The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland, is renowned for operating the world’s largest particle accelerator and is often regarded as a model of high-profile international collaboration. Less well known, however, is a key episode from the late 1950s, when CERN clashed with the research priorities of similar organizations. The issue centred on a CERN-sponsored study group on controlled thermonuclear fusion, which brought together scientists from CERN member states, as well as representatives from the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom), the European Nuclear Energy Agency (ENEA) and the US Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). While their meetings succeeded in creating an international network for exchanging reports and coordinating projects to avoid duplication, the initiative failed to establish joint fusion research programmes in Europe. This article explores the reasons behind this outcome to provide insights into intergovernmental power dynamics and scientific competition and how these two factors favoured the creation of a new fusion research institution in the UK, the Culham Laboratory. In doing so, the article contributes to a deeper understanding of the role of science in European integration, while also highlighting that CERN’s involvement in application-oriented research remains an underexplored aspect of its history.

Approximately 32,000 infants are born with CHDs each year in the United States of America. Of every 1000 live births, 2.3 require surgical or transcatheter intervention in the first year of life. There are few more stressful times for parents than when their neonate receives a diagnosis of complex CHD requiring surgery. The stress of caring for these infants is often unrelenting and may last for weeks, months, and often years, placing parents at risk for developing post-traumatic stress disorder, as well as a drastic decrease in quality of life. Anxiety often peaks in the days and weeks after discharge from the hospital as families no longer have immediate access to nursing and medical staff. The purpose of this paper is to describe the methods of a randomised controlled trial that was designed to determine whether REACH would favourably affect parental and infant outcomes by decreasing parental stress, improve parental quality of life, increase infant stability, and decrease resource utilisation in infants with complex CHD.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the incidence of visual function abnormalities in children with infantile hemiplegia, and the relation between visual abnormalities and type of lesion, as shown by brain MRI. Visual function was tested (grating acuity, visual field size, binocular optokinetic nystagmus [OKN], and ocular movements) in a group of 47 children with congenital or early acquired hemiplegic cerebral palsy (mean age 25 months, range 8 to 52 months). The cohort was subdivided into four groups according to MRI findings: brain malformations (n=5), abnormalities of the periventricular white matter (n=20), cortical–subcortical lesions (n=16), and non-progressive postnatal brain injuries (n=6). More than 80% of the children showed abnormal results in at least one visual test: acuity was the least impaired function, while visual field and OKN were abnormal in more than 50% of the cohort. No specific correlation could be identified between the type and timing of the lesions and visual function. Unlike adults with stroke, visual field defects were not always related to contralateral damage in the optic radiations or in the visual cortex. These results indicate that visual abnormalities are common in children with hemiplegia, and that they cannot always be predicted by MRI. All children with hemiplegia need a detailed assessment of visual function.