On 3 September, a federal jury found electrical engineer J. Reece Roth, 70, guilty on 17 counts for conspiracy, wire fraud and violating the Arms Export Control Act. Roth, a professor emeritus at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, had been working on ways of using plasma to reduce drag on aircraft wings. He had employed both Chinese and Iranian graduate students without proper authorization (see Nature 442,232; 2006). Roth will be sentenced on 7 January 2009; he faces a maximum sentence of 150 years. The conviction serves as a warning to other academics, says Russ Dedrick, a US attorney with the Eastern District of Tennessee. "Our scientific and educational communities must take precautions to ensure that technology and research are protected," he says.
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