takes up a controversial bill affecting research and education programs at the National Science Foundation; and more.

As a middle school student, Suvir Mirchandani launched an ambitious project to investigate a simple cost-saving technique for the federal government: changing the font of its printed documents.

Geologist and climate scientist Maureen Raymo becomes the first woman to win the British Wollaston Medal in the 183-year history of the prize. And the U.S. Smithsonian Institution chooses David Skorton, a cardiologist and president of Cornell University, as its new secretary.

In the shadow of the crisis in Crimea, Ukrainian legislators are weighing a pair of science and education bills that would set up a competitive grant system, root out moribund institutions, give greater autonomy to universities, and make it easier to ship reagents and biological samples into and out of the country.

Researchers dependent on government funding would face a flat future under the White House's $3.9 trillion budget request for the 2015 fiscal year, which begins 1 October. Overall, it calls for about $135 billion in spending on research and development. That would be a 1.2% increase over 2014 levels, but would not keep pace with the forecast inflation rate of 1.7% for 2015. The biggest civilian science funders—the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and the Department of Energy's Office of Science—would all get budget increases that would not keep pace with inflation. The White House also proposed an additional $5.3 billion in science spending that would be paid for by new taxes and policy changes, but Congress is unlikely to go along with that idea.

Reservoirs of cells that harbor HIV DNA woven into human chromosomes have become the bane of researchers trying to cure infections. New research reveals that many of the infected cells in reservoirs are clones that have gained an evolutionary leg up by HIV weaving into cancer genes.

Geochemists have now incorporated in their models some details of the way naturally acidic rainwater dissolves rock. This weathering is part of the cycling of carbon through air, land, and ocean that has controlled climate over the eons. These researchers found how the rising of great mountains like the Himalayas can cool climate without sending Earth into an endless global ice age.

Schizophrenia is a devastating mental disorder that afflicts about 1% of the world's population at one time or another, and is often characterized by hallucinations, delusions, and severe emotional and cognitive problems. For decades, antipsychotic drugs have been the main line of defense, but they have serious side effects and lots of patients end up not taking them. Recently, a number of clinical trials have suggested that psychological approaches, including old-fashioned "talk" psychotherapy and a method called cognitive behavioral therapy, can be moderately effective in many cases. These techniques engage with the human being behind the symptoms and are attracting increasing attention from the medical profession.

Surface tension is a force to be reckoned with, especially if you are small. It enables a water strider to skate along the water's surface and not sink. It makes water cling like quicksand to ants unlucky enough to blunder in. Biologists have tended to ignore the air-water interface, but at a recent symposium, the power of surface tension became clear and not just for small creatures. Surface tension helps seeds bury themselves by causing awns to coil and uncoil. It enables a floating fern to maintain an air layer, even when submerged. And it makes a beetle fly in two dimensions, not three. Surface tension also allows human and agricultural pathogens to travel long distances in tiny, buoyant droplets. We hardly notice surface tension, but it plays a big role in life at large.