The Great Beyond

Prospect magazine has launched the second of its 100 greatest intellectual polls. Once again there are a number of high profile scientists in the list, on which you can vote for your favourites.

Last time round Richard Dawkins came in third (just behind Noam Chomsky and Umberto Eco).

Dawkins is in the list again this year, along with Jared Diamond, Drew Gilpin Faust, Neil Gershenfeld, Bjørn Lomborg, James Lovelock, Sunita Narain, and Lee Smolin. And in the ‘too cool to use their full names’ sub-category, we have V.S. Ramachandran, J. Craig Venter, and E.O. Wilson.

Al Gore didn’t make it last time but he’s on the list now. We’re expecting a strong showing from him this year.

Conspicuous by their absence: Stephen Hawking, Rajendra Pachauri, Jonathan Haidt.

Image: Alamy

Posted by Daniel Cressey on April 28, 2008
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A new report says the US Environmental Protection Agency is ‘under siege’, with more than half of scientists surveyed claiming there is political interference in the agency’s work.

The Union of Concerned Scientists interviewed current and former EPA staff and surveyed hundreds more. It says:

The results of these investigations show an agency under siege from political pressures. On numerous issues—ranging from mercury pollution to groundwater contamination to climate change—political appointees have edited scientific documents, manipulated scientific assessments, and generally sought to undermine the science behind dozens of EPA regulations.

AP notes an EPA spokesman “attributed some of the discontent to the “passion” scientists have toward their work”. Jonathan Shradar “said the findings will not change anything” (Washington Post).

As one of my colleagues noted, the shocking thing about this is how unsurprising it is. We seem to have become inured to the fact that politicians interfere with scientific practice when they don’t hear what they want to hear.

Continue reading "Scientists ‘under siege’ from political interference" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on April 25, 2008
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Over in Texas they’ve just told the religious Institute of Creation Research they can’t offer a masters of science degree in science education. Meanwhile, in the UK, we’re busily dishing out degrees in a whole host of strange and rather unscientific subjects.

The Texas case has been building for a while. Apparently the state’s commissioner of higher education thought the ICR failed to show their degree met “acceptable standards of science and science education”. Even better, or worse depending on your outlook, it was “inconsistent with ... rules which require the accurate labelling or designation of programs”.

Which is a nice way of saying it wasn’t science.

“Religious belief is not science,” says Commissioner Raymund Paredes (press release). “Science and religious belief are surely reconcilable, but they are not the same thing.”

The Dallas Morning News reports that what it calls the “Bible-based group” warned the education board it could face legal action for suppressing free speech. “We will pursue due process,” says Henry Morris III, chief executive officer of the ICR. “We will no doubt see you in the future.”

AP quotes him saying “It really wasn't a surprise given the current climate of opposition that exists.”

In the UK, however, it seems we’re a soft touch for dubious degrees.

Continue reading "When is a science degree not a science degree?" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on April 24, 2008
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It’s all go for people claiming the sea floor.

First off: Australia has become the the first country to successfully claim an extension of its rights to all the oil, gas and crabs around its shores. The UN has accepted its 2004 submission that its rights should go beyond the standard 200 nautical miles.

“I am pleased to announce that Australia, the largest island in the world, has just been dramatically increased in size,” says Resources Minister Martin Ferguson (various, eg The Age). The Sydney Morning Herald reports this under the headline .Australia gets bigger and richer’. (Map of the new area.)

Getting any fossil fuel goodness out of the sea floor could be tricky though. “These are the more remote areas,” Mark Allcock of Geoscience Australia told AAP. “Everybody likes to get to the easy stuff and it is the difficult stuff that you go to later. This is the more difficult stuff.”

Over in Russia, a new expedition has set off to gather more evidence for a claim to the floor under the Arctic (see Nature feature).

Continue reading "Sea floor claims madness" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on April 21, 2008
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The world’s nicest nation™ has finally found something to get wound up about. Canada’s government has triggered a row by blocking a US company’s attempt to take over its biggest space-tech company.

MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates, builder of the megalomaniac Dextre space robot, was to be sold for $1.3 billion to Alliant Techsystems (who seem to be called ATK these days). As the Toronto Star notes, “It was a high-stakes decision, because the space division of MacDonald Dettwiler includes Radarsat-2, a unique radar imaging satellite designed to protect Canada’s sovereignty and built with the help of $445 million in Canadian taxpayers’ money.”

But the government has decided the takeover is not “likely to be of net benefit to Canada” (AFP). The Register thinks this is all about Radarsat-2, which the government currently has free access to imagery from.

Continue reading "Canada blocks American space takeover" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on April 16, 2008
Categories: Policy, Space and astronomy | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

After years under house arrest, Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan is finally speaking out about his life as a nuclear smuggler.

The father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb spoke up in recent interviews--mainly with Pakistan's local press--but also with the AFP and UPI.

Kahn's been under detention since 2004, after he was found to be at the centre of what is probably the largest nuclear smuggling ring in history. The 'Khan network' stretched from Malaysia to Germany and supplied technology and equipment to nuclear upstarts such as Iran and Libya (though Libya has since abandoned its nuclear ambitions).

Western governments see Khan's imprisonment as justified given his proliferating tendencies, but in interviews Khan himself seems to see things differently. He told the AFP that his detention is a ruse to cover-up the misdeeds of others, possibly officials within the government, which has so far avoided being linked to Khan's operation. "I confessed and took the whole blame on myself."

A newly elected Parliament now seems poised to pardon Khan, who is seen across Pakistan as a national hero. Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi echoed the views of many to the Dawn, a Pakistani news channel: "I think he should be allowed to have a meal at a restaurant."

Posted by Geoff Brumfiel on April 09, 2008
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The UN has teamed up with Google to bring the reality of refugees a bit closer to home.

Details of refugee work in Darfur, Colombia and Iraq have been put into a new set of overlays for the Google Earth programme – which allows users to browse a virtual globe made up of satellite photos (for more uses of Google Earth, see this blog from Nature’s Declan Butler).

“In 2008, we are going to spread around the world and try and capture all of the major sites and make sure that they are all available so that people can see what the actual situation is on the ground,” says L. Craig Johnstone, the UN deputy high commissioner for refugees (press release). “It will make it possible to bring that suffering to people, so people can understand where the responsibilities actually are.”

The overlays show three levels of detail: an overview of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and its work in the three regions; a closer view of camps and refugee communities; and a super close up right down to schools and water points in specific camps.

Continue reading "UN enlists Google in refugee work" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on April 09, 2008
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An act designed to allow the teaching of creationism in schools passed a major hurdle in Florida yesterday.

The ‘Evolution Academic Freedom Act.’ was approved by seven votes to three by the Florida Senate Judiciary Committee, and should now progress to the state’s full Senate.

The bill promotes what it calls “a right to present scientific information relevant to the full range of views on biological and chemical evolution”. It further states that it does not promote any religious doctrine.

But many of its opponents think it’s another stealth attempt to allow creationist ideas into science classes. If it’s really about academic freedom, the argument runs, why is it just limited to evolution? And the people behind it have something of a history of religiously motivated politicking.

As the Tampa Tribune puts it nicely: “Not free, just dumb.”

One of the ‘no’ votes came from Senate Democratic leader Steve Geller. “I believe the purpose of this bill is to let people bring their religious beliefs into school,” he says (Florida Sun Sentinel). “We need to keep the wall.”

Earlier this year Florida voted to make teaching of evolution required course work in public schools (see this Great Beyond post). Last month many of those behind the pro-evolution standards railed against the supposed academic freedom bill, according to the Orlando Sentinel, saying is was “a subterfuge for injecting the religious beliefs held by some into the science classroom”.

For a sense of where the act is coming from, take a look at where it, well, came from: a creationist website.

Continue reading "Creationist act passes another hurdle " »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on April 09, 2008
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A minor change was made to the "Global temperatures 'to decrease'" piece on our website to better reflect the science. A few people including the report's authors, the world meteorlogical organisation, pointed out to us that the earlier version had been ambiguous.

Continue reading "Heated row over cooling article" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on April 08, 2008
Categories: Earth, environment & ecology, Policy | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

A newly established pro-animal research group in the United States has won its first victory, of sorts. ‘Speaking of Research’ has made PETA nervous enough that employees of the animal rights organisation have signed up to the SoR Facebook group.

This is despite SoR’s low key launch last month not really getting a huge amount of media coverage (including from me, hangs head in shame). Maybe they should have got some naked supermodels to back them for five minutes before changing their minds; that worked well for PETA when they wanted some free publicity.

Speaking of Research’s blog notes, “one must wonder why PETA staff are joining a group which is somewhat incompatible with their own organization’s views. Perhaps they are finally realizing that animal research is crucial for the future of modern medicine, but, unfortunately, I doubt it.”

The group has been set up by Tom Holder, who led a UK version called Pro-Test (press release).

Posted by Daniel Cressey on April 07, 2008
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The US House of Representatives voted on Wednesday to push $50 billion into tackling AIDS, TB and malaria in the developing world over the next five years.

Reuters and the LA Times report the bill passed by 308 votes to 116. A press release from one of the bill’s backers calls it at 306 to 116. In the UK, the Guardian calls it at 308 to 166, even though there are only 435 representatives in the House. The official record goes with Reuters, or vice versa.

Anyway, it passed.

More important than this number crunching is the fact the bill would more than triple the amount currently authorized for the Bush-backed initiative. The bill would also remove the stipulation that a third of funds must be spend on abstinence education, although it contains a requirement for “balanced funding” of “abstinence, delay of sexual debut, monogamy, fidelity and partner reduction”.

In a generally positive editorial, the LA Times notes,

Now, if a program spends less than half of its budget for preventing sexual transmission on abstinence efforts, it has to send a report to Congress justifying the decision. That could have a chilling effect on programs that would rather spend the money on condoms but don't want to risk having their funds cut off by conservative lawmakers.

Not everyone backed the bill, with some representatives trying to slash the amount of money pledged to $15 billion. Other are annoyed over the continued presence of abstinence funding.

Now a similar bill has to pass in the Senate.

Reaction below the fold...

Continue reading "$50bn AIDS funding passes first hurdle" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on April 07, 2008
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Congratulations to the team behind a documentary about the Tammy Kitzmiller vs Dover Area School District evolution teaching case, which has just won one of this year’s Peabody awards for journalism (press release, praise from blogs).

“The centerpiece of this thoughtful, topical edition of NOVA was the recreation, verbatim, of key testimony and argument from a six-week trial in Pennsylvania that served as a crash course in modern evolutionary theory, the evidence for evolution and the nature of science,” says the award citation.

A group of parents led by Kitzmiller took school authorities to court over the teaching of intelligent design as a science. They won.

In reviewing the documentary last year, Nature’s Adam Rutherford noted, “Judgment Day is just the sort of thoughtful programming that celebrates how sensible people — faithful and otherwise — can use science and reason to combat fundamentalism.”

He seems to have rather annoyed the creationist Discovery Institute in the process...

Posted by Daniel Cressey on April 03, 2008
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A surprising number of quite dramatic stories today – one big round-up post will have to do for them all.

Dextre, the Canadian space agency’s new robot, is meant to be helping construct the ISS. Instead it’s making outlandish demands:
In a surprising and potentially troubling request, the new space station robot known as Dextre demanded that astronauts refer to it in the future at ‘Dextre the Magnificent.’ Brandishing power tools that would make any handyperson blush, the mobile servicing system thanked humans for creating it and promised a glorious future where humans would retain an important role in the new robot order.

Virgin and Google are going to Mars. They want YOU to join them (if you can score highly enough on their selection questionnaire that is).

Continue reading "A chemist, a physicist, and a biologist walk into a bar" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on April 01, 2008
Categories: Biology & Biotechnology, Chemistry, Earth, environment & ecology, Health and medicine, Neat technologies, Physics & Mathematics, Policy, Space and astronomy | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

University of Texas at San Antonio students wanted to draft an honor code that discouraged cheating and plagiarizing.

Unfortunately, the student committee’s results lifted sections of Brigham Young University’s honor code that the UofT students found on-line.

Even the definition of plagiarism was, well, plagiarized.

Akshay Thusu, the student in charge of the honor code project, said it was an oversight.

BYU credited Clemson University’s Center for Academic Integrity as a key source, but UT-San Antonio’s draft failed to do so. That will be corrected, Thusu said.

Continue reading "School’s plagiarism code plagiarized" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on April 01, 2008
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A South Korean professor is withdrawing two research papers after apparently admitting he forged data on anti-aging techniques.

Kim Tae-kook, who is called Tae Kook Kim in some coverage, has been suspended from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology since February. He has said he will retract papers in Science and Nature Chemical Biology which early this year raised suspicions of fraud (BBC, AP, Yonhap).

However, in an email to a reporter from Science he stated that a “certain party has twisted this current situation to take an advantage of it”, implying he has not entirely admitted culpability (Science; subscription required).

Continue reading "Research at centre of fraud claims to be withdrawn" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on March 17, 2008
Categories: Biology & Biotechnology, Policy | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A senior member of the Vatican has drawn up a new list of mortal sins, and science features prominently. Not all of science of course, but Catholic researchers might face some tough choices.

In an interview with the Vatican’s newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, senior cleric Gianfranco Girotti, head of the Apostolic Penitentiary which is in charge of confession, was asked “What are the new sins in your opinion?” Along with drug use and social injustice he listed genetic manipulation and experiments on humans.

Girotti also gave a speech on the subject and is quoted in the Times as saying, “You offend God not only by stealing, blaspheming or coveting your neighbour’s wife, but also by ruining the environment, carrying out morally debatable scientific experiments, or allowing genetic manipulations which alter DNA or compromise embryos.”

Continue reading "Genetic modification joins lust on mortal sins list" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on March 10, 2008
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Parents in the UK are fine-tuned to be suspicious of childhood vaccines, thanks mainly to massive publicity over reported links between the measles mumps rubella (MMR) jab and autism. So pushing a human papillomavirus vaccine to prevent cervical cancer was always going to be a tricky prospect, not least due to fears in some sectors that it will encourage children to go out and have sex.

Now Gardasil, one HPV vaccine, is on the market. The UK government is keen on it, but given recent history you’d think advisors would pick their words pretty carefully.

Continue reading "Vaccination and the choice agenda" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on March 10, 2008
Categories: Health and medicine, Policy | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Scientists in Germany are facing jail for calling themselves ‘Doctor’, despite having PhDs.

According to Chemical & Engineering News at least seven researchers working for the high-profile Max Planck Society are facing charges of impersonating a doctor, which carries a maximum penalty of one year in jail. Under Germany law, the magazine says, only those who have received a doctoral degree from a European institution can call themselves doctor without special permission.

“I am not allowed to be publicly listed as ‘Dr. Baldwin’. To obey the law, I must refer to myself as ‘Ian Baldwin, PhD, Cornell University, Ithaca (NY)’,” says Dr Ian Baldwin Ian Baldwin, PhD, Cornell University, Ithaca (NY), a director at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology who was charged in January.

Someone should make sure and warn holidaying Italians. It’s not uncommon for the title Dottore to be attached to people with mere undergraduate degrees there.

And someone should definitely update Wikipedia, which currently states: “In German speaking countries, all holders of doctorate degrees are appropriately addressed as ‘Dr X’ in all social situations.”

Spot the difference: left = a medical doctor (NIH) / right = a scientist (Getty)

Posted by Daniel Cressey on March 06, 2008
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Climate change sceptics wrapped up their latest high-profile conference yesterday. This should be fun.

The 2008 International Conference on Climate Change was organized by the Heartland Institute. In its own words the institute is there to “to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems”.

In the words of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s Dateline Earth blog it is “probably the biggest basher around when it comes to the thought that maybe, just perhaps, humans might be affecting the climate”.

Every indication is that this conference was not in the slightest bit interested in discussing the true state of play with regards global warming (there are already conferences for that sort of thing). This was an opportunity to sceptics to reinforce their scepticism, and nothing was going to change their minds (see Real Climate’s pre-conference post for more on this).

So with that in mind I’ve divided this blog post into two parts. If you don’t believe in global warming: read part one. If you totally believe in global warming: skip to part two.

Continue reading "Climate sceptics and a multiple choice blog post" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on March 05, 2008
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The troubled body in charge of a large chunk of UK physics funding has just announced what it likes and what it doesn’t. Faced with something of a budget shortfall (see Nature from December, January, January again, and again) the Science and Technology Facilities Council has now ranked its projects.

STFC’s new Programmatic Review document rates projects as high, medium-high, medium-lower, and lower priority. “Obviously those in the lower categories are those most at risk,” the document says, ominously (PDF).

So what does it seem UK physicists can do without? Here are some of the lower priority projects:

Gemini [ground based telescope]
UKIRT [“world’s largest telescope dedicated solely to infrared astronomy”]
Ground-based Solar Terrestrial Physics facilities
CLF lasers for science programme [provides lasers for science]
High Performance Computing Operations

Luckily for some of those about to get their marching orders, the STFC is quick to point out it’s not because they're not doing good science. It’s because some of the lower priority projects don't have “strategic fit to STFC”.

Continue reading "UK Physicists – check your job security here" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on March 04, 2008
Categories: Physics & Mathematics, Policy | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

China is considering scrapping its one-child policy (Reuters; Guardian report from their Beijing correspondent)

The policy, implemented in 1979 to combat overpopulation and accompanying environmental problems, has been variably enforced over the years, and extremely controversial, leading to discrimination against some sub-populations (including females).

There have been calls to scrap it before: in March 2007 some 30 delegates at the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference called on the government to abolish the one-child rule because "it creates social problems and personality disorders in young people." (AsiaNews) An aging population, increasing gender bias, and changing attitudes to family size (apparently most couples now want fewer than 2 children anyway, Reuters) have been posited as reasons for change.

The latest reports originate with comments by family planning chief Zhao Baige, who told reporters she wanted an "incremental" change in the policy (BBC). CNSNews suggests the conversation has been spurred by increased attention on Chinese human rights in the run-up to the Olympics there.

China’s media carries a related story about how the negative population growth seen in Shanghai since 1993 looks set to switch over to positive growth soon (Xinhua; Shanghai Daily). This is because the single-child generation is growing up, and now having children of their own: by the current rules, if a man and woman are both the single child in their families, they are allowed to have two babies.

Posted by Nicola Jones on February 29, 2008
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Over on his blog Chad Orzel, a physicist at Union College in Schenectady, NY, asks how $3 billion could best be spent on science.

This is how much the Human Genome Project cost over its 13 years. Interestingly Orzel wouldn’t spend the money on physics, saying “if I had to choose from all areas of science, it's a no-brainer to throw all the money at public health-- eradication of malaria, cures for major diseases, etc”.

Even if the field is narrowed down to physics he wouldn’t go for particle accelerators, saying “is discovering the Higgs Boson going to materially improve the lives of anyone other than the heads of the collaboration that makes the first discovery and gets the Nobel? Not really.”

If I had three billion dollars to throw at a single area of physics, I'd probably go for high-temperature superconductivity. It's a phenomenon that's still not understood all that well, and the potential impact is huge. If somebody could find a way to make mass quantities of material that superconducts at or near room temperature, that would be one of the most revolutionary physics developments since the transistor.

Debate continues in the comments of his post.

Not that $3 billion is really much in the grand scheme of science. For example, the National Institutes of Health spends $28 billion a year on medical research.

Image: Getty

Posted by Daniel Cressey on February 22, 2008
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Water disputes in the United States have taken a bizarre turn, with one state attempting to redraw its borders to capture access to the Tennessee River.

Georgia’s water supply is in trouble and it would really help if it could access the river, which currently lies a kilometer or so north of the state. So politicians have decided to claim that the people who originally drew up the border with Tennessee got it wrong, setting it south of the rightful boundary on the 35th parallel.

Helpfully, if these politicians are right, redrawing the border will give Georgia access to the river. “This is a serious effort to secure our border and begin a discussion of water sharing,” says state senator David Shafer (Chattanooga Times Free Press, Walker Country Messenger).

Behind this slightly comical development is a serious issue. The US is running out of water (see Nature story on the west running dry and recent post on Vegas running dry).

But this is Friday, so let us get on with the ‘you couldn’t make it up’ details…

Continue reading "Singing politicians fight for water" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on February 22, 2008
Categories: Earth, environment & ecology, Policy | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The controversy over whether pre-college school standards in Florida should include mention of evolution has come to a somewhat unsatisfactory conclusion. New science standards voted in by the state education board will mention evolution, but only as a theory (Reuters).

Board member Roberto Martinez was unhappy about the addition of the word theory: “We’re watering down the best possible standards we could have.” Others disagreed, with fellow board member Donna Callaway saying the change was “a very minimal addition” (AP, or watch the video archive of the debate). There’s a nice run down of Martinez vs Callaway on the Orlando Sentinel blog:

Callaway said, “You’re saying there is only one theory.”
Martinez: “I say that evolution is a fact and it is a fundamental fact.”
Callaway: “There is a great difference of opinion in the world...There may be other theories ... This is a point of debate.”
Martinez: “It’s not a point of debate or controversy in the mainstream scientific community.”

The Miami Herald also has some great quotes from them, including this frankly baffling one from Callaway: “If we decide that we’re going to hide this debate and we’re going to hide the controversy, and we’re going to hide the fact that thousands of people disagree, then we better get with the witness protection program.”

Approved by four votes to three, the new standards are getting a reasonable response so far among supporters of the teaching of evolution (aka people who understand science). Comments from blogosphere below the fold…

Continue reading "Florida backs evolution in schools (kind of)" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on February 20, 2008
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A strange scandal over what has been labelled a “baffling failure of peer review” shows no sign of abating, even though the paper that sparked the row has been withdrawn.

Bubbling under in the bloggosphere for a few weeks now, the episode has begun to attract the attention of the traditional press.

Our starting point is a paper in the peer-review journal Protemoics with the slightly odd title, ‘Mitochondria, the missing link between body and soul: Proteomic prospective evidence’. All that’s left on the journal page is the retraction notice but you can read an abstract here.

Continue reading "Peer review, ‘a mighty creator’ and an almighty row" »

Posted by Daniel Cressey on February 15, 2008
Categories: Policy |