Recently in Briefly Category

Being that it's a slow day in the weekly cycle I should just kick back and peruse the glossy weekend magazine "How To Spend It", from the Financial Times' -- choose some baubles and get-ups to distract me, and lavish African safaris to amuse me. But a post is overdue. So some notes:

• Runaway Cars: Toyota's "Poppycock"

  Since 2003 the National Highway and Transportation Safety Authority has been investigating safety problems with Toyota vehicles. And apparently, in an effort to "ward off" too much investigation, Toyota hired two former NHTSA workers who helped forestall action government action and inquiry into the failures. Joan Claybrook, formerly of Public Citizen and the NHTSA, spoke about the company's duplicity in dealing with the issues:

  "Toyota came in on the floor mat issue and they said this is not a safety-related defect, but we're going to do it any way. And we're going to obey all of the rules and regulations that you have for carrying out a defect, but this is not a safety-related defect. This is poppycock and they should never have tried to get away with that."

  The company has apparently tried to frame a more serious problem as a floormat issue, but Claybrook recounts that the company is not only replacing the floormats but also installing a brake override:

  "in the recall dealing with the floor mats, this is the Lexus, the Camrys, some SUV's and the Prius, they're going to not only fix the floor mat, but they're going to install a brake override, as it's called, which is a software change which if there's a conflict between the accelerator, throttle and the brake, the brake wins out and you can stop the car. Right now a lot of cars have this, but the Toyota vehicles do not. So they need to have something electronic to stop these vehicles from being runaway vehicles."

  Admission of a widespread electronic problem would apparently be detrimental to the company. As for NHTSA, the agency has apparently been dealing with leadership turnover and budget woes. The growing outside perception is that the agency has grown altogether too close to the industry it's supposed to be regulating. We previously covered the NHTSA and industry coziness when writing about the EPA and the US government's efforts to reduce unhealthy automobile emissions.

  Columbia Journalism Review summarizes media coverage of NHTSA's dealings with Toyota, and reflexively criticizes the media in general for being lax.

• Gait

  There have been some interesting studies on gait lately. Barefoot running has become a fad and research has long indicated that running shoes increase ligament injuries, stress fractures and planter fasciitis. Now, a running shoe study by Lieberman et al in Nature "(subscription) shows that running shoes change human gait, from running toe-heel to running heel-toe. Actually, the authors distinguished three patterns, forefoot first, midfoot first, or rearfoot first. Running shoes encourage heel strike first, which differs from barefoot running. The researchers found heel strike running greatly increases resultant forces that can cause running injuries.

  In another recent study, published in the Journal of Experimental Biology, Cunningham et al compared the amount of energy expended when humans walk heel-toe (plantigrade), vs. toe-heel (digitgrade). The study found that it takes 53% more energy to walk on the balls of your feet, and 83% more energy to walk on your toes, than to walk heel to toe. The authors conclude that humans conserve energy by walking heel-toe (plantigrade), but don't conserve energy when they run plantigrade. They suggest evolutionary reasons that made heel-toe walking more advantageous.

  Finally, slightly different, another study, also in the Journal of Experimental Biology looked at elephant gait. The authors built an elaborate structure to measure the forces of running elephants and found that elephants use less energy and manage to bounce less (which decreased forces) by adapting a half-walk, half-run stride. This stride decreases by almost one-half the forces exerted by a running elephant compared to a running human.

  Acronym Required previously looked at energetics in Nepalese Porters carrying loads, and in human walking obese and non-obese people

• Matchmaking for Cynics

  Acronym Required has jestingly suggested pairing people from perhaps opposing camps in the past, like an impertinent investigative reporter from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, with a journalist contracting for a bisphenolA-is-safe lobby, as we wrote in BPA Rhetoric and Reaction; or a chemical lobbyist, with an environmental agency scientist, as we wrote "New Strategies for Bisphenol A and Chemicals?". We did this to celebrate the Obama era, as a light-hearted ode to getting everyone at the same table.

  But now an offshoot of Greenpeace has developed a far more sinister and cynical matchmaking concept in "P-Harmony", Polluter Harmony, which proposes to match various legislators and decision-makers with lobbyists. Of course there's no end to such real-life power matches, as a Google search for any combination of "sex", "sleeping with", "lobbyists", "Congressmen", "regulators", "Senators", "in bed with", etc. will attest to. But if I were to rate the site, I'd say it's ripe with potential and has some amusing detail, but is spare on the sort of fleshed-out scurrilous information people find so delicious.

• And Speaking of Which, The EPA...

  No, not lobbyists in-bed with regulators, but websites. The new EPA website is much improved. The Obama Open Government initiative aims to "break[] down long-standing barriers between the federal government and you". To that end, you can "share your ideas" at the open government site or just peruse the evolving EPA site. It's not the first time the EPA has tried to improve public information, but this is a far more comprehensive approach than others, like this 2007 effort. I haven't delved too deep into the site, but the top pages seem also to advance the agency's control over its messaging.

• Obama Quandries

  No one quite knows what to make of Obama. We wrote about the collective disappointment last month, and pondered whether, if people been paying attention, they'd have realized he wasn't necessarily the person they'd fabricated in their heads. We suggested people look at close adviser Cass Sunstein's politics, although they're also highly disputed, but certainly aren't liberal. Of course even as we suggested it, we know it's ridiculous to judge a president on one adviser.

  So you could judge Obama on two advisers. In an article in the New York Review of Books a couple of weeks ago, Jerome Groopman looked at healthcare reform and tried to predict how it would go based on Obama's "closest advisers" on the subject, Cass Sunstein, head of OIRA, and Peter Orszag, head of OMB (OIRA is within OMB).

  Groopman distinguished Sunstein's "nudge" approach based on behavioral economics, from Orszag's "shove" approach, a different take on behavioral economics. Groopman characterized Orszag's approach as a more stringent incentive system that would not allow doctors and heathcare providers to "opt out", but would penalize them for not following government set "comparative effectiveness" mandates. But comparative effectiveness is no different than "cost effectiveness", wrote Groopman, and cost effectiveness doesn't work and won't sell. Interestingly, I've always viewed Sunstein's cost-benefit analysis to have the same shortcomings Groopman seems to loathe. But Groopman wants Sunstein's way to prevail in the healthcare debate because Sunstein offers an "opt-out".

  But perhaps healthcare won't be swayed by only two advisers but four. The Financial Times also judges the president's decisions on the views of his too small circle. FT names four key advisers, Valerie Jarrett, Robert Gibbs, Rahm Emmanuel, and David Axelrod and says that Obama needs to change up a bit to shake his governing woes. Is it realistic at all to judge the president on such small numbers of advisers? It's apparently a fun game, despite it's grounding in reality.

  As gripey as everyone is, I'm more optimistic on this President's day, thinking about the state of US governance and politics, than on the same holiday during the previous administration.

Does it seem like Democrats, time and again throwing themselves into a dither at the slightest G.O.P. provocation, suffer severe post-traumatic stress after eight years of Bush, and just need to calm down? Fresh off the Massachusetts upset, they seem distracted from their mission and insist of future-tripping that their worst nightmares will come true. To fuel the angst, the G.O.P. postures in Illinois. Then Air America just ups and goes off the air, which of course causes the right-wing talk show cabal to scream a death knell for liberal anything -- media, politics, commentators...

"Air America", Auspicious Name?

But in all fairness, "Air America" the network, did quite well given the odds. Consider first that some ballsy person dared name it "Air America". Look at the history of previous organizations with that name (actually at first they called it Air America Media, then shortened that). Longevity-wise, the network lasted far longer, six years, than "Air America" the charter airline, described by Wikipedia as "a short-lived charter airline founded in 1989, but discontinuing service in 1990".

Reputation-wise about the worse I ever heard was from Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitas, who expressed surprise when a reporter told him the network was doomed: Air America is "still really on the air?" Cheeky.

Personally, I never listened to the network, for no particular reason, but whatever Air America did or didn't do (and of course, just like Massachusetts, everyone has an opinion) Air America the network couldn't be more controversial than "Air America" the civilian airline "operated by the Central Intelligence Agency during the Vietnam War". The C.I.A. airline ran for sixteen years in Southeast Asia conducting logistics and recognizance missions, transporting civilians and refugees, and perhaps, according to Wikipedia, smuggling heroin, and opium for Asian despots.

Progressive Media's Place

Air America Media started during the Bush administration, when FOX seemed to have its hand around the throat of the public airwaves. Rachel Maddow got her start at Air America, and Senator Al Franken also played a central role for the network before launching his current career as campaigner, lawmaker in waiting, and Senator. The network previously went bankrupt in 2004, before being bought and revived, and filing for bankruptcy again. I'm not sure what really happened, but Air America proved to be a worthy effort, if not a viable business.

Liberal or progressive media is not "dead", as FOX would have it, just because Air America did not succeed as a business. Nor does one business going off the air signal that the country is "moving right", as some commentators would have it.

Democracy Now, for one, is stronger than ever, broadcasting to over 800 stations around the world. Here's Amy Goodman in an interview with KCTS TV talking about media's job to hold politicians accountable, the place of the media as sitting around a huge kitchen table and having an "open discourse", a "lively" discussion, a "robust debate" about the "critical issues of the day"; and the "mainstream media" in general -- "What do I think of the mainstream media? I think it would be a good idea";

The Los Angeles Times Science section is a-ok. Except, worryingly, the LA Times now puts Science in a subcategory under the category "US and World", in one of the top ten categories that editors use to divvy up the news: "US & World", "Local", "Business", "Sports", "Entertainment", "Health", "Living", "Travel"", "Opinion", and "More".

LA Insatiable for Hotlist, Brand X and The Envelope?

Let's look at how this works.

• Under the category "Entertainment", the LA Times has these subcategories: Movies, Television, Music, Celebrity, Arts & Culture, Company Town, Calendar, the Envelope, and Hotlist, in that order. Don't think they missed any "Entertainment" "news".

• Under the category "Living", the paper assigns these subcategories: Health, Home, Food, Image, Travel, Autos, Books, Hotlist, Brand X, Magazine and "Your Scene". Can't imagine they've missed much "Living" "news".

• Then, under the category "US and World", the paper puts these subcategories: Washington, Nation, Afghanistan, Middle East, Latin America, Asia, Science, Environment, and ominously, Obituaries -- again, in that order.

The LA Times has put "science" on the same level of "brand X", "the envelope", and "company town".

Bucket List

Get it? All the real news, all the stuff that really might impact us; like the whole rest of the world beside LA; two killer, budget decimating wars; 51 US states; global warming; stem cell research; microbiology research; astronomy and the universe; on and on -- all live in one convenient news bucket beside biographies of the dead.

Technology is in "Business". And where is "Europe"? I can't find it. Completely missing from the line-up? Perhaps so old world, that some editor shoved it into Obituaries? Does the Los Angeles Times have a grudge against all of Europe? Does that include Russia? Or is "Russia" in "Asia"?

I'm worried. Because if the LA Times can eighty-six all of "Europe", then it looks like the editors and managers have placed the two categores Science and Environment disconcertingly close to Obituaries. Say a little prayer for Science News, one banana peel away from the grave?

Haiti!

Help, donate: Partners in Health, or Medecins Sans Frontiers, or the Clinton Foundation, or the International Red Cross or text-to-give.

• PLoS and Elsevier: On the Same Page?

  One of our favorite things, in the Obama era, is to see would be foes band together. So we look fondly upon the unlikely albeit fragile "alliance" that PLoS and Elsevier ended up in at a recent open access publishing roundtable. The occasion was a report issued by the Scholarly Publishing Roundtable, convened by the U.S. House Committee on Science and Technology and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). There were 14 publishers, university leaders, librarians, and other experts at the round table, who drafted basic agreements about how public access to journal publications. They emphasized:

  "the need to preserve peer review, the necessity of adaptable publishing business models, the benefits of broader public access, the importance of archiving, and the interoperability of online content"

  However, the Elsevier and PLoS representatives refused to join the other 12 members in signing the consensus agreement, although both agreed that points of the agreement were "positive". PLoS and Elsevier apparently both have a lot a stake, since they each sent extra representatives to the panel. Elsevier sent their General Counsel/Senior Vice President, and PLoS sent their Managing Editor as well as their CEO.

  Predictably, YS Chi, speaking for Elsevier, stated that he couldn't sign the agreement because it "supports an overly expansive role of government and advocates approaches to the business of scholarly publishing that I believe are overly prescriptive." No question about where giant, monopolistic, Elsevier ever stands.

  PLoS representative Mark Patterson's statement was a little more difficult for me to unpack. He said that the agreement "stops far short of recognizing and endorsing the opportunities to unleash the full potential of online communication to transform access to and use of scholarly literature." His whole statement was a similar whirl of words. What does he mean? He didn't include "the need to preserve peer review" as one of his "positive" points of agreement....But does PLoS want a more players around it? Federal support for PLoS? Explicit endorsement of pay to publish? A more "expansive role for government"? Someone knows, not me.

  For more information on open access and this agreement in general, there's a great public access policy forum here at the Office of Science and Technology Policy, and the "ever-enthusiastic public access policy team" at OSTP has extended the comment period. So you can comment, and there's lots to read.

• H1N1

  The World Health Organization (WHO), hits back at accusers who say that the organization, along with pharma companies, created a "fake epidemic" in H1N1. The World Health Organization reiterated its role to balance urgency and expediency with uncertainty. In an editorial generally praising the response to the epidemic, Nature wrote this week:

  "The danger now is that last year's relatively mild pandemic will create a false sense of security and complacency. The reality is that next time we might not be so lucky -- especially given that this time most of the world's population, living as they do in developing countries, had no access to either vaccines or antiviral drugs."

  It's easy, it seems to us, for very smart people to be cynical about the H1N1 pandemic. It is truly a challenge to explain risks and uncertainty of pandemics and the fact that the scientists and public health organizations are actually doing a great job.

Judge Overrules FDA on Electronic Cigarettes, Whatever They Are

Some people believe that a president's most lasting legacy is in the judges he appoints; George W. Bush appointed judge Richard Leon of the Federal District Court in Washington. Leon recently moved to stop the FDA from regulating e-cigarettes, on grounds that they aren't tobacco. In fact, e-cigarettes are battery-powered tubes that vaporize nicotine with tobacco flavoring, that simulate cigarette smoking for the user. I can't make that sound good. Seems like the next best thing to sex robots. But anyway, these devices deliver addictive nicotine to the body, but the judge says the FDA can't regulate e-cigarettes as devices anymore.

In other tobacco regulation news, an article in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) discusses opposition to the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act on First Amendment grounds. Even the ACLU objects to the Act, which prohibits the use of certain words by cigarette advertisers, saying that

"regulating commercial speech for lawful products only because those products are widely disliked -- even for cause -- sets us on the path of regulating such speech for other products that may only be disfavored by a select few in a position to impose their personal preferences."

Instead advised the ACLU, "the antidote to harmful speech can be found in the wisdom of countervailing speech -- not in the outright ban of the speech perceived as harmful." But as the NEJM authors wrote:

"How did we come to believe that the exchange of commercial appeals in the marketplace of goods and services should be equated with free exchange in the marketplace of ideas? Are our freedoms really secured by a constitutional doctrine that would limit our capacity to inhibit the promotion of toxic goods? This is an opportune moment to reflect on these questions and their implications for the relationship between public health goals and the rules that should be foundational in a democracy."

• EPA's Updated Smog, Ozone Standard

  The EPA proposed new standards for smog last week, which would update the Bush Administration standards. The agency will set the "primary" standard, which protects public health, at a level between 0.060 and 0.070 parts per million (ppm), measured over eight hours, and will also propose a new secondary standard. These standards were recommended by scientists years ago to decrease deaths and smog levels dangerous to children, the elderly, and those with asthma and respiratory disease. As we wrote earlier, the Bush's EPA pushed the weaker standard of .075 ppm. We also wrote about the Obama EPA's stated intention to change the standard last fall.

• Airport Screening to Double as Healthcare?

  "We are headed toward the moment when screeners will watch watch-listers sashay through while we have to come to the airport in hospital gowns, flapping open in the back", wrote Maureen Dowd recently, commenting on holes in airport security processes. But I think she's seeing a cup half empty. We may well be headed for a moment when airport screening, reviled as a breach of privacy to some, is the closest thing to healthcare people can get.

  The public option has fallen "off the table" again, by now "fallen off the table" so many times that even when it intermittently appears back "on the table", it's obviously shopworn, if not smashed to bits.

  But the glass could still be half full. Think of the savings, if airport screening could double as healthcare screening : "You're cleared for flight sir, and don't worry about that lump..."

• What to Call It? Science Terminology

  For various reasons, political, scientific, logical (or not) or historical, people refer to the same thing using different terms. Here are two examples.

  Canada does not call the tar sands "tar sands", anymore, they're "oil sands". Of course "tar sands" is more descriptive of the energy-intensive process, of extracting oil, but "oil sands" sounds like something that you would naturally siphon some oil out of, it sounds better.

  In 2005, physicist Lisa Randall urged that "global climate change" was the appropriate phrase to use, because "global warming" would lead people to argue that their winter was actually very cold. Others argued that "climate change" sounded less dangerous, so therefore would be used to manipulate people who would be fearful enough about "global warming" to urge policy changes, whereas "climate change" seemed benign. But it gets even more complicated for some agencies. NASA differentiates between "global warming", which is surface climate change, and "climate change", and "global change", and "global climate change", which deems the most accurate term. I think everyone pretty much knows what everyone's talking about now, though I dare not make conclusions about that.

• Oh, and Happy Not-So-New Year

  Did you travel over your break? Have fun?

  In the US, marketing aimed at tourists is off the rails. Perhaps marketers have learned that people who travel in a heightened state of orange level stress will sooth themselves by buying absurd products. You may argue that it's a global trend, and indeed, the badminton set peddled to me by a man on the muddy backroad of a major city in Asia seemed ridiculous, until I flipped through Sky Mall Magazine and spied the "King Tut Life Sized Sarcophagus Cabinet" that can be "delivered curbside" (to impress your neighbors). Personally, I would rather pay to bat around a little white badminton birdie in a mud puddle, while talking baksheesh with kids who speak, at will, touristica French, German, English or Japanese. By comparison, traveler oriented products in the US seem conceived by desperate marketing departments who've lost their wits. Case in point -- the sarcophagus cabinet. Or:

  • If you were assigned to seating group 2 or above recently, on my least favorite airline I still fly on, you heard this announcement: "Board now. Enter via aisle closest to the wall, NOT THE RED CARPET." Because "the red carpet", actually a two foot doormat, is reserved for first class customers.

    Some people bemoan the lot of the economy passenger, the so-called "poverty parade", and the herd animal like treatment. But as a first class customer you pay an extra few thousand dollars to traipse across a red mat with bars on each side to keep you in bounds. Sure the legroom's nice, I won't argue, but you have to walk "the red carpet" to get there, and once there in that bigger, comfier seat, you're subjected to complimentary cheesefood snacks. Supposedly smart people actually buy this privilege.

  • At your hotel, you will be sold the usual-- rooms, room service, laundry services, shoe shines and upgrades, not to mention the mini-bar. But what if the five dollar peanuts in the mini-bar are too devilish a temptation for you and your New Year's resolutions? No worries, there's a market-based solution. Pay $50 to have the mini-bar hauled away at one hotel I was recently at.

  • Want to use the hotel refrigerator for your water? $50 fine at another hotel. And the same people who stay at these hotels complain that the EPA's bureaucracy confines their business style.

  • Maybe you actually love business travel and want to bring home a bit of the experience, like the "pulsating" showerhead that your can actually buy from one hotel's glossy catalogue. The catalogue carried other mundane household hardware and dog cushions stamped with the hotel's logo. Pretty special.

  Couldn't we just travel unsolicited sometimes? Definitely not in 2010. Happy New Year.

The Chemical Lobby Finds Their Man:

Back when the momentum for banning bisphenol A (BPA) hadn't quite built up to its current fervor, BPA lobbyists used to denigrate everyone who questioned the safety of bisphenol A. Male, female, old, young, it didn't matter, they were 'internet moms' who'd worked themselves into a blind tizzy about bisphenol A, which was 'perfectly safe'.

But things were a little more tense last May for industry leaders who met to discuss a strategy for fighting back against the growing movement to limit consumer exposure to risky levels of BPA. As we quoted the Wall Street Journal in our post back then:

"industry executives huddled for hours Thursday trying to figure out how to tamp down public concerns over the chemical bisphenol A, or BPA. The notes said the executives are particularly concerned about the views of young mothers, who often make purchasing decisions for households and who are most likely to be focused on health concerns."

In addition to crafting clever lines to scare consumers, like "do you want to have access to baby food anymore?", the industry group discussed getting the right spokesman for their cause. A scientist might be difficult they acknowledged, they had reputations to preserve, but a pregnant woman would be "the Holy Grail".

Now it looks like they found their man in a public relations expert named "Joe Householder" -- his real name. This isn't the first challenging public relations assignment for Mr. Householder. He worked with, among others, Enron's law firm, baseball player Roger Clemons, Hillary Clinton, various other politicians, and Public Strategies Inc. Now he's with Purple Strategies Inc., apparently heading a group called "Coalition for Chemical Safety". The Coalition for Chemical Safety works with American Chemical Council (ACC) and other businesses. To date, those businesses are known more for not putting the safety and health of consumers before corporate profits.

So we look skeptically at "The Coalition for Chemical Safety". Indeed, it's described by the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) as an BPA astroturfing organization. But it takes different tactics then previous BPA astroturfing campaigns. Mr. Householder and the Coalition for Chemical Safety take a warmer approach to BPA and chemicals, astroturfing-wise, then representatives in the past have.

In step with the times, the everyone_together_at_the_same_table age of Obama rhetoric, as opposed to the more acrimonious Bush era rhetoric, the Coalition is 'educating' consumers about chemicals. Instead of saying bluntly that BPA is safe, the mother in this Coalition sound clip talks about banning BPA in baby bottles, but encourages consumers and public health advocates to always work with the chemical companies (mp3 from EDF). This is the more subtle approach to controlling the public perception of chemicals. And who better to assure "young mothers" making "purchasing decisions for households", than a guy named Joe Householder?

In keeping with this new, more collegial approach to marketing/public relations, Householder has directly engaged Dr. Richard Denison, EDF's sometimes scathing Senior Scientist, in a mano-a-mano on Denison's blog. This is Householder's "purple" strategy, I think, not red, not blue, purple -- get it? That's where we all agree that chemicals are indeed wonderful (they are) and that we love regulation, just the "right" regulation, and "reasonable" regulation. Look out for that.

Mr. Household has invited Dr. Denison to join the Coalition for Chemical Safety, and although Denison hasn't posted a public response, I think with their combined gregariousness and magnetism, it's just a matter of time before they're hanging out together, Richard educating Householder on bisphenol A and Joe sharing public relations tactics and the use of his very apropos name. Isn't that how things get done these days?

Update: 02/14/09 Dr. Denison did continue to engage Joe Householder on the EDF blog. In a February post, Denison continued to ask Householder what his funding sources were, and what PR tactics he had used to get certain sectors so riled up about the Toxic Chemical Safety Act (TCSA):

"What exactly are you telling lawn services and landscaping companies they need to worry about in TSCA reform? And just what tortuous scenario are you weaving to convince police associations that better chemicals management will compromise their safety on the job?"

Denison wants some transparency from Householder. We don't know how/if Householder responded.

Acronym Required has written extensively on BPA science and regulation. We also wrote about individuals hired by industry, the acrimony they stir up, and the possibility of wonderful relationships blossoming between players on either side of the chemical divide in BPA Rhetoric and Reaction

Of Course Denial Is Not The River In Africa:

The upheaval over the climate e-mails is business as usual for the climate science deniers or denialists - not "skeptics", and just a word on that first. Scientists are by nature "skeptics" and consider skepticism a valid approach to analysis. Merriam Webster says "skeptic" derives from the Greek skeptikos thoughtful, or skeptesthai to look. However, unfortunately for all of us, the climate data needs to be denied to be disbelieved. There's too much of it over too many years from too many different fields -- too much evidence to be skeptical about. Meanwhile, while some deniers happily call themselves deniers, others deniers take extreme offense, saying calling them deniers is dismissive or denigrating. But that's not the goal here. I'm not saying deniers don't have feelings, they have valid feelings, and they may also have issues facing reality or other problems.

For instance, just as people who don't recycle may sincerely have difficulty separating cans from cardboard, climate deniers may be incapable of swimming. We can empathize. Swimming may become an even more vital skill in the future. Deniers may fear being seen driving an electric car, fear heatstroke, fear malaria, fear fire, fear tornadoes, fear heatstroke, or fear moving from Florida, which could be affected most by impending climate change with rising sea waters, temperatures and incidence of malaria. Fear may incapacitate deniers reasoning faculties or propel them to convince themselves and others that no change is necessary. We empathize some more.

But if we chance-it, do nothing because of deniers' fears, so we can talk about emails in the UK some more, then we're making a choice that has the potential for far scarier outcomes than facing the mounds of evidence and choosing to do something. And we can do something, we can change, we can support industries that solve climate problems. Or we can do business as usual, and suffer the economic consequences of that. There are all sorts of innocent reasons why deniers are in denial. Only some of them nefarious like fear of losing the vote. But denial for any reason thwarts problem solving.

Rearranging The Deck Chairs on The Titanic. Well..?

We don't necessarily understand their reasons, but we recognize the deniers' rhetoric. If decades of ice core data, Antarctica data, arctic data, temperatures, sea levels, temperatures and, corral bleaching, tree ring data, and more, all show global warming over decades, they'll say "but today is cold out - global warming? Hahaha". If there's noise in a 30 year graph showing an up or down trend, they focus on a one year time period that shows the opposite trend, and throw that out as "proof" that the graph is false.

Here's one video, just one piece of evidence in mountains of available data, showing the decrease in perennial sea ice (seconds ~25-50):

Deniers will ignore all the evidence, focus on a bunch of emails and call it ClimateGate, and get everyone to run over to the starboard side of the ship, when there's an iceberg forward (although, actually, eventually that won't be a problem anymore.) Or they'll say the problem is that the scientists weren't communicating and weren't being transparent with the data. Of course last year the Wall Street Journal was complaining about "too much" global warming evidence. We're not saying that scientists shouldn't have thought twice about pouring vents and frustration into emails, but this is the sideshow which keeps us all spinning, keeps us doing nothing.

Meanwhile, if the sea level of the Mediterranean Sea rose 1 meter, the Nile River Basin, home to millions and cultivated to feed more millions, would lose 6.1 million people to displacement. Where would they all go? 4,500 square kilometers of Nile River Basin cropland would be lost, and the World Bank estimates a 6% loss in GDP to Egypt, and direct GDP losses for about 10 other countries. 6% GDP impact would raise to 16% with a 5 meter rise of sea level. That's one area of the world and one river basin, there's many others. Louisiana and Florida will be lost to rising seas. California and Australia will have more forest fires.

And while many results of climate change are known, other possible changes could be even more catastrophic if they happened. This is the case with The Great Ocean Conveyor Belt or thermohaline circulation. Scientists don't know what the outcome of the collapse of the thermohaline circulation would be. They don't know how that would further change climate, which areas would be warmer, how it would effect ocean salinity. Would the ocean become a pond? Scientists can't predict, but there's a chance that it could be catastrophic. There's never absolute surety in science, but the outcomes can be different both ways, better, or a lot worse.

Deniers like Inhofe would be brandishing threats about emails if he were in hip-waders up to his waist in sea water, rather than accept the evidence. That's the way its always been and that's the way it will always be. Fighting against mult-million dollar "pro-industry" campaigns by oil companies and the people they corral with their ideas, like Inhofe, has occupied scientists as much as the science. So when some people, (including scientists) now turn around and say that scientists need to be more transparent, if doesn't ring true. The data has been there and still is. These 'scientists aren't talking right' distractions only derail scientists from looking for solutions.

Progress and Promises on AIDS:

Today, on World AIDS Day 2009, while looking for a statistic, I entered into Google the search: "HIV infections decrease". The sometimes precocious search engine offered an instantaneous correction: "did you mean HIV infections increase" [sic] No, I silently answered, frowning, before I caught myself attempting communication with a search engine. Then I flipped the search to Google News. Google insisted I must mean "increase". So I got the statistic I was looking for and relented to Google's know-it-all suggestion. Indeed although Google was wrong, I understand the reasoning, even if only algorithmic: The first search phrase, "decrease", yielded only 1,940,000 results in .22 seconds, whereas the second, "increase", gave 3,550,000 results in .18 seconds.

Just like the search engine, we brace ourselves for the worst with HIV/AIDS, we're habituated to hearing bad news. As the pandemic continues and effective methods for decreasing HIV infections, increasing treatment, and procuring funding seem at times as elusive as ten years ago, sometimes we need to look up once a year on AIDS day with some real intention just to see the inches gained in the sand we've been trying to get traction in.

Otherwise, even though the number of number of infections has decreased by 17% since 2001, all the World AIDS Days blur together and we're tempted to ask questions. Questions like -- has anything actually changed since the 20th World AIDS Day of 2007, when 61% of HIV infected population were women? Or from 2008 World AIDS Day? Or the first World AIDS Day 22 years ago?

Last year, on the the 21st World AIDS Day, we noted milestones like Bush's PEPFAR funding effort, and Barbara Hogan's appointment as South Africa's Health Minister. However, things change quickly in this area of public health, and this year brought both positive and negative news for PEPFAR and South Africa, two of our areas of interest.

The year started out promisingly, with Obama's inauguration and his pledge to pay even more attention to AIDS, especially for the recently increased national infections. He noted that his strategy would-

"...be based on the best available science and built on the foundation of a strong health care system"....however, he warned, "in the end, this epidemic can't be stopped by government alone, and money alone is not the answer either."

After being sworn in, Obama immediately got rid of the ban on international funding for groups that provided counseling on abortion. Condoms, an essential part of prevention, lost the evil connotation they had during the Bush administration. (The church took up the campaign when Pope Benedict XVI announced falsely in March that condoms would worsen the AIDS crisis). Obama was true to his campaigning words here. Science studies show that condoms are effective, and abstinence programs are not. Studies also show that attention to public health is central to preventing and treating infectious disease. Indeed, healthcare has been a theme of Obama's administration -- albeit to what end, we don't know. The president also recently lifted the HIV/AIDS travel ban, which has ostracized AIDS patients, something that's also been proven to undermine prevention and treatment programs.

Unfortunately, but again true to his word, Obama hasn't provided the leadership people hoped he would, even though government leadership has proven central to any successful HIV prevention and AIDS treatment program. Worse, although Obama the president-elect promised $1 billion per year in PEPFAR funding, the 2010 budget proposal contains only $366 million. The funding shortfalls have effected HIV and AIDS treatment programs, for instance eligible patients in Uganda are being turned away for lack of funds. The president's funding choices earned Obama a scathing D+ from AIDS NGOs.

Change in South Africa

In good news, South Africa's President Zuma has made several promises that show he's wised up from the time in court not long ago, when he defended himself on rape charges and said that a shower would prevent infection by HIV. Last month, Zuma promised that South Africa would vigorously address the national AIDS crisis.

Last May, when Zuma announced the reassignment of Barbara Hogan, whom he replaced with Dr. Aaron Motsoaledi, there was some concern from South Africa's public health community about the assignment, concern the Dr. Motsoaledi was inexperienced, while Hogan's work was widely praised. However public health groups have since welcomed the new minister's straightforward acknowledgments of past mistakes.

We hope South Africa's new realizations -- like that the nation's deaths from AIDS increased more than 100 percent in 11 years -- are not just a rhetorical distancing of the ANC party from former President Thabo Mbeki's and his denialism, but a real commitment to an AIDS program. Optimistically, today Zuma announced the government's intention to treat all babies and pregnant women infected with AIDS.

In other major HIV/AIDS news this year, initial reports of a successful vaccine clinical trial in Thailand brought increased public attention and then consternation to later news of the same trial. The second news release informed the world that when researchers did further analysis of the results they doubted that the benefit was statistically significant. That's the way it goes though, steps forward, and steps back. The work continues tomorrow, and for the next 364 days we'll all work towards a more upbeat World AIDS Day 2010.

The past couple of weeks have been filled with stories about scientists' public dust-ups, intriguing to all, especially non-scientists. Why are they so interesting? Maybe such sordid tales offer something beyond dry research results sexed-up by editors desperate to grab readers weaned on YouTube? Maybe the stories make scientists seem not quite so pocket-protector laden and boring? (We're not boring, really!) But since we all know people who slow down to gawk at accidents, others who link lavishly to tales of disease, distress, death, and dismal demises, perhaps those people are just as enamored, in the same schadenfreude way, to science bickering and wave-making?

• Ice Floes and Climate Woes: Antarctica is losing ice from the eastern side as well as the west, according to a study in Nature Geoscience, an event that could significantly increase sea levels. But that's not the news everyone's focusing on these days. What interests them are the emails exchanged between a few scientists, stolen from a server at East Anglia University in England and broadcast on the internet.

  Fox News and the usual suspects are gleeful of course, oiling up for a long campaign of undermining science and swaying wishy-washy people. Everyone else spectates, eagerly leaning into the ropes. The Financial Times avidly quoted 'both sides', first the "free-market think tank" CEI spokesperson who called the emails "global warming house of cards", then the scientist whose email revealed that he wanted to "beat the crap out of" a certain scientist, a phrase that one person sincerely explained as "a common pleasantry" among high-calibre scientists. Optimistic climate deniers are talking "smoking guns" and ClimateGate. But as Real Climate: put it in one of their posts:

  "if cherry-picked out-of-context phrases from stolen personal emails is the only response to the weight of the scientific evidence for the human influence on climate change, then there probably isn't much to it."

  "Probably" is understatement. Somehow the media constantly gets away with quoting 'both sides' without signaling to readers the truer story: One side has hundreds of studies - the scientists; whereas the other side is lobbying for some corporation, or out of desperate laziness. The science is depressingly convincing on climate change. But obviously people don't all embrace change, and to that end, the deniers have proven time and time again that hammering away with their fraudulent message will keep people consuming petroleum products.

  My take is that if you unearthed the email trove of any group - government, academic or corporate - you'd find some nasty, flaming emails, but not everyone sees it the way I do of course. Some scientists are calling for increased transparency.

• Personal Genomics, What Risk? Researchers from the J. Craig Venter Institute and Scripps Translational Science Institute compared the results of two personal genomics companies for five individuals and found discrepancies in the disease risk predictions. The two companies, 23andMe and Navigenics DTC, responded to the paper in a recent issue of Nature. The two companies agreed with the criticism on some points and offered explanation on other points -- for instance about the differences between population risk and individual risks, and the importance of doctors' communication about genetic risks to patients.

  In other personal genomics news, Iceland's deCode Genetics went out of business, leaving it ambiguous, although we're assured that the genetic information will be protected, where their vast genetic data bank will end up.

• Curly-haired Science Populizers Spar: Steven Pinker popularizes cognitive science and evolutionary psychology. Malcolm Gladwell popularizes sociology and social psychology. They both have Canadian roots and very curly hair. Now they're sparring. Pinker critiqued Gladwell's, "What the Dog Saw" in a recent issue of "New York Times. Like any good manager or professor, Pinker offers four paragraphs of compliments before he breaks out the sharp red pen. Gladwell is a "minor genius", Pinker writes, but "unwittingly demonstrates the hazards of statistical reasoning and who occasionally blunders into spectacular failures", and "frequently holds forth about statistics and psychology, and his lack of technical grounding in these subjects can be jarring."

  Pinker says that Gladwell provides "misleading definitions", and furthermore, he mistakenly calls an eigenvalue an "igon value." The criticism may seem idiosyncratic to the lay person, but subject area experts see things differently. They're more likely to believe that imprecise definitions and simplification lead to public confusion. What's interesting is that such criticism comes from Pinker, who, being a popularizer like Gladwell, must certainly recognize the necessity of selectively choosing what to include in rhetorical writing for huge non-science audiences.

  Gladwell responds that Pinker "is unhappy with my spelling (rightly!) and with the fact that I have not joined him on the lonely ice floe of IQ fundamentalism." Clever defense and countercharge - in other words, "Igon value" was a typo not a misunderstanding, intimates Gladwell; and Pinker is more or less an intellectual pariah. Gladwell also denigrates Pinkers' sources for being bloggers or online denizens: "our differences owe less to what can be found in the scientific literature than they do to what can be found on Google." Ouch, ouch and ouch.

• Fantastic FOXP2 - The Speech Gene? David Shenk provides his blog at The Atlantic as a forum for a scientist and a New York Times journalist to spar about the journalist's presentation of science. Shenk posts a letter from University of Iowa neuroscientist and Behavioral Neuroscience Editor-in-Chief Mark Blumberg, to Nicholas Wade's about his New York Times story, "Speech gene shows its bossy nature." Blumberg takes Wade to task for calling FOXP2 the "speech gene".

  "the distinct possibility that the mutation influenced a myriad of other brain and body functions that, in turn, affected speech. Indeed, given all that we know about how genes work - as well as our sad history with grandiose claims about single-gene effects on behavior - wouldn't it be wise for all of us to be more cautious when communicating these findings to the public?

  In turn, Wade writes:

  "The role of this article was to update readers on a new finding, not to review the history of ideas about FOXP2. So there's no space to go into the argument about the gene's precise involvement with speech and language, much of which we have covered in earlier articles."

  Of all our notes, and all the other dust-ups in play in the news recently, I really enjoyed this presentation by Shenk because it gets to the heart of challenges with science communication and the work that scientists and writers must do to get science across to non-scientist audiences without generalizing or leading readers astray. Definitely worth reading.

• Do Names Portend Profession? Yes, we're joking. But if you're into astrology and anti-vaccination, if you think global warming is a giant hoax, you may steer clear of certain girls' given names. "Isabella", for instance, is a pretty name, second in popularity for girls in 2008, but, like Arabelle, Anabelle, Belinda, Elizabeth, Isabel, Isabella, Mirabel, Rosabel, Sybil or Mabel, it comes with troublesome nicknames, like "Bella"" or "Belle", which can also stand alone. Bella is the wan female protagonist of new popular movie, "The Twilight Saga: New Moon". Bella loses her mind (according to reviews) when her vampire boyfriend goes missing. OK there may be worse things then your daughter mooning around for months over her missing vampire boyfriend...but what are they again?

  "Belle" of course, was the nom de plume of the anonymous British scientist, named after the movie, not the name "Isabelle", who blogged about her second life as a prostitute. News of the scientist blogger outed as "Belle de Jour" elicited delighted and scurrilous musings online and in real life. Online, BoingBoing posed a "takeaway debate", asking: "Is this good or bad for scientists/science bloggers?" In real life one scientist acquaintance told me that he'd read that women with Asperger's syndrome were often "loose" because they could compartmentalize (we didn't check his source). He then continued, thinking aloud, that "of course they might be scientists too", and his eyes lit up at his connection and all the potential relationships he would have previously discounted. So in that case, to BoingBoing's question, it might be good for scientists.

  But "good or bad" is not necessarily the only takeaway, as British columnists tell us. Rowan Pelling wrote: "Interviewers have been asking me breathily what I thought of Belle when I met her, as if my eyes must have been out on stalks at the idea of a PhD student turning tricks." Actually, it wasn't her "trade", but the excellent "quality of her writing", that "shocked" Pelling.

  To be honest, the parts of Belle de Jour that I read I found about as captivating as reading a Martha Stewart description on how to stuff pillows with barley husks, so clearly I'm not the best judge of this sort of thing. But columnists babbled on and there seemed to be no debate about her "writing" prowess. Clive James of the BBC gushed:

  "And what a female...she was Ernest Hemingway...a woman of outstanding beauty and brilliance...student of informatics, epidemiology and forensic science...a student of military strategy...the thinking man's dream girl...There is nothing this woman can't do, and you can tell by the history of her blogging...She knows everything. She even knows what informatics is. I looked it up, and basically it means information theory.

  Yikes. Chill, pal. Perhaps they edited my Scribner Classics Hemingway edition, but I don't recall Hemingway writing such doozies (albeit rare) as Belle's 'my pussy makes men cry'. So now then, (and speaking of names, we won't even go into the name "Brook[e]), back to BoingBoing, what's the takeaway for scientists? Actually, I would debate, not much with this flash in the pan story.

  But here's my takeaway from Brooke Magnanti. Magnanti works for the Bristol Initiative for Research of Child Health and studies toxicology, most recently on organophosphate chloropyrifos (CPF) used in pesticides. An abstract in Toxicology Letters by Magnanti et al, (Volume 189, Supplement 1, 13 September 2009, Pages S268-S269) suggests the EU policies on CPFs be changed to the more restrictive one of the US which limits indoor use. I find this interesting. Many people, myself included, tend to think of US policies for environmental hazards as laxer than EU policies -- but be careful about generalizations. Acronym Required wrote about US and EU policies, and the EU's REACH protocol here and here and here, and here. I know, science, far less interesting, sigh.

The turkey is no phoenix, but nevertheless we've dug through the archives for Thanksgiving posts. From 2007 in "Thanksgiving - All Things Ottoman:

"...As most people know, the domesticated turkey that Americans eat for Thanksgiving descends from the wild turkey, Meleagris gallopavo, native to America. The Spaniards fancied the turkey when they invaded Mexico where turkey was indigenous, and then introduced the bird to Europe when they returned in the early 1500's. However, during the expansion of the Ottoman Empire, turkeys were thought by northern Europeans to be a product of Turkey.

Europeans also for a time called turkeys "India fowl", then confused the turkey with "Guinea fowl" and gave turkeys the same Latin genus name: "Maleagris". The species name that they settled on, "gallopavo" combines the Latin for rooster and for peacock. From these confusing origins turkeys have long struggled with their identity. First they were put in their own family, Meleagrididae; but now scientists consider turkeys to be part of the pheasant family, Phasianidae, in the subfamily Mealeagidinae...."

And 2005:

"The history of Thanksgiving is somewhat murky, but the first harvest festival in North America was probably in Newfoundland. The American colonists most likely had a somewhat more modest festival than our cranberry laden myths would have it. Tryptophan in turkey doesn't cause post meal sleepiness..."

Thanksgiving is one of our favorite holidays. Hope all our readers who celebrate Thanksgiving enjoyed it, and those who didn't didn't go hungry, had work, and took a moment to enjoy something...

For most of history, people were bent on dominating and conquering nature, clearing land, killing predators, and domesticating the wild. Now humans are determined to prevent some species from going extinct, from trees to frogs to large cats. These campaigns sometimes seem fetishized and bizarre -- wildlife foundations who implore us to mourn the death of one fuzzy, photogenic animal -- who beg us to send money so that the death of any individual animal was not "in vain". We send our heartfelt support and then fight to keep other species out, those that heedlessly invade our ecosystem as we currently know it. Humans devise management systems and models, and write up elaborate plans that look organized to any audience. As much as I heartily approve and endorse all this work -- oh, dare I say this?-- from afar, in certain fleeting moments, the efforts can look excessively anthropomorphic, sporadic, desperate, pathetic, or even futile. Who do we (yes, the odious, collective we) think we are? If we conquered nature before do we think we can undo the damage? Or do we just instinctively try to mold our ecosystem to evolving ideas or fantasies we have about nature? Why do we undermine our best efforts? What ecosphere, exactly, are we aiming for, we humans?

• Headlining, With Great Fanfare, Some Crocodile Fossils: "Darwin's finches have nothing on these crocodiles", says Science. The open-access journal ZooKeys published a monograph describing crocodile fossil finds from the Cretaceous period, including what the scientists describe as three new species. "My African crocs appeared to have had both upright, agile legs for bounding overland and a versatile tail for paddling in water", said Paul Serono, the National Geographic explorer in residence (emphasis added). (via Science in "Slideshow: Ancient Crocs With a Dog-Like Walk")

• Darwin's Mockingbirds: Scientists are analyzing DNA they've extracted from the footpads of mockingbirds brought back by Darwin. They hope to use the information to select species of mockingbirds most like the original ones, and reintroduce these species to the island of Floreana.

• Amazon Deforestation Slows? Brazil reported a record low for Amazon deforestation, the lowest it has been in 21 years. Only 7,000 sq km was destroyed between July 2008 and August 2009. However some organizations tempered any enthusiasm over Brazil's claims. Greenpeace said in a press release that its would be happy when " in 11 years time, the Amazon was being destroyed at a rate of a little less than three cities the size of Sao Paulo a year". Some people suggest the recent reduction is related to the economic recession. We previously wrote about deforestation here, here, and here.

• Modeling Deforestation and Degradation -- REDD: The journal Nature describes a deforestation modeling project aimed at "reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation" (REDD). Emissions from deforestation and degradation account for about one-fifth of the world's total emissions, however deforestation goals weren't included in the Kyoto Protocol because there was no reliable system for estimating CO2 emissions reduction. Scientists think that REDD is one of the cheapest ways of reducing overall emissions. If models were robust, richer countries could use the forecasts to reduce CO2 emissions, and to compensate poorer countries for minimizing biomass loss, more economical than reducing industrial emissions.

  A REDD project by Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) uses three existing land-use models to predict future losses. Project scientists say this model is a better predictor of deforestation than estimates based on historical analysis. The model predicts higher rates of deforestation in Central African countries of the Congo Basin than historical based predictions do, because economic activity in Africa is accelerating. Therefore compensation would be relatively greater in Africa using REDD, whereas Brazil, where deforestation has been going on for years, would fare better using a historical model. However as with any model, REDD is naturally only as good as the data going in, and doesn't factor in illegal logging.

• Geo-Wiki: In order to improve deforestation models, another tool, Geo-wiki asks volunteers to help refine land cover maps by filling in knowledge about their local areas (via Nature).

• 17,000 Species, Leagues Under The Sea As the rainforests disappear, scientists involved with the Census of Marine Life released a preliminary report on a bounty of life in the sea below the reach of sunlight, including this copedpod, which I'm most enamored with.

• Scientists Make Mistakes about Skates: Species of skate may be fished to extinction because of species identification mistakes, according to research reported in Aquatic Conservation. Since the 1920's scientists thought two species of skates -- which are cartiligenous fish like rays and sharks -- were only one species. The two distinct species, the flapper skate, Dipturus intermedia and the blue skate, Dipturus flossada were grouped together and known as the common skate: Dipturus batis. The French researchers say that both species may be more endangered then previously assumed because of the taxonomic labeling mistake.

  The researchers also point out that official fisheries statistics done by French ports grouped five distinct species under only two species names. The ports survey used the counts to calculare skate decline, but more precipitous declines of some of the five species were masked in the survey. The scientists warn that similar fishing surveys may gloss over species loss in "Taxonomic Confusion and Market Mislabelling of Threatened Skates: Important Consequences for Their Conservation Status". Igle et al, Aquatic Conserv: Mar. Freshw. Ecosyst. (2009). DOI: 10.1002/aqc.1083

• Carp Invade Great Lakes: Some carp are endangered. Jullien's Golden Carp Probarbus jullieni, found in South East Asia, especially in the Mekong, is considered a threatened species. The so called naked, or scale-less carp, Gymnocypris przewalskii, is found between freshwater rivers and the saltwater Lake Qinghai in China and is also endangered. Others species of carp are not endangered, rather they endanger.

  Scientists now think that two species of "Asian Carp" have invaded the Great Lakes. The bighead carp Hypophthalmichthys nobilis and silver carp Hypophthalmichthys molitrix threaten the $7 billion dollar fishing business of the Great Lakes. These fish grow up to up to 100 pounds and eat 20% of their body weight in plankton and will wipe out native fish. The silver carp not only endangers fish, it can apparently can endanger boaters who sometimes protect themselves from injury by wearing hockey helmets on carp infested waters.

  The bighead and silver carp were imported by catfish farmer's in the 1970's to remove algae. When the fish began to take over the ecosystem, federal and state governments spent ~$10 million on electrical barriers to keep the carp out of the lakes. Based on DNA samples recently collected by scientists in the water on the lake side of the fence, the carp have crossed the fence. The Army Corps of Engineers told the New York Times that "all options are on the table" to control the fish.

• Pelican Decimated by DDT Off the Endangered Species List: The brown pelican is one of four species to be removed from the endangered species list. The US Department of Fish and Wildlife has removed bird, Pelecanus occidentalis since populations have increased. DDT decimated the species in the 1970's, but since the chemical has been less in use, the bird has had the opportunity to breed and thrive. (Hat tip to Nature News and its alliteration addled "Big Billed Bird Bounces Back".)

• Climate Change Negotiations - Like Watching Clothes Dry? In last weekend's Financial Times, Matthew Engel compared the US reluctance to combat climate change with Americans' civic battles over punitive hanging and hanging clothes on clotheslines. Turns out that when Engel moved to the US from Australia he brought his Hills Hoist with him, which provided him unique cultural insight. (The internet explains that a Hills Hoist is a rotary clothesline developed in Australia which can be mechanically raised, lowered and spun. In addition to these features, the Australian government lists the contraption as a National Treasure, prized "because it could hold four nappies on each of the four outer wires.")

  Anyway, when Engel put up his Hills Hoist he realized that the US generally disparages clothes hanging. Although his neighbors were accommodating of his family's aired laundry, Engel tells the story of one Pennsylvania woman who's battling her community in defense of her right to hang clothes -- "if my husband has a right to have guns in the house, I have a right to hang laundry", she says. Engels observes the irony of US communities forbidding homeowners from hanging their clothes outside, given that clothes dryers account for six per cent of US consumer end-use electricity consumption.

  With similar cognitive dissonance, he says, the US claims that climate change action is an important priority but stodgily backs away from any Copenhagen commitment (of course now, while keeping hopes alive). Attempting to explain the apparent clash of values, he thinks (and I'm just reporting) that although Americans define themselves with property rights and piousness, these values clashe with puritan ethics and an "unshakeable faith in technology, lingering from the 1950s."

  Acronym Required previously wrote about cognitive dissonance in "Cars, Selling Cognitive Dissonance", "Sea Change or Littoral Disaster" and many others.

Notes:

"Smart Choices and Jiffy Pop"
"Calculating Carbon Emissions"
"Polar Bears at Sea"
"Manufacturing Sugar and Cynicism"
"Scientist Falsified Data, Embezzled Research Funds, and Illegally Bought Human Embryos -- But is Very Popular"
"Corporations, The Working Stiffs, The Rebels"
"Transparency: A Solution for Research Bias or A Refuge for Secrets?"

• Smart Choices and Jiffy Pop: If a rudderless man seeking fame can enthrall a whole nation -- the leader of the free world, at that -- with what Frank Rich referred to as an "supersized Jiffy Pop bag", we could bet that the largest food companies in said nation could easily pass off junk food like Froot Loops cereal as "Smart Choices". And so they did (or do).

  When the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warned that it would scrutinize food labels in the "Smart Choices Program", have a look at the ingredients in "smart choice" sugary treats like Cocoa Crispies cereal, the program's leaders suddenly announced they would "suspend" operations. Let Frank Rich judge us smug, but we should award "Smart Choices" companies, along with balloon boy fiasco participants (viewers and all), with hearty back slaps for shamelessness.

  "Smart Choices" had been under heavy fire since its inception, and no one, not even FOX Business News, thought the program was anything but "a cynical way" for food manufacturers to sell products -- "dumb and dumber", as John Stossel put it. The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) called out Kraft for putting the "Smart Choices" logo on its Strawberry Bagel-fuls -- confections chocked full of cream cheese, sugar and red dye. So program's taking a hiatus and getting out of the heat, at least for now.

• Calculating Carbon Emissions: Scientists and policymakers who rely on biofuel carbon emission calculations to set policy have been using figures that underestimate total emissions, according to an article in last week's issue of Science (Searchinger et al. "Fixing a Critical Climate Accounting Error": Vol. 326. no. 5952, pp. 527 - 528). The current estimates ignore "CO2 emitted from tailpipes and smokestacks when bioenergy is being used", and also ignore "changes in emissions from land use when biomass for energy is harvested or grown." The errors will increase deforestation, the authors report, because the resulting incentives favor clearing established forest to plant biomass. Environmental Defense Fund's (EDF's) Chief Scientist Steven P. Hamburg told the Washington Post: "We made an honest mistake within the scientific framing of the debate, and we've got to correct it to make it right". Both the Waxman-Markey and the Kerry-Boxer energy bills include the miscalculation.

  Bioenergy and biomass company representatives loudly disagree with the Science study's conclusions, insisting that biomass is "carbon neutral". But of course we know that that's not true, nothing is carbon neutral -- not cars, not electric buses, not biomass. An "emissions free" electric bus, for instance, is filled with seats and upholstery and metal and paint that produced emissions during manufacturing, assembly, and transport. Emissions accounting is only reliable when it includes all the emissions produced over the full life cycle of the product.

• Polar Bears at Sea: The US Fish and Wildlife Association in the U.S. Department of the Interior proposed to set aside 128 million acres for the polar bear, following a lawsuit by the Center for Biological Diversity, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and Greenpeace. Simultaneously, the Minerals Management Service, also in the Department of the Interior, approved oil-company plans for exploratory drilling in the polar bear's habitat in the Beaufort Sea. Brendan Cummings, senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity called The Interior Department "schizophrenic".

  Image Copyright Greenpeace/Daniel Beltrá (via Google Images "labeled for reuse" search).

• Manufacturing Sugar and Cynicism: If you feel sad about the loss of "Smart Choices", rest assured that there's more where that came from. Coke and other food manufacturers have launched the "Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation", which advises people to exercise more in order to balance sugary, fatty food and soda intake. The food industry insists the sugar is not the culprit in the obesity epidemic, lack of exercise is. Acronym Required wrote about this industry strategy against soda critics in 2005.

  Now with governments raising the specter of taxes on sugary drinks, Coca-Cola has introduced its own little "smart choice" -- a smaller can of Coke, containing 90 kilocalories per serving. Coke markets its "portion-control option" as one that will help people "manage their calorie intake while still enjoying the beverages they love". Sort of like like our preferred way of dealing with carbon emissions -- don't lower them, just figure out a way to store them, deny them, or incorrectly calculate them.

• Scientist Falsified Data, Embezzled Research Funds, and Illegally Bought Human Embryos -- But is Very Popular: Hwang Woo-suk was a national hero in Korea after he claimed he had cloned stem cells. Then a long investigation involving co-researchers in the US and Korea found that his lab falsified data -- he had not cloned cell lines, as we noted in "The Emperor Has No Clones". Now, not only has he falsified data, a South Korean court has now found scientist Hwang Woo-suk guilty of embezzling research funds and illegally buying human embryos.

  The Korean government long ago revoked Hwang's title of "Supreme Scientist" and stopped selling Hwang Woo-suk postage stamps. But the fraud-besotted scientist hardly missed a beat. Since the court's last finding of guilt, Hwang Woo-suk published papers and started a research foundation -- Sooam Biotech Research Foundation. As a professor at Sooam put it: "Dr. Hwang has conducted his research tirelessly under terrible conditions." And despite his crimes, Dr. Hwang attracts tremendous public support. Hundreds of "hard-core fans" were waiting outside of court, and "dozens of lawmakers filed petitions asking the court for leniency", according to the Los Angeles Times.

• Corporations, The Working Stiffs and The Rebels: Michael Moore's recent movie "Capitalism: A Love Story" reminded people about Dead Peasant's Insurance, which may be the ultimate indignity to workers in the super-capitalist world. But the workers sometimes find ways harangue corporations. The Guardian looks at the campaign of a 92 year old's "gripe site" against Shell, as well as the Twitter campaign against Trafigura and social media's impact on so-called corporate responsibility.

• Transparency: A Solution for Research "Bias" or A Refuge for Secrets?: Last year we wrote about The Obesity Society's indignation, after Dr. David Allison, on behalf of a restaurant association suing New York City, submitted a legal affidavit criticizing the city's plan to require fast food restaurants to post caloric information for customers.

  To note, before Allison became an advocate for restaurants, he had worked for "the other side", publishing studies which urged government intervention to stem the obesity epidemic. Nevertheless, we thought The Obesity Society's ire somewhat ironic since Allison's CV is public and he's been very transparent about all his affiliations including his industry ones. As we noted:

  "In the 2005 NEJM paper about obesity longevity, nine authors each disclosed zero financial interests or affiliations. Dr. Allison, however, listed 150 organizational affiliations in a three page single spaced PDF, attached to the paper..."

  Apparently not too many people read the .PDF, including The Obesity Society, since the cause of their ire, Allison's consulting (against NYC's public health measures) was nothing new. In the glare of media exposure from a New York Times article and under pressure from The Obesity Society, Allison stepped down from his president-elect position. But he maintains an active career. Last week, the journal Science published a letter from Allison, who advised an "antidote" to "research bias" (Vol. 326. no. 5952, pp. 522 - 523).

  "Bias", is actually a soft label for the real problem of discerning the influence of industry funding on research or policy recommendations. Addressing the ongoing debate in Science about "bias", Allison wrote that the solution is data transparency: "When data are public, no one need take analyses on faith". Allison is attentive to the possibility that industry payment could color expert opinions, but apparently considers himself above the fray: "'I was chosen" - he said last year, "I think of it like a calling. It is a special and sacred profession. Our sacred duty is truth.'"

  The problem -- aside from the sense of "sacred duties" -- is his suggestion that transparency in our data prolific world will assure scrutiny or integrity. Raw data is made into policy by experts, but unanalyzed raw data is fairly meaningless, transparent or not. Experts don't have time. The Obesity Society demonstrated this last year in their apparent oblivion to the record of their president-elect and their surprise when Allison challenged New York City's labeling laws. His resume was very accessible and his conflict of interest statements clearly showed him to be the hired gun he was (for the truth, of course). But the ~2000 experts in the Society who had voted him president only noticed his conflict of interest once it became public concern via the New York Times.

  The error of assuming that transparency is adequately informative is also shown in a recent study of those same New York City labeling laws, now in effect. On behalf of the restaurant association, Allison had insisted that the labeling laws would backfire and cause customers to "gorge themselves". But a recent study showed that the calorie information may not change customers' food habits at all. Not only won't they gorge, they might not cut back on their intake either.

  Transparency for nothing? Beyond Dr. Allison and obesity, this isn't good news for the growing trend in government -- now enthusiastically endorsed by Allison -- to push transparency in lieu of regulatory policy. ¹

¹ The study was published in the October issue of the journal Health Affairs, and I couldn't access the full text. But since this is one of the first studies to analyze this policy, the authors do caution that it's too soon to jump to conclusions, similar studies will shed further light on the behavior associated with the new policy.

Frogs Die and the Silence Screams:

When talking about all the ways that science was great to a junior high school relative recently, he protested that pursuing science would mean he'd have to dissect frogs very soon. I don't remember dissecting anything until college myself, but the idea of formaldehyde infused frogs and scalpels is apparently quite off-putting to young people these days. However this isn't a post about education or the many misperceptions of teenagers, but the fate of the frogs that have garnered scientists a bad reputation in some circles.

Scientists and doctors are not (usually) sadistic, as suggested by youthful rumors of ritualistic frog dissections. Rather, the drastic decline in frogs as they die en masse across the globe has absolutely dismayed herpetologists and ecologists, who scurry up scarce funds to research the cause of the frogs' demise. "The subsequent silence left a long-lasting impression on me", Australian scientist Jamie Voyles told the journal Science recently, speaking of her experience watching frogs die in a Panama rainforest in 2004.

In 1999 researchers at the University of Maine identified a fungus responsible for 90 of the 120 frog extinctions since 1980. In this week's Science, Voyles and her colleagues describe how this fungus, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, kills frogs. The resulting disease first upsets the electrolyte balance across the skin of the amphibians. The skin regulates respiration and osmotic balance inside the frog, and as the disease progresses it disrupts sodium and chloride ions and causes a drop in blood electrolytes causing systemic physiological failure and heart attacks for the frogs.

The optimistic news, if any could be so framed, is that other scientists recently discovered a bacteria species that releases the chemical violacein, which stops the lethal fungal infection. This bacteria is symbiotic to some frog species which manage to repel the fungal infections. This finding suggests that perhaps sometime the devastating fungus could be controlled by managing the bacterial ecology of amphibian skins.

• "Beyond Yottabytes" -- The NSA Will Know Who's Been Naughty and Who's Been Nice: The New York Review of Books reports on the government's information quest:

  "As the sensors associated with the various surveillance missions improve," says the report..."the data volumes are increasing with a projection that sensor data volume could potentially increase to the level of Yottabytes (1024 Bytes) by 2015."[1] Roughly equal to about a septillion (1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) pages of text, numbers beyond Yottabytes haven't yet been named."

  NYRB continues: "Once vacuumed up and stored in these near-infinite "libraries," the data are then analyzed by powerful infoweapons, supercomputers running complex algorithmic programs, to determine who among us may be--or may one day become--a terrorist. In the NSA's world of automated surveillance on steroids, every bit has a history and every keystroke tells a story."

• FedThread: FedThread A newly launched Federal register where you can annotate documents, customize feeds, and search the Federal Register back to 2000. Not to be confused with Threadfed, an embroidery site.

• Health Map: Allows you to see various outbreaks like H1N1, and recalls like salmonella, by geographic area.

• Open Access How-To: SPARC issued a guide for publishers wanting to support open access, along with supply and demand side revenue models.

• Government is an Arm of the Banks: We know that the banks have a phone line to Tim Geithner. But in case you doubted the effect of that on bank behavior, or if you trusted there were no future implications of that relationship for regulation, watch Bill Moyers' show last week with Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur (Ohio-9) and Simon Johnson, the Ronald A. Kurtz (1954) Professor of Entrepreneurship at MIT's Sloan School of Management. Don't read the transcript. Watch the show.

• Telecoms are Agencies Within The Government?: The banks aren't the only ones with a disconcertingly close relationship with the White House. Wired reports that the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is investigating the influence of telecom lobbying on the Justice Department's coup of winning retroactive immunity for AT&T and others accused of spying on citizens. EFF requested related documents under the Freedom of Information Act and the government refused, arguing that the documents were protected because they were "intra-agency", that is, telecoms were an arm of government.

  Last month U.S. District Court Judge Jeffrey White reversed that decision, ruling for the EFF that the Justice Department was obligated to release the names of telecom employees who contacted the Justice Department and White House.

• Is Transparency Is Over-rated? Is Lessig The Fifth Column?: Lawrence Lessig used to argue that culture needed to be free. People should be able to mash it up, he said, make what they wanted out of songs and books and writing. He founded Creative Commons, whereby people can use your work for free, with attribution if they feel like it. He started what turned into the Google Books settlement when he legally challenged copyright laws by pursuing the release from copyright of "orphan" books. At the time, he was at Stanfords' Center for the Internet and Society, funded by 2 million dollars from Google.

  Now Lessig is pursuing a different cause while he is at Harvard and on the board of the excellent Sunlight Foundation (biased, maybe, but I have no stakes), which funds projects to make government more transparent. Paradoxically, perhaps, Lessig argues in The New Republic this month that transparency is dangerous because people have short attention spans and mashing up the data will connect money to politicians in seemingly nefarious ways when in fact none may exist. The citizens, simple as they are, will become cynical, and government will fall apart. Something like that. The Sunlight Foundation disagrees. More later.

• Google's Fast Flip: You can browse multiple sites simultaneously. Small print. To note: Google chooses which sites participate.

• States Can Sue Utilities: States had tried to sue utilities for being a "public nuisance", releasing CO2 which creates global warming and the court had ruled against them. Now, as the NYT reports: "a panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in New York, ruled that eight states -- California, Connecticut, Iowa, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin -- as well as New York City and three land trusts could proceed with a suit" against American Electric Power, Southern Corporation, the Tennessee Valley Authority, Xcel Energy and Cinergy Corporation, all large coal-burning utilities."

• Economist Changes User Access: The Economist will remove much of the online content for perusal by non-paying subscribers, including the Table of Contents of the print edition - clever. Subscribers will get access to an audio version, archives and all content.

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Image from Wikipedia Commons

Better than Chicago 2016: ""Who will win?", they wondered: "Morgan Tsvangirai, the Zimbabwean opposition leader; two Chinese dissidents, Hu Kia and Wei Jingsheng; Afghan: Human rights activist Seema SamarSo; Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad of Jordan; the Western-educated Islamic scholar; Eighty-year-old Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Quang Do; Colombian senator Piedad Cordoba?"

Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. The reaction, needless to say, was mixed, with the Taliban, Syria and Hamas weighing in, and praises from folks like the Mandela Foundation and Desmond Tutu. And where are the photos of the Weekly Standard staff members, who cheered when Obama's entreaty to the Olympic Committee failed to bring the games to Chicago? Snapshots of them crying into their coffee cups?

We think it's all working out for the best though. Olympics in Chicago would have no doubt snared and infuriated millions of people at the O'Hare airport we know and hate. Chicago 2016 would not have been peaceful.

Nobel Prize To Push the World In a Direction We Norwegians Can Endorse

But if you're feeling like Nicholas Kristof, who thinks that perhaps a prize for Obama would be more apt at the end of his eight years, "after he has actually made peace somewhere", whereas someone else should have won this year, know that all those left out are in good company. Foreign Policy lists other deserving candidates who failed to win in the past.

One committee member said that the prize should be viewed as "support and a commitment for Obama." In a way, the Nobel Peace Prize given to Al Gore and the IPCC in 2007 was a similar statement in its overt political support for one side of the contentious arguments about whether climate change was real.

Obama, charming, said:

"Malia walked in and said, "Daddy, you won the Nobel Peace Prize, and it is Bo's birthday!" And then Sasha added, "Plus, we have a three-day weekend coming up." So it's good to have kids to keep things in perspective"

He said he doesn't see the prize as recognition for his accomplishments, rather as recognition for the goals he's set. The committee therefore rewards Obama for being very Obama...and nudges him to do more?

Monarchs? Where Do They Go? How Do They Get There?

Monarch butterflies, Danaus plexippus, migrate from the Northern US and Southern Canada to Central Mexico beginning in late August, then migrate north once the weather gets warm. It's a journey of up to 2000 miles, and an individual monarch butterfly doesn't live long enough to make the full journey. ¹ Monarch butterflies only live two to six weeks once they metamorphose into butterflies.

Interestingly, however, while most generations of monarchs born in the spring and summer live two to six weeks, the last generation of monarchs that emerge in late summer undergo arrested development called diapause, brought on by less daylight. Missing a reproductive chemical called juvenile hormone, these monarchs can live seven months or more. During this time they migrate to Mexico, hibernate, then begin the flight back north, all before reproducing. But even this longer living generation of butterflies will not finish the trip, nor, most likely, will their shorter lived progeny. It will usually take one or two more generations of monarchs to complete the trip to North America from Mexico.

Scientists have long investigated how it is that these monarchs in successive generations can travel thousands of miles and manage to navigate the route so precisely that they often overwinter in the same tree year after year. Previous scientific research revealed that, like other insects, monarchs use the sun for navigation. More research showed that as the sun moves across the sky, the butterflies also use circadian clocks to adjust their route and maintain a southerly course. Then, as years passed scientists identified genes which control various circadian clock functions, and evidence from their research suggested that these genes could reside in the brain.

Public domain photo from US Fish and Wildlife, via Wikimedia Commons.

Where The Clock Lies

However new science last week brought an unexpected turn in the path of monarch circadian clock research. Science published a paper by monarch butterfly researchers at the University of Massachusetts Medical School who have long been studying monarch circadian clocks. Steven Reppert's lab showed that circadian clocks which control the monarchs ability to navigate the long migration reside not in the brain but in the antennae.

Following up on research done in the 1960's the scientists studied the influence of butterfly antennas on navigation. They found that butterflies without their antennas were unable to navigate a southerly course, nor could butterflies navigate whose antennae researchers blocked from light. They found that neither eyesight nor smell influenced navigational ability which was solely determined by light interacting with the antennae.

The current research, building on all the previous research, shows that circadian clock in the antennae are necessary for navigation, whereas the brain circadian clock may have different or complementary purposes. The paper, "Antennal Circadian Clocks Coordinate Sun Compass Orientation in Migratory Monarch Butterflies," was published in Science last week.^{2 3}

---------------------------

¹ Monarchs hatch from eggs after four days to become caterpillars for about two weeks. They then enter the pupa or chrysalis stage which lasts about two weeks before molting and undergoing metamophorsis to mature butterflies. They can then flit around as butterflies for two to eight weeks before dying.

² Christine Merlin, Robert J. Gegear, Steven M. Reppert*, "Antennal Circadian Clocks Coordinate Sun Compass Orientation in Migratory Monarch Butterflies" Science 25 September 2009: Vol. 325. no. 5948, pp. 1700 - 1704 DOI: 10.1126/science.1176221

³ Send Acronym Required your suggestions, questions or comments.

• 2nd Hand Smoke Bans Reduce Heart Attacks: According to two analyses of combined study data on second hand cigarette smoke, town or community enforced smoking bans reduce heart attacks by 17% after one year, and after three years the number of heart attacks decreases by at least 26%. The Journal of the American College of Cardiology published one analysis. UCSF researchers analyzed the same data and also found a 17% decrease after on year, which after three years became a 36% decrease in heart attacks. The journal Circulation published the UCSF results.

  While states and communities have increasingly enacted smoking bans, the tobacco industry generally rejects regulation. As John Singleton, spokesman for Reynolds American told the Wall Street Journal: "Our current position is to let the market take care of the issue". (09/21/09 "The Case for Bans on Smoking") On this argument however, the tobacco industry's reasoning might be losing sway. Smoking bans are catching on the world over, even in hard to imagine places like the country of Turkey's bars and restaurants.

• AIDS Trial: New Results, No Answers

  Scientists stopped the last clinical trial of an AIDS vaccine in 2007 when results showed the vaccine increased the HIV infection. They vowed to reconsider their strategy toward AIDS, especially with regards to clinical trials. Scientists postulated that the flush funding environment and political pressures pushed trials forward too quickly. Now the sometimes exasperating path of scientific research has taken a new turn in AIDS research and scientists have a new quandary.

  A recent HIV clinical trial in Thailand testing a combination of two drugs that had previously failed in clinical trials showed tenuously positive results. The US Army, National Institutes of Health, Thai Health Ministry, and Sanofi Aventis collaborated on the trial, giving vaccines to 16,400 volunteers who were not considered high risk. The new project combined AidsVax, an HIV derived protein, with Alvac HIV, a genetically engineered canarypox virus that contains HIV genes. 51 of the vaccinated individuals contracted HIV and 74 of the unvaccinated individuals became HIV positive, which translated to about a 30% prevention efficacy rate. Though this vaccine is a long way from being considered successful, scientists are buoyed by any news that's positive. The trial suggests that this vaccine could be effective if it were improved.

  The quandaries: First, scientists don't understand how two failed drugs add up to something that looks better or vaguely successful. Second, how and why does the combination vaccine prevent the symptoms of AIDS, if it does, without lowering the viral load -- the amount of HIV measured in the bloodstream of infected individuals? Perplexing. More research needed.

  Treatment is expanding but without prevention of HIV transmission, AIDS will remain a losing battle. So for now, "ABC", abstinence, "be faithful" (limit numbers of partners), and condoms, remain the best HIV infection prevention techniques. The good news for researchers maybe is that perhaps AIDS vaccine research has been kept alive.

  Acronym Required wrote previously about AIDS in Preventing HIV/AIDS: Back to the 1980's, New Directions for AIDS Research Funding", Mbeki's AIDS Legacy and Ours, Public Health, AIDS, Mbeki and the Media, Zimbabwe: Hopeful News for HIV/AIDS Prevention?, Burma and AIDS - Politics Rules", South Africa: Peddling Beetroot, Courting AIDS, and others.

  October UPDATE: Further statistical analysis of this trial showed that the results weren't statistically significant.

• Flavored Tobacco Banned: This week the FDA enacted the law banning flavored cigarettes. The ban does not include menthol cigarettes. Altria Group, formerly Phillip Morris, favors the ban, and not coincidently, is marching ahead with acquisitions to solidify its market leader status in smoke-free tobacco products and also expanding its international tobacco holdings. We previously wrote about the cigarette regulation in The FDA and Cigarettes.

• FISA in the Obama Administration: With part of the USA Patriot Act up for renewal, the House is debating intrusive pieces of the legislations that allow privacy intrusion by wiretap, allow the government by access to business records, and allow surveillance of "lone wolf" suspects who have no known links to terrorists.

  One of the more controversial features gave the FBI authority to deliver National Security Letters to businesses and demand information about individual customers. The Letter recipients are ordered to be completely mum about receiving the Letters, meaning they can't tell their spouses, never mind their customers. Critics charge the National Security Letters provision of the Patriot Act violates the First Amendment. According to the Washington Independent's coverage of yesterday's House Judiciary Committee Hearing, this provision has been widely used and abused by government officials.

• Network Neutrality The FCC upheld the principle of network neutrality this week. FCC chairmain Julius Genachowski's "open internet" is now online, along information, public outreach and requests for comments on broadband and the internet. The FCC site is one of the better ones, sharing and soliciting information on broadband and networking as the agency looks to deploy technology more widely and efficiently across the US for uses like healthcare and "telework".

  Of course, in opposition to network neutrality, a coalition of conservative legislators called the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), criticized the principle. Not surprisingly, the group opined that "the market" should be allowed to assure openness unfettered by government.

• PG&E Leaves US Chamber of Commerce: The Northwest energy company PG&E has left the business association, citing the group's refusal to reconcile its rhetoric with the facts of global warming.

• Born Free: "Nature Communications" will begin accepting submissions to their new open-access "born digital publication" in October 2009. The first issue will be published in 2010. According to the press release from Nature Publishing Group (NPG) "authors will be able to publish their work either via the traditional subscription route, or as open access through payment of an article processing charge (APC)."

  "New Scientist points to a "puzzling passage" in the press release, where NPG explains that the new journal will publish papers from all science disciplines "of the highest quality, without necessarily having the scientific reach of papers published in Nature and the Nature research journals." To understand, New Scientist followed up with Ruth Francis, NPG spokesperson, who said that Nature Communications will, as New Scientist put it, "feature research that is more focused and less generally applicable than work that typically appears in Nature" from "fields that aren't covered by the [Nature] research journals".

  The journal will be peer reviewed, NPG stresses in its press release. It will employ a "rapid, yet rigorous, peer-review process", meaning "efficient peer review with fast publication", that is "rapid and fair publication decisions based on peer review, with all the rigour expected of a Nature-branded journal". So...Nature Communications, not to be confused with "bulk publishing of low-quality papers", which, as we noted, caused such a stir last year. Nature has long explored open-access publishing. We look forward to the new journal.

• In the Beginning...Mini-T: Before Homo sapiens, before meteors annihilated Tyrannosaurus rex, before that massive dinosaur bounded over the earth, a smaller, similar looking dinosaur existed. Raptorex kriegsteini had 1/90th the body mass of the ~2.5 ton T.rex and lived about 65 million years earlier. A raptorex fossil found in China had the same body features as T. rex and scientists think that the specialized predatory morphology -- large jaw, small front legs, powerful back legs -- grew larger in future generations, evolving to become T. rex. The photo is of a T. rex is from Wikipedia Commons.

New Science Journalism: Futurity formally launched September 15. Futurity, not to be confused with "Singularity", is a collective on-line publication effort by leading research universities. The universities will promote their science accomplishments and fill the gaps of dwindling newspaper science coverage. Articles will be submitted by members of the Association of American Universities (AAU), with Stanford, University of Rochester, and Duke leading the effort. Critics point out that aggregating news generated by University PR departments (20% fact, 80% big story?) won't provide readers the same unbiased perspective as proper journalism coverage. True, but we can't ignore the fact that a significant amount of science coverage consists of press releases anyway.

• Swine Flu Fallout: The H1N1 pandemic not only causes havoc for humans who fall ill, college campuses trying to manage the illnesses, and health workers. The pandemic effects society and economy in ways you don't necessarily think of. Consider, for instance:

  1.) Egypt can't keep up with its street garbage. As we wrote earlier this year, Egypt set out to kill all the pigs in the country, an unwarranted action. Many belonged to Christian herders whose pigs cleaned the streets of millions of tons of organic waste per year. Now parts of Cairo are knee deep in garbage.

  2.) Pork belly futures, which fell from 89 in April 2009 to 40 in August 2009, have now rebounded to their previous high.

• A Chance To Recalculate the Bush Ozone Ruling?: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced last week that it would reexamine the standard set by the Bush administration for ozone which had motivated states to sue the EPA. Ozone is a health hazard at certain levels, and in 2008, the agency set a new standard at 75 parts per billion (ppb), down from 84 ppm. The EPA heralded this as a life-saving improvement, but according to science advisors of the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC), only 60-70 ppm will prevent deaths.

  Susan Dudley headed the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) in 2008 when the Bush administration decision was made. OIRA influenced the outcome of Bush's ozone ruling by sending a series of memos to the EPA impeding the ozone ruling and killing a secondary standard which would have triggered certain safety measures in some weather conditions. We wrote last year how Susan Dudley had argued on behalf of industry prior to her tenure at OIRA, that "smog was beneficial because it protected individuals from ultraviolet radiation, and that since asthma rates were associated with poverty, a smog ruling would have the 'perverse effect' of costing communities money, which would in turn increase poverty and asthma." Her's was a twisted cost-benefit analysis.

  Now Cass Sunstein heads OIRA. According to the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), the EPA has calculated the benefits to society from the now thriving environmental industry and determined that those monetary benefits outweigh the costs of the standard. So is cost-benefit ok when the outcome favors the politics you prefer?

• Team Players: Researchers at Oxford University published a paper in Biology Letters reporting that more elevated endorphin levels associated with team sports like rowing than single player activities.

• Justice Department On Proposed Google Books Settlement The Justice Department said Friday that the settlement needed changes to address copyright, class-action and antitrust issues, and urged the Federal Court to reject the settlement. However, the government added that current discussions between the parties were productive and should continue.

• EPA and NHTSA, Together At Last, Overlapping: The EPA also proposed new carbon dioxide emissions this week, in concert with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). The new rule would lower fleet standards to 35.5 mpg by 2016. As well, cars would be allowed to emit 250 grams of CO2/mile by 2012, as opposed to the current rule of 265 grams of CO2/mile. The Association of International Automobile Manufacturers, Inc. (AIAM), and Senator Markey praised the agencies for their collective effort.

  A coordinated effort from the two agencies that oversee automobile emissions and mileage efficiency has long been a goal of industry and policy makers, though a goal sometimes cynically pursued. We also wrote about EPA/NHTSA overlap here and here. The standards will cover model years 2012 through 2016, and as the Obama administration bills it: "the automobile manufacturers would be able to build a single, light-duty national fleet that satisfies all federal requirements as well as the standards of California and other states."

• Migraines: McCain's Bane: Cindy McCain is heading to Congress, reports the New Yorker, to lobby for money to study migraine headaches. And you thought perhaps you'd heard the last of McCain science research jokes? She told the American Headache Society (AHS):

  "For the first time in my life, I'm going to go to Congress, and I'm going to be tenacious and be forceful and be honest and tell them that it's time. If you can give five million dollars to study flatulence in cows and its effects on the ozone layer, you can give me some money for migraine research."

  Migraines are, of course, a debilitating problem -- that's no joke. As McCain details in her talks, migraine headaches are sometimes set off by "triggers" -- foods like chocolate, or particular odors or chemicals. McCain reports that her company's beer, Stella Artois, contains sulfites "out the wazoo" that trigger her headaches. Travel is full of trouble. Sometimes a perfume bottle breaks and the debilitating noxious fumes cause her to repack her bags and fly home. Foreign food smells prove treacherous too, she says: "...like...forgive me, but the scent of cooking dog"

  She didn't say which countries serve the offensive "dog", often a subject of nasty rumors, or how one can tell that it's not chicken, water buffalo, or frog. But fortunate she is then, that her role is the ambassador of headaches not the ambassador of smoothing international relations with her would-have-been President husband.

Update: 9/11/09: Cass Sunstein, subject of the note below, was nominated to the OIRA post. The list of Yeas and Nays from yesterday's vote is here.

• Scientist says Nerds are Happy: The New York Times Sunday op-ed section featured advice from educators to students. Nancy Hopkins wrote:

  "Passion is the mysterious force behind nearly every scientific breakthrough. Perhaps it's because without it you might never be able to tolerate the huge amount of hard work and frustration that scientific discovery entails...For the next four years you will get to poke around the corridors of your college, listen to any lecture you choose, work in a lab...You may be the person who constructs a new biological species, or figures out how to stop global warming, or aging. Maybe you'll discover life on another planet..." More here.

• China Surges Ahead With Solar: Inner Mongolia in China will be the location of the world's largest solar facility. China is working with the US company First Solar. The new solar farm is due for completion in 5 years and will generate 2 gigawatts of energy by 2019. Plans are also in the works in India and the US for other giant solar facilities.

• Awesome Hubble Photos: NASA upgraded the 19 year old Hubble telescope this summer and released photos that showed impressive improvements due to the upgrade. Compare the Omega Centauri starfield from 2002 to a recent one taken after the scientists completed the Hubble renovations. The photo to the left is a from the planetary nebula NGC 6302 -- a dying star in the middle -- also known as the "Butterfly Nebula".

• Phoenicopterus ruber falsus: Madison, Wisconsin has named the pink plastic flamingo the city's bird, in honor of a college prank from 30 years ago which Alderwoman Marsha Rummel said "signifies something that makes us a very special place" and "captured in our imaginations forever." Why worry about endangered species when there's plastic so real politicians lose their minds?

• Constitution Day: Federal law now requires that schools receiving federal funding offer an education day to celebrate the signing of the Constitution. September 17th, which used to be called Citizenship Day, was renamed Constitution Day and the education requirement added to the 2004 Omnibus Spending Act by Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV). Wikipedia suggests that the holiday began as I Am American Day, a May holiday designated by Congress in 1940 after being championed by newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst. Now that newspapers are dying and some Americans are going cuckoo, it seems like a fine time to reinvigorate the holiday. It's a shame that some hosts on certain television networks aren't required to take a refresher course.

• Nudge in Action Despite Opposition to Sunstein: We previously wrote about the preposterous protest of Cass Sunstein's nomination not because of his cost-benefit analysis views (.pdf), but because hunting enthusiasts fear he's too enthusiastic about animal rights. They continue to foam at the mouth oppose his nomination for the same ill-conceived reasons we noted before. But yesterday, despite efforts of Glenn Beck to derail the Obama administration and move the "conversation" to the right towards McCarthyism, Democrats pushed Sunstein's nomination forward.

  Even as opposition foot-dragging continues (an anonymous third Senator has apparently placed another hold on the nomination), Sunstein isn't languishing idle. With more two books published since his nomination, his influence can also be seen in Obama administration policy changes such as the retirement savings plan changes, announced by the President on Labor Day.

• Media Wars: A number of "11th-hour filers" are challenging the Google book deal, including Germany and France. The head of the US copyright office expressed reservations. At a recent Google Books conference, James Love said that Google benefits from people's perception that if Google makes it it must be free and good, and if it were called (I paraphrase) AnyOtherCorporation Book Deal, it would have never progressed this far. People aren't consoled by the Google image as the lovable, do no evil, benevolent adopter of just a small number of orphan books. But was copyright really meant to extend life plus 70 years? In the interest of the public, hopefully they'll settle on the "right" book deal.

• Clues to Potato Blight: Scientists collaborating from 36 institutions across the globe completed sequencing the water mold responsible for late blight and the Irish Great Famine of 1840's-1850's. Phytophthora infestans consumes the plant's leaves and tubers and just as it wiped out potato crops in the 19th century, today the mold causes ~$6.7 billion dollars of damage annually to tomatoes, potatoes and other crops.

  Researchers identified genes that may help the organism evade scientists fight against the costly blight, and also found that about 75% of the genome contained repeat sections of DNA called transposons. Transposons duplicate and jump from one section of the genome to another, where they can disrupt genes and introduce mutations. This could allow the organism to adapt and evolve more quickly and continue to cause havoc in potato crops despite scientists' best efforts to engineer blight resistant crops.

  The part of the genome that contains the transposons also contains genes that code proteins responsible for virulence. Researchers theorize that the instability of this greatly expanded and rapidly changing part of the genome gives P. infestans its lethal power. The sequence data will help scientists understand the mold in order to prevent the destructive blight. Nature published the report: 9 September 2009 | doi:10.1038/nature08358.

• HRT Therapy Evidence Ghostwritten: The New York Times reports on a joint effort by the Times, "PloS Medicine, and the Washington DC law firm Public Justice, to compel the Federal court to release documents showing that medical research papers bylined by respected researchers were actually written by a firm hired by the pharmaceutical giant Wyeth. The "ghostwritten" papers promoted the benefits of using the Wyeth estrogen product Prempro to prevent wrinkled skin, dementia and other effects of menopause. However the papers didn't give adequate attention to the risks of HRT treatment: stroke, heart attack, blood clots, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. Once these risks were revealed, doctors stopped recommending hormone replacement therapy (HRT) to menopausal women.

• They Got The Same Results We Did!(?): In a recent editorial, Nature Medicine provides a warning about scientists who plagiarize previously published science articles. Nature refers to a recently published paper in a journal they magnanimously refer to as "Journal B", which had appeared in Nature six years earlier.

  Why would a research scientist so plagiarize? One reason, Nature suggests, is that plagiarism could boost a scientist or student's academic profile in a down economy. The journal provides a how-to:

  "use a solid paper as your base; carry out a parallel set of experiments in your favorite model; tweak the data so that the numbers are not identical but remain realistic; and, when you're ready to write it all up, paraphrase the original paper ad libitum. Last, submit your new manuscript to a modest journal in the hopes that the authors of the paper you used as 'inspiration' won't notice your 'tribute' to their work..."

  Nature also lists less obvious forms of plagiarism, such as lifting sections of text that adequately express ideas in a language that's not the scientist's primary one, lifting and rephrasing result sections, or scientists' misunderstandings about what is and isn't plagiarism.

• When Bad Apples Fall Near The Tree: Talking Points Memo challenges lobbyist Jack Bonner's statement that some "bad employee" sent the forged letters to Congress opposing climate change legislation. The letters were supposedly sent from minority groups, but as it turns out, Bonner's firm was working on behalf of the coal industry. As TPM reports, this was not an isolated incident from a temporary employee but modus operandi for the firm where each employee works first as a temp.

• Stem Cell Research Doesn't Always Get Retracted: Really. But lately the Stem Cell Institute at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis isn't helping prove the point. New Scientist recently raised questions about research from several stem cell labs at the institute. One scientist reprimanded for academic misconduct had so many papers containing errors that three had to be corrected and one retracted.

  The journal then decided to look at all the papers coming out of the lab that that former student worked in and found possible duplications in seven papers from another researcher affiliated with the institute. Stem cell scientists made comments to New Scientist, expressing discouragement about the spate of problems at the one institute that happened to be under the spotlight. Given the pressure in the field, these scientists wondered how widespread the problems elsewhere could be.

Googley Economic Indicators

Lawrence Summers addressed the Peterson Institute for International Economics today, with upbeat comments about the economy. While it had been in "free fall" at the start of the year, he said, with "no apparent limit on how much worse things could get", optimistic statistics were now starting to pour in.

We'll take Summers word that there are positive signs -- other economists agree. Summers lost us though, when he said that the number of people searching on Google for the term "economic depression" has "returned to normal levels". Is this the best statistic he could come up with? I think you could present an alternative theory which said that at the beginning of the year people were curious about what "depression" would feel like, so they Googled it. Now, they know, they don't really need to Google it.

Waking Up From Free Fall: A Recurring Dream

We also note that you would see the same optimistic trend by searching for the term "free fall" (as in economic, not parachuting). Four months ago the expression littered the papers. Now, not so much, perhaps because Summers has eased up on his "free-fall" rhetoric. Summers has been saying the free-fall is over for months:

• April 3, 2009 (Wall Street Journal) Lawrence Summers talked to the Wall Street Journal about the economy, saying that: "this sense of free fall will give way before too long".

• April 9, 2009 (Reuters) Lawrence Summers told the Economic Club of Washington: "I think the sense of a ball falling off the table -- which is what the economy has felt like since the middle of last fall -- I think we can be reasonably confident that that's going to end within the next few months and you will no longer have that sense of free fall".

• April 19, 2009 (Fox News Sunday) Summers told viewers: "You have a sense of a more mixed picture in terms of consumer spending, and "not the kind of free fall that you saw, in part, because the stimulus that the provided in the recovery and reinvestment act is coming into people's paychecks, and that's putting a little more energy into the--into the consumer."

• April 26, 2009 (Washington Times) Lawrence Summers: "But I think that sense of "unremitting free fall that we had a month or two ago is not present today," he said. "That's something we can take some encouragement from."

• May 16, 2009 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. "economy is no longer in free fall" Lawrence Summers, director of the White House National Economic Council, said today in a pre-recorded video shown at a forum in Shanghai.

• June 12, 2009 (Associated Press) In a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, Summers said the government had acted as necessary to avoid dire outcomes: "While we still have a long way to go, the sense of free-fall that surrounded any reading of economic statistics a few months ago is no longer present"

Of course some economists argued vehemently that the economy never was in "free fall", but that was back in October, 2008. Summers has long been bullish on the effects the economic stimulus package had on halting the "free fall", although economists point out that the stimulus money is only just now starting to filter in now. Summers didn't dwell too much on the abysmal unemployment rate, a less positive economic indicator, in his speech today. Nevertheless, we think Summer's is pulling his weight trying to bolster consumer confidence.

Your Healthcare Dollars At Work Lobbying Congress to Defeat the Public Option?

Bill Moyers focused on health care last week, interviewing Wendell Potter, who worked as a corporate public relations executive at Humana and Cigna for the last 20 years, then recently retired from what he describes as a lucrative and posh executive position. Potter's one of those clever people who after they retire their position of import and influence, find a way to remain in the spotlight by suddenly seeing all the inequities they helped propagate before retirement.

Potter delivers some timely reminders though, with bonafide authority. For instance, in the 1990'a, the for-profit insurance industry's "medical loss ratio", that is the amount that insurance companies spent on patients, was about 95% of each premium dollar, whereas now it's only 80%. The insurance companies need to keep this percentage shrinking in order to meet investor demands. An efficient way to accomplish this is to kick people of the insurance rolls, and deny claims. What does insurance spend the extra money on? Acquisitions to increase market share? Executive compensation? Perhaps lobbying Congress for more market share?

The Language of Luntz

Moyers shared a healthcare reform communication memo, "The Language of Healthcare" by Frank I. Luntz. Luntz's name may be familiar to anyone who follows the climate change denial business guided by his public relations blueprints, the pro Israel settlements language, or many other GOP policy positions and "science based" rhetoric.

Luntz's healthcare memo presents "poll-based" advice on how to spin a healthcare solution which favors existing stakeholders like insurance while keeping the government out of healthcare. Luntz highlights "words that work" and "words that don't work".

For example, he writes:

"If the dynamic becomes "President Obama is on the side of reform and Republicans are against it," then the battle is lost and every word in this document is useless."

"One-size-does-NOT-fit-all." The idea that a "committee of Washington bureaucrats" will establish a single standard of care for all Americans and decide who gets what treatment based on how much it costs is an anathema to Americans. According to him, there are a number of ways to attack this:

• Demand the 'protection of the personal doctor-patient relationship';
• Compare the personalized relationship with their doctor to the distant, cold, calculations of a federal medical panel;
• Utilize examples of medical breakthroughs that would be undermined or jeopardized. .."

Or, says Luntz:

"The Democrats plan will deny people treatments they need and make them wait to get the treatments they can actually receive. This is more than just rationing. To most Americans, rationing suggests limits or shortages - for others. But personalizing it - "delaying your tests and denying your treatment" -- is the concept most likely to change the most minds in your favor."

The Luntz document contains 28 pages of explicit wording suggestions that he suggests people should use to persuade people to choose the "right option".

The insurance industry and other health care interests are lobbying hard against a government-sponsored, nonprofit, public health insurance option, and are spending, according to The Washington Post , up to $1.4 million per day to sway Congress in this direction.

President Obama remains upbeat, saying that the administration has made "unprecented progress", and telling Congress, "don't lose heart".

• China Delays Censorship Software

  The New York Times reports that China will delay their rule requiring all new PCs to come installed with the Green Dam Youth Escort" censoring software that we wrote about earlier this month.

• EPA Grants California Waiver

  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) granted California the waiver the state has long sought which will allow it to set emissions standards that are stricter that the federal government's. We wrote about this in several posts including "Clean, Clear Air, Nothing To See Here, Drive Through Please".

• Bisphenol A in the NYT and Journalistic Fence-Sitting That Must Hurt

  Yesterday we wrote on Nicholas Kristof's NYT report about disturbing research on endocrine disruptors. We discussed what we called 50-50 science journalism, where you erode your science article by giving credit to the "other side", which could be a global warming denier, for instance, or the chemical lobby.

  Another way newspapers can practice balanced journalism is when a publication like the New York Times or the Economist or LA Times runs conflicting articles to appeal to all paying advertisers. For instance John Tierney's column in the NYT today, written by Tina Kolata, quoted Stats.org to deny the dangers of bisphenol A, an endocrine disruptor. Stats has the opposite (and incorrect) science information, which conflicts with what Kristof wrote yesterday. Thus the NYT gets 50-50 coverage, for all of those science deniers it wants as subscribers.

  Both Stats and Tierney are solidly in the science and environmental deniers camp. We wrote about John Tierney's denialism in "Scientist Columnists Sell You Short". Tierney has long expressed his devotion to bisphenol A -- "if they ever try recalling it, they'll have to pry [my Nalgene bottle] from my cold dead fingers", he wrote last year. Tierney routinely comes out against science.

  Acronym Required previously wrote about Stats in "Yotta-Yotta-Yottabytes: Content Makes Kings, Print Dies", and various posts on bisphenol A. Stats, as reported here by Sourcewatch, claims to be a "non-partisan" think tank, but they are funded by conservative sources and consistently produce reports that fly in the face of science.

• Climate Bill's Mixed Reports

  The Waxman-Markey Climate Bill passed last week by Congress received mixed reports on its predicted effectiveness. The National Resource Defense Fund sent an email screaming euphorically, "Well, we did it! And we did it because millions of people like you made their voices heard on Capitol Hill."

  On the other hand, Clive Crook, who we previously highlighted for his climate denialism, had an opposing opinion. Read his "The Steamrollers of Climate Science", for instance, in which he wrote that the IPCC report on climate change was biased, and what the world needed was some opinions from people affiliated with the Marshall Institute, Fraser Institute, and Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) (all funded by ExxonMobil). You'd think from that you'd know where he stood.

  But Crook, climate science denier last time we looked, said yesterday that the President was being too weak on climate change. Accompanied by a cartoon of the president ripping open a Superman t-shirt to reveal a cute little Hello Kitty figure, Crook said:

  "The cap-and-trade bill is a travesty. Its net effect on short- to medium-term carbon emissions will be small to none. This is by design: a law that really made a difference would make energy dearer, hurt consumers and force an economic restructuring that would be painful for many industries and their workers. Congress cannot contemplate those effects. So the Waxman-Markey bill, while going through the complex motions of creating a carbon abatement regime, takes care to neutralise itself."

  Conservatives argue that the climate bill will negatively effect the economy for a very small pay-off, whereas some environmentalists argue that the cap-and-trade regime proposed will not work, that there a giant loopholes, and that coal gets too much of a boost from the legislation.

  RealClimate, for its part, is taking a break, a little bummed out about the Groundhog Day aspect of the internet, where you explain the science that all the deniers deny, then they pop-up again. How true, though more a game of Whac-A-Mole than Groundhog Day perhaps. Tenacity wins.

  Joseph Romm of Climate Progress weighs in favorably on the bill.

"As there is a use in medicine for poisons, so the world cannot move without rogues." Ralph Waldo Emerson

• The New York Times Calls Out the Rogues

  A couple of weeks ago the New York Times seemed obsessed with Star Trek, focusing on Obama and Star Trek in no less than three articles in the Sunday "Week in Review". This week the Times seem to have something for "rogues". No not their own rogues or their economic journalists whose expertise leads to to personal bankruptcy and cringeworthy public confessionals. The Times is taking on rogues of another sort.

  Charles Blow calls conservatives on their hypocrisy in "Rogues,Robes and Racists", a great take-down of conservative lies about Judge Sonia Sotomayor.

  Then in "A Rogue Industry", an editor writes about the Senate's upcoming vote to regulate tobacco through the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Tobacco, an industry that the court found guilty of racketeering, false statements, and deliberate public deception, has proved itself incapable of regulating itself, says the editor.

• Refuting the Scoundrels

  Speaking of rogues running awry, the right-wing is loud lately. If I could ask a question of Sonia Sotomayor, I'd ask her what it was like to go to sleep one night as a moderate, highly accomplished Latina and respected Federal judge, and wake up the next morning morphed into a "racist" whose a "bad for business" Supreme Court nominee.

  Thus, some conservatives seem intent on shooting themselves in the feet over the Obama administration's astute nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor. First they claimed she was a racist, and to prove so, they parsed statements she made at the University of California years ago and presented them radically out of context. In addition to the response by Charles Blow in the NYT above, Brad Delong's excellent rebuttal of their attempts is here.

  Dancing back from that precipice, conservatives then moonwalked into the less treacherous but equally rocky territory -- her lack of business qualifications. Why can't Obama nominate someone to the court who knows "what it means to explain to a client that what was a secured debt yesterday is not a secure debt today. A little empathy for the people who make America's economy go." There's the American Enterprise Institute's (AEI) argument, complete with all that fake indignation we'd expect, but with no merit.

  There's only one person with "business experience" in the current court line-up, but despite the lack of "business credentials", the Robert's court is the most pro-business court in 30 years. This according not only to Jeffrey Rosen's 8000 word New York Times article on the subject, "Supreme Court Inc.", but also the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and business leaders throughout the world.

  Of 30 business cases decided in the 2007 term, 22 were decided close to unanimously for business, in what the Times called an "ideological sea change". This was the result of a sustained effort by business since the 1970's to change the court action on issues like punitive damages and ability to sue for product liability. Still, some columnists insist on making a spectacle of themselves over the Sotomayor nomination with statements like: "business should shudder in its boots".

  Not only do pro-business venues like the Wall Street Journal think Sotomayor, who was a corporate attorney for years, is mainstream, it's not entirely clear that a judge needs to have run a plumbing business to be a pro-business judge. Pro-business is a philosophy, not a craft -- a philosophy that dominates the American character. We're all pro-business now, as conservatives well know, especially Obama. It's what makes the world economy tick, it's what makes us tick.

• Link This

  Using a technique that we routinely, wholeheartedly criticize here at Acronym Required, authors recently submitted an article on the fossil find "Ida" to the journal PloS One with such a preemptive froth of advertising hoopla you'd think the researchers were instead a global beverage company unveiling of a new "secret recipe" flavor of soda.

  By all accounts, Ida, who the researchers precociously named Darwinius masillae, is an great fossil find. Nevertheless paleontologists don't agree with the hyperbolic descriptions of Ida as "the link" -- for starters. Scientists are also disturbed by the zany marketing campaign that skips over the peer evaluation and contextualization by the community of scientists. Seed writes that the Ida fossil find, is:

  "...an astonishingly slick, multi-component media package--certainly the first of its kind. In addition to the press conference itself, Little, Brown, and Company released The Link: Uncovering Our Earliest Ancestor, by Colin Tudge on Tuesday; a multimedia-rich website, RevealingTheLink.com, was launched; and a two-hour documentary will air on the History Channel, the BBC, and various stations in Germany and Norway next week..."

  Yikes. PLoSOne out-Seeds Seed. And when Nature questioned the media blitz last week the blog world didn't even launch its usual knee jerk defense of PLoS. Something must be amiss.

  We were away, so missed some of the excitement, but is this the future (demise) of science? Aside from Ida, fossils are usually interesting to us Homo sapiens, and fossil finds always manage to attract public attention, which is a good thing.

  Fossil finds are also notoriously contentious. We previously wrote about Homo floresiensis, the fascinating fossils unearthed in a Flores, Indonesia cave a few years ago. In The "Hobbit" Species in Indonesia -- New?", and ""Homo floresiensis: To Have Been or Not To Have Been", we discussed the high profile scientific dispute over the origin of the cave dwelling fossil's remains.

  For years, Homo floresiensis researchers have been excavating, analyzing and presenting new evidence, in Nature, Science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and other journals, evidence that supports or disputes the theory that the Flores hominin represents a new species. One of the most recent papers in Nature, authored by William Jungers et al, describes the very unique feet of Homo floresiensis that make it quite unlike em>Homo sapiens, more evidence supporting the idea that the Flores cave dwellers were a new species.

  But the Ida spectacle bests what we thought was the overwrought media coverage of the Homo floresiensis research. Clearly, all the media players could benefit from greater exposure via Ida, but how will science fare? Science research is not, after all, a melodious singer from Scotland who you can pretty up to boost your ratings when needed, before demoting to second place. Research is the backbone of technology which drives capitalist economies. So please, a little respect -- as they would say?

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Acronym Required wrote about tobacco in "Tobacco's Coups", and "UC Senate Smokes RE-89", and "My Lab Thanks You For Smoking", as well as other posts. We've criticized media hype of dubious research frequently in posts like "Autism, TV, Precipitation: Dismal Science", and "News of Lightweight Study: 'Obese Should Walk Slowly"', and "Britain's Science Path: Brilliant Lights?"

Scientists' Inspirations As They Tell It

Darwin wasn't all ships, and biology, and empirical notes on science, he also appreciated the arts, especially music, at least he did before he wrote: "the musical department of my brain atrophied". J.F. Derry wrote in the science history journal Endeavor, how Darwin's wife Emma influenced the famous scientist, in "Bravo Emma! Music in the life and work of Charles Darwin" ¹. Apparently Mrs. Darwin played the piano nightly, recitals that Mr. Darwin enjoyed while "lying quietly on the sofa". But her musical influence went beyond that. The article describes how the music perhaps even helped mould Darwin's take on evolution. Darwin wrote in one letter about "The Descent of Man".

"I conclude that musical notes and rhythm were first acquired by the male or female progenitors of mankind for the sake of charming the opposite sex."

And As the Wives Tell It

However some might tell the story of who influenced who in the Darwin family differently. Britain appointed Scottish poet, playwright, and creative director of Manchester Metropolitan University's writing school, Carol Ann Duffy, poet laureate last Friday. Duffy wrote in her collection, "The World's Wife", about women's roles and contributions to famous men. Duffy humorously chronicles, "the rage of women disappointed, discarded or overlooked by men", as the New York Times puts it, men such as Quasimodo and Rip Van Winkle. She characterizes the wives of real men too. Her poem "Darwin's Wife" (via NYT) goes like this:

7 April 1852
Went to the Zoo
I said to him -- Something
      about that chimpanzee over
      there
reminds me of you

Duffy holds the post that for the 341 previous years the job had been held by men such as Geoffrey Chaucer, Lord Alfred Tennyson, William Wordsworth and Ted Hughes.

¹Endeavor, March, 2009: doi:10.1016/j.endeavour.2009.01.005

Most people acknowledge global warming and understand that the research is correct and the scientists' aren't running some elaborate conspiracy. Sure there are naysayers, those pugnacious commentators and columnists we don't even bother naming anymore, who we wrote about two, and three years ago. Now that public opinion seems mostly to support the solid scientific evidence for global warming, fewer and fewer denialists seem willing to forsake their reputations or souls by refuting climate change. So don't you wonder what drives those who still insist climate change is a hoax? Do they get paid very handsomely, either by lies per column inch, by special honorariums for dishonest speakers, or perhaps by the sheer number angry blog referrals they receive in any given week. What else makes sense?

This week the Joint Institute for the Study of Atmosphere and Ocean and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory issued a report in Geophysical Research Letters, suggesting that the arctic is melting so fast that it could be gone in 30 years. Meanwhile, as the science rolls in, the politicians weigh in, and petroleum dependent companies finagle mostly secret deals to keep the profits rolling in.

• Wagoner Walks: A year ago we wrote about the auto industry pressuring the EPA to stall and obfuscate rather than act on the Supreme Court order to regulate emissions. When we wrote The EPA: Mulish Days, Staring out to Pasture" the auto industry had just posted 18% losses. All it had to offer customers was large, gas-guzzling, air-polluting vehicles at a a time when the economy was sinking, gas was expensive, and some families already owned four new cars bought with cheap credit.

  As the poles melted, we watched industry lobbies instruct the EPA to "abstain from attempting" to regulate emissions and limit its actions to identifying "technical feasibility". One lobbying document warned that the sector's innovation to improve emissions couldn't require "extra costs", and that if "additional technology" were needed, then the EPA could "properly decide to not adopt standards under the Clean Air Act".

  As it had for 30 years, the auto industry assumed it could hold innovation, emissions control and government at bay while continuing to build vehicles that benefited not the environment, not oil independence, not customers long-term needs, not future business, and certainly not autoworkers working for an ever failing sector. Rather its strategy benefited a few well-placed individuals and executives holding the majority of "shareholder value". In the end the strategy did little but assure US auto manufacturing expiration. Long ago the auto companies had become no more than magical slot machines for select executives, who quarter by quarter, hook or by crook, extracted huge windfalls.

  We concluded facetiously that "if 'the health of the industry' is truly still a goal", as one briefing paper aimed to stall EPA regulation stated, than "maybe the government's kindest move would be to shoot it, or drown it in the bathtub, or whatever libertarian types do these days with ponderous, surly sectors."

  This week, Rick Wagoner, the General Motors CEO who most flagrantly flouted common sense and economic sensibilities, abruptly stepped down from GM, under pressure from Barack Obama.

  Maybe there's more to this story. What sort of deal made Wagoner step down? What about the banks? Certainly a solution where Wagoner gets his $20 million, but workers and their pensions and healthcare are left dangling is not the ideal deal. It would have been better if the manufacturers had innovated smaller more efficient cars sometime during their multi-decade slide into the abyss, or been righted years ago with a few swift legislative kicks -- before major shareholders squeezed their companies to death. But if that hadn't happened for 30 years would/will it ever happen?

• Waxman and Markey Unveil ACES, An Energy Bill: On a positive note, Representatives Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Ed Markey (D-MA) released a 648 page draft global warming and energy bill (PDF), the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES). The legislation proposes a cap and trade system to reduce US emissions 20% below 2005 levels by 2020, a more aggressive goal than the cap and trade recently cut from Obama's 2009 budget.

  The Waxman-Markey bill would require every region of the country to produce a quarter of its electricity from renewable sources like wind, solar and geothermal by 2025, would modernize the electrical grid, and would encourage the production of more electric vehicles and energy efficient buildings. Out of the gate, the congressmen refute Republican criticism of the bill. Ed Markey's office released their own forceful rebuttal to GOP criticism and called opponents on four "distortions" being forwarded by the GOP (more details on the site):

• "Distortion #1-Clean energy and climate legislation will cost $1,300 per family.
  
  FACT: The Republican "experts" who did this math should get an F for 'False.'"

• Distortion #2: Democratic proposals would cost families up to $3,100 per year.
  
  FACT: More fuzzy math from Republicans, this time by distorting a study by MIT. Republican leaders like Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) are attacking clean energy and climate legislation, claiming that it would "cost every American family up to $3,100 per year in higher energy prices"....The author of the MIT study [the authors reference] has said this figure is "wrong in so many ways, it's hard to begin," and today sent a sharply-worded letter to Rep. Boehner pointing out the inaccuracies in his statements about the report. The letter can be found by clicking here."

• "Distortion #3-There are great costs to transitioning to a low-carbon economy, but no benefits.
  
  FACT: Oscar Wilde once said that cynics "know the cost of everything and the value of nothing." In a real cost-benefit analysis, you look at both sides of the equation. Industry-friendly analysis like that done by Charles River Associates, commissioned by the Edison Electric Institute, grossly overstate the cost of climate protection..."

• "Distortion #4-The technology isn't ready for us to move to a clean energy economy.
  
  FACT: This is Republican pessimism that runs directly counter to American optimism, ingenuity and our proven ability to meet great challenges. History has demonstrated over and over again that if policy creates the right ground rules, entrepreneurs and American businesses find solutions that were previously unimaginable."

Serving up the necessary messaging with your energy legislation. But how will the bill fare?

• On Behalf of Wildlife and Forests: Last year we wrote in When To Chop A Tree" that the Bush administration was turning 500,000 acres of California forest into roads and thoroughfares for oil drilling. This was just the tip of the iceberg (so to speak) for the Republican administration, which had spent eight long years decimating protections not only for clean air and water, but endangered species and the environment.

  Even in the last moments of Bush's administration, we wrote in "The 43rd President's Grand Finale of Rulemaking" that Bush proposed to allow mining companies to lop of mountains to allow the refuse clog rivers and streams, and was permitting companies to pollute streams with factory farm run-off, lifting regulations on placing power plants near national parks, exempting factory farms from reporting air pollution, loosening ocean fishing management regulations, and doing nothing about oil refinery toxic emission control which Congress mandated.

  In some encouraging moves, President Obama has now stepped in on behalf of some endangered species like the flying squirrel. This week Obama signed the 2009 Omnibus Public Land Management Act which included 160 separate proposals covering public lands in nine states. The bill adds and expands wilderness areas and national forests.

• Meanwhile, Making Mountains into Molehills: But we never forget that politics is politics and not everything turns out just as you like it. The House of Representatives failed to reverse the mountaintop removal mining bill.

• BP's Solar Energy Burn-Out: British Petroleum (BP) -- motto: "Beyond Petroleum" -- recently cut 620 jobs from its solar business, which employed 2,200 people worldwide. Two years ago, we wrote about BP's econ-marketing push in "Green Spirit". Green spirit lives on.

  In other BP news, the Department of Justice, Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Transportation brought a civil suit against the company for two 2006 spills from the Alaska pipeline. The plaintiffs request maximum civil penalties and charge that the company did not adequately prevent or clean up the spill. In a separate suit, Alaska charged the company with environmental damage and lost state revenues due to BP cost-cutting and business practices.

• GE Healthcare Marketing Push

  GE and Siemens, which has also made significant investments in healthcare, are currently lobbying Congress against the Obama administration efforts to reduce medical scanning costs in Medicare. Bloomberg News reported that Medicare imaging costs more than doubled to $14.1 billion from 2000 to 2006, according to a June 13 congressional report.

  GE plans to rollout a new healthcare products marketing campaign based on its "Eco-magination" project, which GE told the Financial Times brought in $17bn in revenue last year from the sale of products ranging from jet engines to wind turbines. The new healthcare marketing initiative will "involve numerous parts of the sprawling conglomerate, ranging from its industrial divisions to the media unit, NBC Universal", according to FT. ("GE to pitch its vision on need for healthcare", Apr. 1, 2009) Watch for it on your local TV station.

• Electronic Records

  A study in the New England Journal of Medicine recently showed that few hospitals have electronic records systems in place. Only 1.5% of hospitals who responded to the authors' survey had electronic systems in all units, while 7.6% had electronic records in some units. Another article in the same journal noted that the current records' systems are proprietary software where the lack of a single standard makes integration with other software systems infeasible.

  The Obama administration plans to infuse $19 billion into an effort to get electronic records in place, but the effort could cost up to $100 billion dollars over the next ten years. Which makes it an attractive business to enter. Wal-Mart is now joining Microsoft and Google and GE in offering digital records options. According to PC World, the retailer:

  "plans to bring its low-cost, high-volume mentality to the healthcare industry by offering a deal that includes hardware, software, installation, maintenance and training to convert a doctor's office from using paper to digital medical records."

  Walmart will coordinate the vendors to offer the $25,000 system. Doctors may get $40,000 - $65,000 federal tax write-off to install and use medical records systems.

• Cancer Screening

  A couple of weeks ago two studies came out showing that the prostate specific antigen (PSA) blood test for prostate cancer, which allowed all men to be easily screened for the disease, may or may not be helpful. Screening may result in overdiagnosis and overtreatment in some men for whom the disease would never progress.

  In a similar situation, last week, a kerfuffle in Britain motivated British health officials to promise to rewrite patient information that gave misleading information about the benefits of mammograms. A recent study also suggested that breast cancer screening also led to over-diagnosis. Part of the problem is that doctors have limited knowledge about which cancers will progress rapidly, and which won't progress.

  Such uncertainty is common in medicine. Even if doctors can access all the technology in the world, should they run another test or save the money? How do they assess a patient's most simple claims -- "it hurts?" Is the cancer aggressive? Will the patient follow the treatment protocol?

• "Real Age" Antics

  According to a recent New York Times story, RealAge, an on-line health survey that people voluntarily sign-up for and receive health tips from, is actually a marketing tool for pharmaceutical companies:

  "While few people would fill out a detailed questionnaire about their health and hand it over to a drug company looking for suggestions for new medications, that is essentially what RealAge is doing"

  Apparently the company would email people pharmaceutical suggestions based on symptoms they listed. I had other qualms with the service, like that it rated people's health based on questions about lifestyle choices which were backed up with incomplete or controversial evidence, like -- how many servings of soy do you eat a day? Clearly the privacy issues put a whole new spin on the company's service.

• Antidote

  Should you need one. The New Yorker runs a Cartoon Caption contest every week, where readers (and potential subscribers) submit captions for a cartoon. The staff picks three of the best captions, then on-line readers vote on which of the three they like best. Sort of the New Yorker's "American Idol". This week's cartoon might be science related, a rare event.

  The cartoon depicts a big hefty naked man striding out of the ocean onto the beach. He appears to be saying something and he looks excited. He's following a fish, which has leapt out of the water and is airbound, glancing behind, fish-eyes wide. Here are the three caption choices:

  • "Now that I've met your family, I want you to meet mine"
  • "Your in trouble when we get to the bicycles"
  • "Hi there! Can I interest you in some promotional material about intelligent design?"

  Vote here.

This post was divided into separate posts 10-07-09. Those posts are linked below.

• "Pecking the Red Dot: Herring Gull Myth or Fiction?"
• "Dinofuzz: More Dinosaurs Flew"
• "Galbraith on John Law and the Mississippi Bubble"
• "Exxon Valdez Species Fall-Out in Prince William Sound"
• "Online Media and Copyright"

Reposted as single post 10-07 from 03-26 Notes

But Papers Won't Be Paper

In our last post ("Yotta-Yotta-Yottabytes: Content Makes Kings, Print Dies") we touched on themes in ongoing conversations all over the web and in newspapers about the seeming demise of reporting -- not just science reporting -- any reporting. We mentioned copyright and aggregators, and questioned trends towards online aggregation that mimic print monopolization. Clearly aggregators add value by collecting in one accessible place news for all the readers. Aggregators also fulfill their own business goals by collecting more advertising revenue than, say, two person online content generators. But lots of unresolved issues need to be ironed out.

To me a key question is intellectual property -- I know, so yesteryear. But consider the site that collects all the free Creative Commons lectures from Universities like Yale, Princeton, Harvard, Stanford and Berkeley, and posts these under a non-Creative Commons site license with prominent use of the Ivy's names (to establish the site's credentials). "Academic Earth", not to be confused with LexisNexis's "Academic Universe", now promises that they will "try" to keep the content as "open as possible". In another move bound to endear AE to the professors whose lectures they use, the site owners "grade" the lectures, starting with "B".

Last week, I saw another site with text and photos from older works (before 1921) released into the public domain, with warnings that the company had "added value" (imperceptibly), so that now all the works were copyrighted and needed to be purchased. ¹ These are two examples in the wide open arena where creative content producers try to eek out a living, copyright protection flounders under the ubiquitous ease of internet infringement, and sites that recycle, remix, or analyze content, navigate sometimes unclear boundaries.

This week Google removed thousands of videos from its YouTube site, based on a Warner's demand to removed all of its copyrighted songs, even including those obscure videos where your aunt Milly sings her favorite 60's tune while your uncle plays the piano. As of last week, every video was taken down, robotically removed.

In another case, last week BoingBoing posted a note submitted by site "Apartment Therapy" about a take-down notice the NYT sent to the home decorating site. A.T. said:

"We are shocked & disappointed their [NYT] first contact with concerns about our use of their images (in posts about their stories!) was a threatening letter & DMCA takedown notice to our ISP who have warned us they will disable our servers if we don't comply with the NY Times request." (emphasis ours)

But to be fair, it's not the first time NYT contacted Apartment Therapy. BoingBoing wrote another post five years ago excerpting another AT protest about the New York Times, who in that June, 2004 situation, contacted them by phone to again request they take down copy-righted content. Was that the "first" time? Who knows.

BoingBoing had one take on the Apartment Therapy/NYT mediation: "Pop quiz: You're a troubled media dinosaur struggling to find your way on the Web. What steps can you take to actively discourage people from linking to you, thus reducing your pageviews and revenue?" BoingBoing readers weighed in on whether that was a fair assessment. Some BoingBoing commenters observed that the decorating site actually posts all the photos and content from NYT articles, making the link to NYT several clicks in totally meaningless. While AT may come to some agreement with NYT the larger issue of copyright is less likely to sort itself out prettily.

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¹ I stumbled on several sites like this last week -- unknown name.

10-07 reposted as single post from Notes 03-26

Slick

Although it's been twenty years since images of oil-drenched birds (~250,000 initially killed) filled our newspapers after the huge Prince William Sound spill, the damage remains.

The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council recently reported on the status of some species in the Sound. Ten species are "recovering, ten are considered "recovered", and two, the Pacific Herring and Pigeon Guillemots, are "not recovering". The fate of many more species is unknown. We last wrote about the Exxon Valdez spill when we looked at the stated reasons the Supreme Court decided to lower the damages in the case to $500 million.

16,000 gallons of oil continues to seep out into the ecosystem bit by bit during rains. To address the ongoing pollution, the US Government and the State of Alaska sent Exxon-Mobil a demand for $92 million dollars to fund the joint-federal restoration plan in 2006, but then President George Bush and Governor Sarah Palin didn't press the company to pay up. The Public Employees for Environmental Safety (PEER) and Professor Rick Steiner from the University of Alaska have written the Obama administration and the Attorney General of Alaska asking them to act to collect Exxon-Mobil's debt.

US Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) talked to Rachel Maddow Tuesday, and she asked him about the bonus cap provision that disappeared from the spending bill.

"When something gets through the United States Senate, it doesn't happen by osmosis. It got done because Senator Snowe and I spent a lot of time. We got a legal opinion. We knew Wall Street was going to come out and fight this aggressively. Now, I think, we'll finally get it done, but unfortunately, it's a little late."

Here's osmosis:

The Huffington Post also wrote about Wyden's¹ statements, but HuffPo quoted him as saying about the missing language: "it didn't die by osmosis." [Emphasis mine]. This is more difficult to demonstrate on video, but YouTube does have a video on reviving wilted lettuce. It's not death by osmosis, rather, in the time lapse video the sad dying lettuce is put in water for a second life -- sort of. The end result is speeded up 720x.

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¹ Senator Wyden maybe has osmosis on his mind. His office has proposed a forward osmosis water purification to be developed in Oregon. Wyden's office posted a list of 2010 Defense appropriations bill projects. The water purification system would allow soldiers to hike farther in the dessert.

Outrage. Yawn.

59% of Americans who answered a Gallup Poll said they were "Outraged", by the AIG bonuses. This compared to 26% who were "Bothered" and 11% who were "Not Particularly Bothered". What? No "No opinion" choice? In this case, had my executive bonus ennui ebbed to the point where I actually picked up the phone when Gallup called, I could only have rallied if "No Opinion" had been presented as an option.

Outrage: Are you as fatigued from outrage as I am? If you look for "outrage" on Google Trends, which tracks keywords across the newspapers like PerthNow, the Rhinelander Daily News, and the North Wales Chronicle, you'll find that the steady state "news reference volume" of "outrage" has increased gradually since 2004. This means nothing, but despite the lack of any empirical data, my opinion is that outrage has been overdone lately. Bailout outrage, and Madoff outrage, and TARP outrage, and crooked mortgage lender outrage, now Obama's "outrage" at the bonuses. Phheww. Sell outrage someplace else, we're all stocked up here.

In September Barack Obama accused John McCain of using "lies" and "phony outrage" in reference to Obama's ill-received "lipstick on a pig comment." Now Obama's being accused of his own phony outrage.

Being that I'm bored to death of the outrage, I thought I'd return the favor and highlight some of the details of the blueberry research that we talked about in our last post. Conservatives and liberals alike zeroed in on the pork in the Omnibus Spending Bill, like the 209,000 dollar blueberry grant to Georgia.

Blueberries! Research! History! Yay!

Blueberry farming is important to Georgia, since it has a "farm gate value of $59.4 million in 2005" and production with an "economic impact of $97.4 million". The history of blueberry cultivation is told by two University of Georgia scientists in a paper posted at the International Society for Horticultural Science (ISHS). We'll highlight some of the content here.

The early history of cultivated blueberries is most well known in Florida. In the 20th century a logger in Florida who had been transplanting plants from the wild and cultivating blueberries on his farm, met up with a marketing guy, "a Yankee", and together they sold blueberry plants to other communities in Florida. "Most plants sold were transplanted from the wild without regard to fruit quality. Some of the plants sold were not even [the prized] rabbiteye blueberries but species that don't produce commercial quality fruit." However enough higher quality plants were sold to qualify as a "blueberry boom". According to a history of blueberries told by the Georgia scientists, the boom then collapsed for multiple reasons:

"due to variable fruit quality, competition from new plantings of northern highbush in northern states, poor horticultural practices, and the depression (Mowry and Camp, 1928; Horan, 1965).

A statement in a 1926 Florida bulletin summed up the nursery stock situation: 'A great deal of promiscuous experimenting will doubtless be done before the business of handling stock for this fruit will be standardized as has been done for the great stable fruits of the day' (Coville, 1926).'"

Despite the collapse of the early industry Florida scientists managed to establish some strains that worked well for the region. From the early 1900's, when there were no viable options for commercial berries, you just gathered what you could in the woods, science and research made commercial blueberry farming not only possible, but a thriving industry and livelihood for many.

Tobacco's Out. Blueberries are In

"The position was filled by Dr. Tom Brightwell, who received his initial blueberry training under the famous Mr.Stanley Johnston of Michigan State University. In the fall of 1945, the Alapaha Blueberry Research Farm was established in a section of the flatwoods district just 25 miles east of Tifton. This has proven to be one of the great decisions made by Dr. Brightwell...."

"It is of great compliment to the character of Dr. Brightwell that he stayed focused on breeding blueberries in a state where no industry existed at the time. Numerous attempts were made to entice him to switch to some 'important' crop."

"Starting in 1950 the cultivar releases began with 'Callaway' and 'Coastal', which were a large improvement over the wild types, but did not have commercial shipping quality."

Around 1970, citizens in Bacon Co. Georgia sought help from the Rural Development Center of the University of Georgia to grow blueberries as a cash crop. The US Surgeon General had targeted cigarette smoking as a risk to health, and tobacco farmers saw the future demise of their livelihoods. Science continued to improved blueberry farming in Georgia and the authors conclude"

"It appears that Georgia has a bright future in blueberry production. The foundation of the industry laid down by so many scientists and growers over the past 60 years has opened this door."

Blueberries don't grow on trees, I guess you could cornily say, it's research and science success that puts them in your energy bar.

Congress Takes on Bisphenol A

The US House and Senate introduced bills last week that would ban bisphenol A (BPA) in all food and beverage containers. The proposed bills are the latest federal legislation to try to curb the used of BPA, even as production of the chemical continues to increase worldwide.

Studies conducted by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) have found that bisphenol A is found in 92.6% of people tested. For years consumers assumed that the chemical was benign. However BPA has now been shown through hundreds of science studies to be linked to prostate and breast cancer, obesity, neurological problems including behavioral problems in children, precocious puberty, altered sperm counts, immune disorders and other problems.

For a long time, even though more and more studies showed the dangers of BPA, legislation was nowhere to be found. Now legislative efforts are starting to gain traction following increasing public awarenes and outcry on bisphenol A. In 2005 Acronym Required reported on the first bisphenol A legislation out of California, introduced by Wilma Chan, that proposed a limit to bisphenol A in childrens products. "Plastic Bottles- Protecting Your Baby, by the ACC", focused on the industry's use of misinformation about baby bottles to protect their plastics and bisphenol A market. Reporting on San Francisco's attempt to clamp down on the use of BPA in baby bottles and children's products, we wrote: "It will be interesting to watch the progress of this legislative attempt to control use of this chemical". The California legislation was swiftly defeated under industry threats.

In the four years since, the accumulation of science research attracted public attention then propelled citizen action, which in turn motivated city, state and federal legislatures to pay heed. Not coincidentally, the companies who we chronicled vehemently denying the dangers of BPA, now "voluntarily" discontinue some of their controversial uses for the chemical. Not all lobbies are so agreeable however. The Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association (JPMA), which currently owns the site www.babybottle.org that we took exception to 4 years ago, still runs under a banner of blatant lies "PLASTIC BABY BOTTLES ARE SAFE. Convenient. Tested. Trusted."

Taking a Stand on the Precautionary Principle?

Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) sponsored the Senate bill S. 593, which Charles E. Schumer (D-NY) co-sponsored. Said Feinstein when introducing the bill:

"I strongly believe that the time has come to utilize a precautionary standard in all food and beverages with respect to chemical additives. If you do not know for certain the chemical is benign, it should not be used. Bisphenol A, known commonly as BPA, is one such example. It is used in consumer products all around us: plastic containers that store food, compact discs, water bottles, canned soups and other canned foods, even baby bottles. More than 100 studies suggest that BPA exposure at very low doses is linked to a variety of health problems..."

America consumers should not be "guinea pigs", Feinstein said. The bill would ban Bisphenol A from all food and drink containers, effective 180 days from enactment. The chemical is ubiquitous, found in pipes, baby bottles, infant formula cans, dental sealants, and car parts. But the Environmental Working Group commissioned research showing that half of the cans they tested had detectable levels of BPA that would not only expose adult consumers to levels of BPA considered dangerous, but could expose unborn children whose mothers eat canned food to up 200 times safe levels. Therefore a bill that targets the use of bisphenol A in food containers would help keep the chemical out of humans.

Feinstein's legislation would allow companies to petition for renewable waivers by claiming that it was "technologically impossible to replace BPA in that time frame", an interesting and potentially problematic criteria.

The language Senator Feinstein used in her statement is interesting for other reasons too. "Precautionary Standard" is similar to "Precautionary Principle", which is a sort of loaded term, one that industry and free trade organizations detest. The presumed head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) (in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in the Executive Office of the President), Cass Sunstein -- unofficially nominated but at large (maybe somewhere in the bowels of OIRA) -- has periodically taken a strong stand against the Precautionary Principle. (For instance read the paper "Laws of Fear: Beyond the Precautionary Principle", the book of the same tittle, papers or the related less conciliatory CATO article on the subject. Some of these same ideas which are propagated throughout his writing including in "Nudge"). If Congress goes forward with the legislation, will it bring the US stance on chemicals closer to the European one? Will the "Precautionary Standard" edge its way into policy or become more mainstream?

Whatever the outcome, if you were to take a stand on the unfortunately named but potent and historically interesting Precautionary Principle, would the chemical bisphenol A, which has been thoroughly researched, be the chemical you'd choose? (It's not clear whether Feinstein is doing this or whether this is just convenient, casual wording.) Acronym Required has written about the disconnect between the hundreds of studies showing potential dangers of the chemical, legislative action, media coverage, and stalling action by lobbyists, in Phthalates and Bisphenol A: Media and Politics".

The research on bisphenol A does not leave very much doubt as to the dangers of this chemical. So then is this "precaution"? Or even "caution"? Or is it legislation that is very late in to the scene, slowed by chemical companies and their intense lobbying, which makes it simply "reactionary". Not to dredge up an overused cliche here, but is this that different from warnings on cigarette boxes, decades after the first health studies came out? I'm not answering, just asking.

Making this a joint congressional action, Congressman Edward Markey (D-MA) introduced the companion bisphenol A legislation in the House. Markey's bill will be known as "Ban Poisonous Additives Act of 2009".

Senator Feinstein also helped write a 2008 amendment to the Consumer Product Safety Commission which banned the sale of phthalate containing products to children under seven. California passed a similar law in 2007.

Communities Take On Bisphenol A and Companies Suddenly Choose Science

As we mentioned above, Acronym Required previously chronicled San Francisco's failed efforts to ban bisphenol A legislation. The San Francisco City Council members deleted language that would have restricted the use of bisphenol A in certain infant and children's products when sued by plastic manufacturers. We also wrote on Chicago's city legislation and Canada's, and Canadian communities' bans. Since then, more communities have taken on bisphenol A, and Suffolk County" is the latest to institute a ban on the chemical. While manufacturers can afford to take one city to court, if multiple states and cities are introducing legislation, the balance of power changes. Steve Hentges, the prolific American Chemical Council spokesman and author of editorials proclaiming BPA's safety must be spinning (as in 360s) trying to keep up.

American manufacturers are expert at stalling legislation. But at some point, they too, glance over their shoulders an realize that legislation and negative public opinion is bearing down on them. Six companies, Playtex Products, Gerber, Evenflow, Avent America, Dr. Brown's and Disney First Years said they would stop the sale of plastic polycarbonate baby bottles in the USA, in response to action by Connecticut attorney general Richard Blumenthal, and the attorneys general in Delaware and New Jersey.

In other company responses to public outcry, Sunoco wrote a letter to investors saying that they would stop selling bisphenol A to companies that can't assure that BPA won't be used in food and water products for children under 3. Sunoco noted they couldn't assure that bisphenol A was safe. Sunoco's action, though rather anemic, was in response to investor actions and queries to the company. Interviewed by the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Tom McCaney, associate director for corporate responsibility at the Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia, a group of about 600 nuns who petitioned Sunoco on BPA: "We thought this was a really bold step, especially for a company that's a member of the American Chemistry Council." Bold indeed. Not the adjective I would choose perhaps, since Sunoco's not guaranteeing anything, but a "smart" business move? Sure.

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Trendy Science?

Often, science seems under attack. On one hand, we know there will always be politicians who attack science like volcano monitoring, simply because they can. But don't you just wish politicians would change? How? Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal, a biology student who applied to medical school, doesn't get the bulk of his campaign funding from individual geologists from the Northwest. And given the opportunity to run for president on a right leaning platform, how much influence will Rocks for Jocks really have?

The most alarming outcome of these political ploys, these self-serving displays of idiocy, is how the 'freaky science meme' courses through the population, gathering speed and strength. True, many people simply believe what they believe. But politicians who are derogatory towards science foster an atmosphere that's indulgent of general distrust for scientists. Creationists start crawling out of the woodwork. Then before you know it pedigree dog owners on the Upper West Side are openly discussing the *evil dognappers* who want to steal their precious pooches to supply "the burgeoning industry that is--collecting dogs and giving them to laboratories for experiments.".

We always wish the reporters would ask the "Marilyn Pasekoff[s] (Hogan, German shepherd)" who they find "walking in Riverside Park", just one more question, that is: "Describe an experiment you imagine occurring in these 'laboratories' with these pedigree dogs." Right? Blankets thrown over Pomeranians and Great Danes when researchers sneak them through the back doors of Columbia University and New York University before hoisting them up on the lab bench in the dark of night?

The good news, perhaps a mild antidote to such nonsense, is how the Obama administration continues to follow through with campaign promises -- to fund science, to end the ban on embryonic stem cell research, to address global warming and healthcare. Nothing like eight years of GW Bush administration anti-logic, anti-science leadership to give scientists a very heightened appreciation for an administration that seems to understand how important it is to make science and technology just slightly more relevant again.

Test Tube Confidence

And in a global economy this is a global endeavor. Following in President Obama's footsteps, Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced last week that he wanted to properly fund science and technology and assure a future where the financial sector is the servant of industry, and never its master. Bold.

(But what will replace manufacturing?) Students protested Brown's speech at Oxford, referencing the global meltdown and job losses at local car plants.

One women in his audience commented on the new focus on science -- '"don't mention the Economics-word, let's talk about mixing chemicals in a test tube - at least that works."' Cynical as she was, to scientists coming out of the great drought of political support, even this is a refreshing change in populist rhetoric. Science "works"? You think? I'll put that in my back pocket!

Border Envy

However not all is well, naturally. Canadian scientists are concerned about their flat or decreasing national science budgets. The Ottawa Citizen reports that the three granting councils which fund most academic research, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, have been asked to cut $148 million from their budgets over the next three years.

The government cuts occur despite protest by industry and academic scientists who worry about the nation's science and technology standing (as well as their own careers). Funding levels have remained flat or decreased under the conservative government and Canadian scientists now worry that talent will move across the border to the US and better funding. Ironically, the Canadians now cite US wisdom in prioritizing science.

Science, Now Rich Enough to Be Taken Hostage

Finally, one last change that illustrates a certain new-found importance for science. Admittedly, this is again, a case of squeezing lemonade out of lemons. Obama administration science advisory nominations, John Holdren for the Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Jane Lubchenco for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are are seen by certain politicians as appropriate targets for political blackmail. That's pathetic. That's rich. Scientists sigh. Oh, the danger of being important.

So with the focus on science, not only in the US but in the UK too, are we dreaming to imagine a time when science attains greater respect and citizens reject anti-science stances? As the New York Times reported in February, The Society of Integrative and Comparative Biology (SIBC) announced that it would hold its 2011 meeting in Salt Lake City, instead of New Orleans, because of the law Governor Jindal signed last summer allowing teachers to use "supplemental textbooks" to "help students critique and review scientific theories".

The laws framer's insisted they had no subversive religious agenda, but the forthright group "Catholic Exchange" announced when the bill passed: "Bobby Jindal Signs Law Allowing Intelligent Design in Louisiana Schools". Louisiana was one of several states to pass legislation during the Bush administration allowing schools to teach of alternative (creationist) views. Framed as "the controversy", these new curriculum changes pander to right wing voters. Will these voters and politicians continue their anti-science fervor as Obama government recognizes science and science regains its footing? We can hope not.

• Science Budgets That Look Friendly: Barack Obama's budget proposal looks good for science although we know this will get kicked around in Congress. Science reports these proposed budget increases:

  * NIH is slated to receive $7 billion over the $70.5 billion dollar budget, including $6 billion for the National Cancer Institute.

  * NSF: The budget asks for a 8.5% increase to $7.045 billion dollars.

  * DOE: The projection for 2009 is $33.9 billion, in addition to $39 billion for energy programs under the stimulus package, and $1.6 billion for the Office of Science.

  * NASA: $18.7 billion has been requested, which is a $700 million increase over this year's figure. The stimulus package included $1 billion.

• Public Health, Thai Style: Thailand's Anti-Smoking campaign run by the Thailand Health Promotion Institute demands that all cigarette boxes be printed with one of several disconcerting graphics, to dissuade smokers from smoking. So smokers will be able to blow artful cigarette rings while regarding a box adorned with rotting teeth, a body tethered from emphysema to hospital ventilators, lung cancer, or skeletons. The country intends to run similar warnings to dissuade alcohol drinking.

• Branding Triplets: Peter Orszag started an Office of Management and Budget (OMB) blog last week. The first title announced a new slogan: "Discipline, Efficiency, Prosperity". Perhaps the OMB is signaling that branding strategists have swept through to overhaul the agency's image, and that the marketing team incredibly found a few unspoken for adjectives still available after the run of the late 90's. Or perhaps enough companies have gone out of business now that some adjectives are newly available for government agencies to use.

  The OMB promises a turnaround from the apparent Bush era slogan: Dissemble, Procrastinate and Ruin -- and offers the new blog to open up channels of communication.

  Our only experience with Cabinet blogs was reading Mike Leavitt's blog, a communique that wasn't usually a font of transparency. For instance, Leavitt traveled to Africa several times to support PEPFAR and the Bush public health agenda. During Leavitt's 2007 visit, African president Thabo Mbeki was be writing about Leavitt's endorsement of the African National Congress's (ANC) nutrition and HIV/AIDS policies (in Mbeki's usual misleading manner). However, Leavitt's blog of his trip would read like a vaguely concerned tourists introduction to the country. 'All these orphans -- that's going to be a problem....' No mention of HIV/AIDS policies. Dissembling.

  I guess there's only so much transparency allowed on a government blog.

• Paper Cuts: This map shows the distribution of 15,590+ jobs lost from newspapers since 2007. Unlike many online denizens, I actually still subscribe and enjoy paper media. Oh well.

• Poland Spring and Nestle Deterred?: The town of Shapleigh, Maine voted against Nestle in the company's bid to test the spring water in their town for possible bottling. The townspeople reject the idea of Nestle extracting water from their springs. Their vote may or may not accomplish their objective, pending likely legal challenges and the fact that the townspeople don't have say over state owned or private drilling sites in the town. The movie, "Flow" documented the extraction of water in Michigan.

• Rahm Emmanuel Runs the Republican Party: Sunday, Rahm Emmanuel told Bob Schieffer that Rush Limbaugh was "voice and the intellectual force and energy behind the Republican Party." Emmanuel explained that when Republicans "attack" Limbaugh they have to then "turn around and come back and basically said that he's apologizing and was wrong." Sure enough, a couple of days ago, RNC chairman Michael Steele told CNN's D.L. Hughly that he, Steele, not Limbaugh, was the "de facto leader" of the party, and Limbaugh merely had a show that was "incendiary" and "ugly". Today Steele apologized to Limbaugh.

• Measles -- Science In Action: Last week a man returned from Europe with measles symptoms, caught from a friend. Once home, he came into contact with 73 people, which the San Francisco Communicable Disease & Prevention (CDCP) center contacted after activating an Infectious Disease Emergency Response. The man claimed to have been vaccinated twice against measles but couldn't document this. Instead he asserted that his disease symptoms proved that vaccinations don't work. Two of the man's children were also unvaccinated.

  The aptly named Andrew Resignato, the director of the San Francisco Immunization Coalition, noted that since the average person doesn't understand vaccines or disease or science, these perennial outbreaks among the unvaccinated are to be expected. Last year a measles outbreak infected 12 people in San Diego. Earlier this year, a different man returning from India set off another Emergency Response in San Francisco.

• Octopus Are Our Friends: Nothing like an octopus that inadvertently manipulates the water flow in its pool to plunge reporters into anthropomorphic sentiment. The Los Angeles Times reported that a female octopus at the Santa Monica Aquarium "disassembled the recycling systems valve, flooding the place with 200 gallons of seawater". This octopedal dexterity motivated quite a few comparisons to humans.

  The two-spotted octopus, which if spread out, according to LA Times reporter Bob Pool, would be "the size of a human forearm", "floated lazily in the water that remained in its tank", then "watched intently through glass walls and portholes as workers struggled to dry the place out in time for the day's first busload of schoolchildren to arrive on a 9:30 a.m. field trip." (Emphasis mine) Octopus fans immediately started writing in to suggest that the aquarium should name the unnamed octopus, from "it" or "she", to "Flo". Sure, why don't we just invite "Flo" to tea and sandwiches while we're at it?

Lavished, So to Speak

The stimulus package worked out better than it seemed it might when we last wrote about the bill. In the somewhat histrionically titled, "Science Funding Gouged From Stimulus Package", we talked about proposed cuts to the package, including all the intended NSF money. In the end $21 billion dollars of the $787 billion dollar economic stimulus package were allotted to science research and infrastructure. In an article this week, the journal Science called scientists "surprised" to be "lavished" with new funding for beleaguered science institutions, including

• $10 billion to the National Institute of Health (NIH)
• $3 billion to the National Science Foundation (NSF)
• $1.6 billion to the Office of Science in the Department of Energy (DOE)

But lest there be any confusion, "scientist lavished" is quite different from "lavished" as in banking, insurance, and auto industry lavished. We're not talking corporate jets, or $86,000 partridge hunts, Ritz-Carlton junkets, or hundred thousand dollar ads to complain about crack-downs on perks, "lavished". "Scientist lavished" means, wow, we can buy a new beaker? Or -- really? I don't have to mouth pipette anymore?

Surprised scientists may be, as they were habituated to dark downward spirals or plateaus in science and science education funding. Most of the money will be spent, carefully, with what's promised to be diligent oversight, on "shovel-ready" projects -- infrastructure. And it isn't as much money as it seems. As the American Association of Arts and Sciences (AAAS) (publisher of Science) pointed out in an earlier analysis, R&D facilities funding for 2008 was $4.4 billion. Half of that went to the International Space Station. Expenses add up fast. But think of the mileage the US got by **putting a man on the moon**.

The new, use it or lose it funding fulfills intentions Congress laid out in the in the America Creating Opportunities to Meaningfully Promote Excellence in Technology, Education, and Science (COMPETES) Act -- H.R. 2272, which wasn't funded. The COMPETES Act was co-sponsored by many legislators, including Barack Obama and Joe Biden and reflected years of rhetoric about making the US more competitive in science and technology.

But The Labor is Cheap

Science is a good investment. Research is expensive, true. But think of all the technology born in academic labs. Very low paid graduate students at schools and universities all over the US execute experiments towards diverse inventions like computers, life-saving drugs, space exploration, and medical technology.

Taxpayers get a good deal with scientists. $500,000 salary limits would be no problem, since the majority of scientists working in the US don't make a 20th of that. Grads in labs are paid a fraction of what a newly minted banker earns to enter your deposit onto their balance sheets. Another nice think about scientists is that they don't amass fortunes of $billions of dollars absconded from investors. Rather, shunning office Armani for denim and sneakers, the science corps work away, sometimes cheerfully, hoping for the best from every plate pulled from the incubator, until one day, somewhere down the line, a company announces a drug that prolongs the life of your loved one, and you think, wow, where did that come from? Or not -- but it most likely started as some inkling idea then was developed in a government funded lab, before being passed on to the private sector.

Some scientists have expressed concern that the mass dollar infusion won't be sustained with consistent budgets in future years. We'll hope for the best.

PCA Maneuvers

The Peanut Corporation of America (PCA), responsible for over 630 illnesses and nine deaths from reactions to Salmonella infected peanuts, filed for bankruptcy liquidation. Culpability? The Consumer's Union (CU) reports that the bankruptcy will protect the company from lawsuits. The company listed one to ten million dollars in liabilities and coincidentally, one to ten million dollars in assets.¹ The Washington Post elaborates that lawyers will move to have the stay preventing new lawsuits lifted. CU called on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to "oversee food processors so that unscrupulous behavior can be detected, prevented, and deterred".

But in order for that oversight to happen, the journal Nature writes, the FDA needs at least a new commissioner and more staff to replace those lost in the past 5 years. Said Michael Taylor, a former deputy commissioner for policy at the FDA: "Members on both sides of the aisle are getting that there is a system-wide problem here, that there has to be institutional change." Nature reports that even food corporations represented by 10 organizations have appealed to congress for food safety reforms enacted through the FDA. (Wadman, M. "Obama puts focus on FDA after peanut poisonings" Nature 457, 770-771 (2009) | doi:10.1038/457770a)

The agency has been significantly weakened in a worldwide spiderweb of pharma and food production companies that generate increasing threats to consumers and that need more oversight. The FDA however is failing to keep up, and has for years been routinely paraded across the news with systemic problems. The problem is cyclical. Nature's story about the weakened agency has strong similarities to the one told in 1989 by the New York Times.

In 1989 the FDA was "ailing", reported the NYT. Reagan had eviscerated the agency in his deregulatory zeal, and Dr. Samuel Thier, president of the Institute of Medicine in the National Academy of Sciences, told the newspaper: "the Food and Drug Administration is a demoralized group, being asked to do too much with too few resources.'' As was reported this week about the state of the FDA, 20 years ago the NYT reported with an air of dropped-jaw breathlessness: "the situation has gotten bad enough that the industry regulated by the agency has begun to press for a stronger agency".

In 1992 David Thessler was nominated to run the agency, which he did for six years, revitalizing the agency's regulatory authority and working to bring tobacco under FDA control, but drew ire from some businesses.

Privatizing Product Inspection: When It Doesn't Work

Reagan accelerated 'kill the FDA' policy trend, and organizations like Cato and politicians like Newt Gingrich pushed to make shrinking the FDA a public priority. Among their goals, they aimed to privatize inspections. The agency was a "monopoly", they said, responsible for millions of job losses in the US. Articles like Cato's 2001 "How FDA Regulation and Injury Litigation: Cripple the Medical Device Industry", helped convince legislators to loosen regulation and contract out important functions.

But an earlier NYT article reported that when the State Agriculture Department inspected the plant in 2007 and 2008, it found multiple problems, especially of food processing services "not cleaned or sanitized". Why was AIB's inspection lax?

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¹ There's the movie "The Corporation". Seen it? It's been around for a few years and is available for download on Google.

Acronym Required has been writing about problems at the FDA since 2005, including posts on BPA and the FDA; Commisioner von Eschenbach's confirmation hearings in "The FDA'S 'Medical Ideology'"; on the beleaguered organization in general -- "Resuscitating The FDA"; the FDA in the wake of various fiascoes and staff turnover, at "FDA -- Calling Off The Dogs"; and about general issues recruiting scientists in "Ethics- The NIH and FDA".

• Penguins in Peril

  More penguins are in peril from global warming. Scientists from the University of Washington report that members of the Magellanic penguin colony from Punta Tombo now have to swim 50 miles farther round-trip, to successfully forage for food -- while their mates sit on the eggs. Last month Proceedings for the National Advancement of Sciences reported on the endangered fate of the Emperor penguins. Remember the trials and tribulations in March of the Penguins that we wrote about in March On Penguins? Now it's even harder.

• Interspecies Love

  Scientists know that various forms of gene transfer occur between species, especially in prokaryotes like bacteria and certain eukaryotes like species in the plant genus Senecio. Native to Sicily, Senecio squalidus for instance, was introduced to the UK about 300 years ago. As the flower spread it, it pollinated with an indigenous flower and formed a second form of that British weed Senecio vulgaris (common groundsel). The alternate morphology of the groundsel had petals, making it look perhaps less "vulgaris" and more like a daisy drawn by a child.

  Building previous research, scientists published a paper in Science last fall, which identified a cluster of genes transferred between Senecio species by introgressive hybridization. The cluster seemed to cause the petals in the second form of Senecio vulgaris, which gave plant a genetic leg-up because it could pollinate more easily. The weed could also then be used by humans in "Loves me, Loves me not" trials -- unclear whether that's an evolutionary advantage, to any species.

  Other eukaryote species don't undergo such capricious genetic exchange although evolution seems always unpredictable. In a paper this week in Nature scientists from the University of Washington compared the genomes of macaques, orangutans, gorillas, and chimpanzees. Macaques split from the other three species about 25 million years ago. Building on previous work, scientists looking at the genome found "bursts of activity" that duplicated whole pieces of the genomes, 20,000 base sequences or more, at the same time that single gene changes were slowing down. The bursts of activity happened at key times, like before the chimps and humans diverged about ten million years ago. The duplications occurred where areas of previous duplications occurred, indicating that these areas rapidly evolve.

• Autism Ruling

  A court ruled that three patients whose children were autistic did not present enough evidence to convince the court that vaccines caused the illnesses. (Could you imagine the havoc is they had ruled the other way?) Despite the decision, parents will still be convinced that their children's autism was caused by vaccines. Or rain?.

• Bisphenol A Updates and Ultimatums

  Health Canada's Health Products and Food Branch and the FDA hosted a meeting of manufacturers and users of packaging materials to discuss strategies for understanding bisphenol A and reducing use of the chemical in consumer products. The FDA is scheduled to issue another round of BPA information on the safety of the chemical on February 24th. In the meantime, the city council of Chicago, in the US, is acting to restrict the chemical and has warned that if the FDA doesn't act by April 30th, it will. I'm sure certain chemical and toy associations are bearing down on Chicago as we speak.

Judd Gregg withdrew his name from consideration as Secretary of the US Department of Commerce yesterday. Early in his career, when CATO was pushing the idea and it was trendy, Gregg suggested that the department should be eliminated. This fact got some progressives apoplectic when Obama nominated him, although Gregg had been very supportive of certain parts of Commerce, like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Gregg's NOAA sponsorship paid off for New Hampshire, but many Republicans, would abolish NOAA, along with the parts of Commerce that oversee trade, the census, and programs to benefit minority businesses. ¹ The Financial Times noted today:

"The New Hampshire Republicans would have spared himself and Barack Obama...had the measure succeeded. Instead, the commerce department survived and, with it, the job of commerce secretary"¹

Paradoxically, if Commerce had been eliminated, Barack Obama would have been spared Gregg's waffling, but CATO, would-be killer of the Department of Commerce, would be in a pickle. Where would it turn to the get evidence it uses in arguments before Congress for unregulated free trade?

Even considering that Obama has said he is open to doing away with ineffective parts of government, and some arguments that the Department of Commerce is mostly heavy on http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0209/18836.html">partisan perks, it's clear that the appointment was never a good fit. Really, if you need to take the centennial census away from the guy you nominated to the department that oversees the census? Not exactly ISO 9000 level of trust.

But does Gregg's sudden realization that he doesn't want what he asked for, that he's not willing to endure a spot on the team of rivals, bode ill for Obama's "bipartisanship"? Well, the team of rivals is perhaps overrated, apparently "Chase and Seward and Cameron and Stanton were in fact a crew of venomous enemies, all of whom underestimated their leader." Who needs "rivals" when you have bloggers, anyway?

Gregg was apparently pressured by his party. Obama will not cease working across the aisle, said his administration. But Congress? Republicans? GOP strategists eat bipartisanship rhetoric up like the monsters on Rampage World Tour.

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¹ The photo was taken by NOAA. It shows Judd Gregg's wife signing the keel of a newly built NOAA ship in 2004. The ship was named by high school students as part of a program to engage students with scientific studies. The ship was named after Henry Bryant Bigelow, an oceanographer who worked as a researcher, instructor and professor of zoology at Harvard from 1906 to 1962, and who founded Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in 1931. The former Senator Trent Lott (R-MS), Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH), and Senator Thad Cochran (R-MS) were thanked at the "traditional keel laying ceremony".

Today is Charles Darwin's 200th birthday. Everyone knows about the HMS Beagle and his "On the Origin of Species", published in 1859. His work outlining evolution underlies much of science, studies of biology, animal behavior,evolution, microbiology, zoology.

His "On the Origin of Species" is considered his greatest contribution to science, but Darwin was also an avid geologist. Prodigious chronicler that he was, his theories were precipitated by lots of observation, collaboration, and, to be real, some humdrum moments that every scientist lives. Darwin published "Note on a Rock Seen on an Iceberg in 61o South Latitude", in the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London, Vol. 9, (1839). From the mate of a ship skippered by a colleague who had sailed in the Antarctic, he wrote of "a black spot" on "a distant iceberg." Learning the dimensions estimated by observation and drawing, Darwin wondered about the origin of these "erratic boulders", rocks deposited by glaciers, which he had been studying.

Based on the course of his colleagues vessel, and what was known of the area from "Cook in the year 1773", he thought the rock fragment must have rafted on an ice sheet from a distant land mass. At the time geologists debated about the existence of an ice age or a great flood. Boulders were part of the puzzle. Prevailing thought was that rocks were not transported by glacier movement. His pondering on erratic rocks continued, and in 1841 he published his influential "On the distribution of the Erratic Boulders and on the Contemporaneous Unstratified Deposits of South America".

As exciting a time as it was in the 18th century, it was also slow going. Correspondence occurred by letter, of which Darwin wrote over 2000. He triangulated his geographical knowledge of landmasses in the area of the dark spot his colleagues spied, with information for from over half a century earlier. Patience and perseverance, as well as creativity and insight, brought progress.

The excellent Darwin Correspondence Project collects Darwin's >2000 letters. "Darwin 200", from the London's Natural History Museum, lists some events celebratory events marking Darwin's birthday, some occurring throughout 2009.

• Globalization 3.0 -- Sneakers, Call Centers, Banking?

  When the Obama administration suggested a cap executive salaries for banks on national dole, news quickly bubbled up about all the loopholes behind the announcement. Bankers bristled at the mere idea of caps. It occurred to Bank of America that they really didn't need any federal money after all. Deutsche Bank cheekily predicted that US bankers would defect to Europe. But according to this news report, bankers don't earn as much in Europe or anywhere else as they do in the US. Not only that, excessive banker salaries are being criticized in Europe, Japan, and China, although in Japan and China bankers reportedly make about $400K per year. So far China's not recruiting US bankers, although they are recruiting scientists. Maybe someday soon, when bankers think the rules are too tough to grapple with in the US, they'll be able to seize the day in China.

• California Floods of the Future

  Rain may be causing consternation about flash floods in California, but scientists are thinking about even more intense flooding when global warming causes the seas to rise. A study by the U. of Oregon and University of Toronto published last week in Science, found that the melting Antarctic and resultant collapse of the ice sheet would cause sea levels to increase differently in different parts of the world.

  The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned that the Western Antarctic ice sheet would melt and cause the sea level to rise 5 meters. However this uniform rise of sea levels may not happen. Instead the seas will rise more in some places, like North America and the Indian Ocean, than others, like Antarctica.

  The paper's authors discuss with the NSF three effects that will contribute to the uneven rise in sea levels. Now, because of the ice-water gravitational attraction, the Antarctic ice sheet draws water to it. But as the ice sheet melts, less water will be drawn to it and more will flow to North America. Second, the Antarctic ice sheet now sits in a hole, caused partly by the weight of the ice mass. As that mass melts, the depression will become smaller -- so more water will flow to North America. Finally, the melting ice sheet would alter the rotational force of the Earth, so the South Pole will move, shifting water away from the pole to other places, like the west coast of the United States.

  In California, $2.5 trillion in real estate assets is endangered by climate change.

• Dams for Water -- And Quakes?

  Speaking of water damage, was the earthquake in China hastened by the dam? Scientists are suggesting that the weight of water in the Zipingpu reservoir, created by the massive Zipngdu dam in the Minjiang river affected the seismicity of the Beichaun fault a mile away and perhaps contributed to the timing and dynamics of the 7.9 Sichuan earthquake. The excellent movie "Up The Yangtze" followed the dam building on the lives of one family.

• Worst Job -- Marine Biologist?

  Rising seas, more marine biology? It was my dream job as a child, but apparently it doesn't suit everyone. Unable the get a job for three years as a graduating economist from UC Davis, Daniel Seddiqui set out to try 50 jobs in 50 states. His best job so far, he says, was border patrol, tracking immigrants on the border. His worst? Working as a marine biologist in Seattle. "Boring", he said. At the moment you can't find out the details of his ennui on account of the 404, but a couple other scientific-ish careers seemed to please him more. See him on Fox News or wait for the book.

• A World of Cheaters and Crooks?

  Some of Obama's recent picks for leadership positions have stepped aside with tax payment problems. Tom Daschle will not head Health and Human services. Nancy Killefer withdrew her name as chief performance officer. And Friday the Senate committee reviewing Rep. Hilda Solis's nomination for Labor Secretary canceled their meeting because of outstanding liens -- some 16 years old -- on Solis's husband's business. Timothy Geithner managed to get through with his much larger unpaid tax obligations, that's before we understood how trendy tax evasion was.

  While Republicans rally for some populist rage around these tax missteps, one "senior Democratic official" told the Financial Times (Feb. 3, 2009): "In practice, you have to make exceptions for individuals. Very few people can withstand such scrutiny." Really?? I will never apply then. How embarrassing would it be to admit to some wealth-conscious senatorial committee that my only perk is an annual Medecin Sans Frontieres map of the world's trouble spots?

• The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act: Senators Sing, Dance, and Beg for Phthalates and Lead

  The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act that goes into effect Tuesday will make it illegal for stores to sell products for children under twelve that contain dangerous levels of lead, and products for kids under three that contain dangerous levels of phthalates that cause deleterious effects on development in babies. Consumer groups were denied their request to delay the law by federal Consumer Product Safety Commission last week.

  But some US senators chafe at the idea of losing toys like the Valentine's Day mechanical singing-and-dancing plush animals with red plastic guitars -- the toxic lead containing "Wild Thing Gorilla", "Ain't Too Proud to Beg Dog", the "Sing & Dance Puppy". The LA Times reported last week that Sen. Robert F. Bennett (R-Utah) "introduced a bill Thursday that would postpone the law, and Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) introduced a stimulus package amendment that would block the law.

The Senate reached agreement on the stimulus bill, paring it down to around $800 billion dollars. Two of the categories of items we value, education and science, were lopped out of the bill. One of the education cuts the Senate made for instance, was to slash $40 billion from state governments' education costs.

Talking Points Memo (TPM) obtained an early version of programs likely to be axed. Some departments lost 100% of the money originally allotted to them. Here's a couple of items the Senate considers not worth funding:

• $500,000,000 from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA)
• $750,000,000 from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
• $1,402,000,000 from National Science Foundation (NSF)
• $427,000,000 from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
• $14,000,000 from DHS Cyber Security Research
• $5,185,000,000 Prevention and Wellness. $75M for smoking cessation, $400M for HIV testing, $60M for surveys, $1B for diabetes screening/detection, $870M for Pandemic Flu.

These cuts all have stories behind them, most of which we're not privy to. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), for instance, threatened to cut all NSF funding earlier this week. According to these initial cut proposals, it seems his threats materialized.

On the chopping block is NOAA, which is part of Commerce. NOAA is one of the departments that the "drown it in the bathtub" cabal always threatens to do away with. Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), who was chosen by Obama to lead the Department of Commerce, himself wanted to get rid of Commerce, however Gregg has always been highly supportive of NOAA, leading funding efforts for the agency.

Some of Congress's recent cut to the stimulus package make sense -- in a very macabre way. For instance once the Senate does away with:

• 1,000,000,000 from the DOE for Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy, and
• 4,500,000,000 from the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA) energy technology loan guarantee program, and emasculates other alternative energy programs aimed at energy efficiency and attenuating global warming.

Then we really won't be needing:

• $122,500,000 for the polar icebreakers and cutters. We'll just sail right through.

The Senate cleverly kills many birds with one stone.

Some of these cuts seem ill thought out, but there are still more negotiations to come. Hopefully our representatives will rally to restore some funding, or get critical items like science and education into different legislation.

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Update I : Many of these cuts were updated in negotiations in the Senate, and between the Senate and the House before the final bill was passed.

Update II 02/19: We updated the situation with science funding in "Science in the Stimulus Package, Part II"

Obama's Pronoun Switcheroo

Everyone wants change. Anyone who voted for Clinton, Obama or McCain voted for a candidate running on a "change" slogan. We voted for economic change, government change, education change, health care change, political change (not to mention science policy change). Obama ran and won the election on two change slogans.

First, the reassuring "Change You Can Believe In" that both Hillary Clinton and John McCain copied. Acronym Required wrote about "Obama's Change Challenge" last May. In September, Obama changed his slogan to "Change We Need".

At the time, Obama's Chief Strategist for the campaign, David Axelrod, bullshitted to reporters about the alteration: "It's not that we're moving away from it, but we're incorporating it...there's a real distinction between more of the same and the change we need and so that's a part."

Now Obama's PR group is slinging a new slogan change. As commentators clamor doubtfully about Obama's various choices and decisions, his change slogan changes again. As of tomorrow you can buy an inaugural poster of Obama which says "Be The Change".

Is that our best hope? Gandhi said "Be the Change You Want in The World". That may have been helpful half a century ago, coming from a sage man swaddled in muslin and leaning on a stick** -- but Obama! We believed!

The Obama camp pulled a not so subtle pronoun change -- from the implicit "I" will change things -- and you can believe in me; to "we" will change things, together, all of us; to the severing "you" are the only one who can change (anything). Ouch.

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**Not that I'm not a Gandhi fan. I even own the movie Gandhi now - it's the only movie I own. I requested it as a present just last month.

• USA Loves BPA

  The FDA, pressed to change its safety assessment of bisphenol A (BPA), announced this week that it needed to investigate the safety of BPA some more. It refused to defer to science on BPA, rather offered up this stalling device. Laura Tarantino, the director of the FDA's Office of Food Additive Safety said "I can't tell you when we will finalize this," she said. "There is a lot of work." Clearly the Bush administration wasn't going to besmirch its environmental record by ruling against BPA.

  Acronym Required has been following BPA in the USA for a few years. Hundreds of studies suggest BPA has negative health consequences.

• New's York's Soda Tax

  The state of New York will raise $404 million by taxing sugary sodas with an "obesity tax". The state is looking not only to raise money, but to help stem the obesity epidemic in a state where 1 in 4 citizens is considered obese by CDC standards. Although the state's obesity incidence increased by 14% since 1995, New York's obesity rates are actually lower than the national average of 1 in 3. The American Beverage Associaton decried the tax on "hard-working families", warning robotically that the new law could cost jobs.

  Acronym Required has written on the politics of the obesity epidemic, for instance in Childhood Obesity, The American Way"

• Stevia -- Safe says the FDA?

  The FDA cleared the used of a stevia extract for sodas this week, giving the substance a "generally recognized as safe" (GRAS) designation. Pepsi and Coke eagerly awaited clearance of rebaudioside A (rebiana), a compound from Stevia rebaudiana. Pepsi will start selling SoBe Lifewater nationwide next year. Coke will market rebiana sweetened Sprite Green. Coke will also begin sweetening its Odwalla fruit drinks with stevia. This has some scientists concerned.¹

  The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) is opposed to the FDA approval because the safety profile for the chemical is worrisome. Rebaudioside A is a steviol glycoside which is 40 to 300 times sweeter than sucrose. A review study by UCLA scientists notes that Rebaudioside A and its gut intermediary steviol are potentially mutagenic (PDF). Noting that the data on the chemical is sparse and conflicting, the study authors recommended:

  "the FDA should require carcinogenicity and toxicology studies in rats and in mice before accepting rebaudioside A as a GRAS substance or approving it as a food additive. Ideally, all those studies would be conducted by an independent party, such as the National Toxicology Program of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences."

  Consider the FDA's different regulatory approach with BPA. Over one hundred studies show deleterious effects of bisphenol A on behavior and health, yet the agency says it needs to do more research. But with rebaudioside A, there are a few conflicting and/or disturbing studies. Yet the FDA doesn't need more research. In "Phthalates and Bisphenol A: Media and Politics" we wrote:

  "If bisphenol A were a therapeutic drug going to market, instead of a chemical with an established global market, and there were 700 studies (LA Times) showing hormone effector effects in animals, but also "two dozen" human studies showing the same responses in humans -- therefore if bisphenol A, the hypothetical drug, had passed through the equivalent of Phase I safety, Phase II efficacy and was well into Phase III trials -- the stock of a certain pharmaceutical company would be skyrocketing based on the evidence. Financial analysts would be jumping up and down in their Aeron chairs predicting sales of the next blockbuster drug....But bisphenol-A is not a drug..."

  Rebaudioside A is not a drug but a sweetener that will bring in profits when kids slurp it down in their Odwalla fruit smoothies. So no holds barred by the FDA! CSPI calls the FDA's move premature and a parting gift by Bush to the soda companies.

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"Carbonated Water, caramel color, phosphoric acid, aspartame, potassium benzoate (preserves freshness), caffeine, natural flavor, acesulfame potassium, citric acid, calcium disodium EDTA (to protect flavor), Panax ginseng extract, phenylketonurics: contains phenylalamine"

I'm sure you could do more harm by adding rebaudioside A, but this isn't the most healthy assortment of ingredients to begin with. And I'm curious what "unfresh" carbonated Water, caramel color, phosphoric acid, and aspartame tastes like?

From Taiwan: BPA "Potentially Toxic"

Taiwan is considering listing bisphenol A (BPA) as a "potentially toxic substance". Companies that used BPA would be required to notify the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of Taiwan. Taiwan is one of the primary manufacturers of BPA in the world. ¹ The country produced 635 megatons of BPA in 2005, compared to about 2260 megatons produced in the US during the same year. Japan, Western Europe, Korea and South American also manufacture large quantities of BPA. (Chemical Week, October, 2005.)

From Canada: CBC's "Disappearing Male"

The Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) recently aired a program on bisphenol A called "The Disappearing Male", available here and at CBC. The program broached a subject that hasn't been discussed too much in the media, the effect of certain chemicals on male sexual development, both in humans and other species.

The report reviews the effects of plastics on health and environment according to scientists who have long sought to bring attention to the deleterious effects of endocrine disruptors. The film also reports on a Canadian town called Aamjiwnaang Canada, that sits by a toxic chemical plant, where girl babies outnumber boy babies by about 2:1.

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¹ We previously looked at the response of politicians to citizens' safety concerns in terms of the economics of bisphenol A in Canada and the US.

² The film also provides a brief demo on mouth pipetting.

If you find Acronym Required's 2008 Thanksgiving fare too glum, here's an excerpt from 2007:

The Spaniards fancied the turkey when they invaded Mexico where turkey was indigenous, and then introduced the bird to Europe when they returned in the early 1500's. However, during the expansion of the Ottoman Empire, turkeys were thought by northern Europeans to be a product of Turkey.

Europeans also for a time called turkeys "India fowl", then confused the turkey with "Guinea fowl" and gave turkeys the same Latin genus name: "Maleagris". The species name that they settled on, "gallopavo" combines the Latin for rooster and for peacock. From these confusing origins turkeys have long struggled with their identity. First they were put in their own family, Meleagrididae; but now scientists consider turkeys to be part of the pheasant family, Phasianidae, in the subfamily Mealeagidinae.

More on the history here at Thanksgiving, All Things Ottoman. Best wishes to all and Happy Thanksgiving to those readers who have a holiday.

Starbucks will give 5 cents to the Global Fund for every "RED EXCLUSIVE" beverage you buy. That would be 35 cents donated for a week's worth of hot beverages. Here's a nice Ted Talk essay on consumption that mentions the number of coffee cups discarded every day. If everyone instead gave up one coffee a week they would both spare the environment and be able to donate ~ $2.50- $3.50 a week to the Global Fund.

• Outsiders in a Networked World: In Bangkok, protesters brought airport traffic brought to a halt. In Mumbai terrorists attack. Indian newspapers have jumped to blame the attacks on Pakistan, India's nuclear armed neighbor, while the Prime Minister has said it was the work of "outsiders". Outsiders -- the universal troublemaker.

  Whoever it was, sought out people with British and American passports. [update 11/29/08, this is now disputed] The majority of people killed were Indians.

• Actions Have Consequences: South African president Thabo Mbeki spent his entire administration denying the link between the HIV virus and AIDS. Even when drugs were available, he encouraged people to fortify their immune systems with beetroot and garlic. A group of Harvard researchers reports (PDF) that Mbeki's failure to invest in antiretroviral drugs cost the country 365,000 lives, and 35,000 babies lives, a total of 3.8 million human years from 2000 to 2005. Says the soft-pedaling New York Times:

  : "the report has reignited questions about why Mr. Mbeki, a man of great acumen, was so influenced by AIDS denialists."

  Mbeki was so influenced by AIDS denialists, because he was so influenced by economists of a certain philosophy. Public health is almost always a casualty of a neoconservative-like agenda. Mbeki clearly rationalized how some lives were worth saving, while others weren't. A philosophy that can be born out by people of fine acumen.

  Barbara Hogan who is now the Minister of Health stated that the age of denialism is over.

• Living in Financial Times: We previously wrote about the plight of the underpaid, overqualified science-post doc. A recent Science feature explores financial careers for scientists. Scientists are still being hired in "droves" as quants and advisors for technology and science investments, notes the introductory article. Go forth to Wall Street armed with a Ph.D. How's that for optimism and opportunity? Also try film making, a low paying career with very few opportunities that we profiled last year.

• Turtles -- Swimming Out of Their Shell: Nature reports on an interesting paleontology find in Southeast China. The turtle fossil dates a new species of basal turtle, Odontochelys semitestacea, to 220 million years ago. This turtle is 14 million years older than than the oldest turtle fossils found in Germany. Analysis of previous fossils suggested that turtles had a land based evolution. These new fossils provide a different hypothesis for turtle evolution, that they were water creatures first. The researchers deduced this from evidence of a fully developed plastron (the lower belly shell), but no carapace (the upper flat part of the shell). The turtle of this fossile also had teeth. Scientists will chew over these new findings for a while.

• Crackberry Presidency: Obama's trying to convince various agencies to allow him to keep his Blackberrry, according to various news reports, and as he told Barbara Walters last night. He said he doesn't want to become isolated, surrounded only by a few advisers.

Some recent news:

• Plastic Bombastic In Everything You See -- In Your Soup, In Your Turkey Dinner, Even In Your Tea:

  Like the San Francisco Chronicle before them, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal recently sent some plastic products to the lab for independent testing. In 2006, the Chronicle reported the bisphenol A and phthalate lab analysis results for a couple of dozen toys it had tested at an independent lab.The Chronicle's lab found that toys like a rubber duck, a Baby Einstein rattle, and a Goldberger doll had high levels of phthalates or BPA.

  The Milwaukee Sentinel sent products labeled "microwave safe" to a lab to see if the plastic products leached BPA. They did. The American Chemical Council denied the results of this study (and hundreds of others), saying there's no research whatsoever that shows anything bad about BPA.

• Plastic Classics:

  900,000 pounds of Lean Cuisine frozen chicken dinners will be recalled by Nestle Prepared Foods Co. because customers found chunks of blue plastic in Cafe Classics Pesto Chicken with Bow Tie Pasta, Spa Cuisine Chicken Mediterranean and Dinnertime Selects Chicken Tuscan. A USDA spokesperson warned that "a piece of plastic could cut your mouth, it could scratch your throat."

  Consumers are left to speculate about what happened as they toss their TV Dinners and pull into the Old Spaghetti Factory. Did someone on the assembly line pull the blue dye lever instead of the green one that gives that authentic look to the oregano and basil flecks? Nestle traced the plastic to one mean Lean Cuisine facility but hasn't divulged what piece of machinery dissassembled into their cuisine.

• Melamine and Me:

  While the US lambasts China for a regulatory system that allows melamine into the food chain, the New York Times reports that melamine is all around us in products made in the US, cleaning products, plywood, plastics, ink and paint all contain melamine. However yes, the author concedes, "[t]o be sure, in China some food manufacturers deliberately added melamine to products to increase profits."

• FDA in China: "An Ant Standing Against a Flood":

  That's what one company executive told the Washington Post in response to news that the FDA is opening offices in three cities in China to more closely oversee some of the regulation functions. The agency will post thirteen inspectors to the country this week.

• There's Research...Then There's "Research":

  The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia surveyed 51 economic forecasters who unanimously conclude that the United States is in a recession. The gloom and doom predicted by economists however, isn't matched with by stock analysts research according to a report by Thomson Reuters Starmine.

  US analysts rated 48.6% of the stocks they cover as "buy", compared to 49% last year. Only 6.7% of US analyst ratings were sell, the lowest of all countries surveyed, and the rest -- about 45% were "neutral" or "hold." According to the Financial Times article which reported on the overly "rosy" predictions, William Herkelrath, StarMine's US sell-side specialist said: "'the use of the word 'neutral' here really does mean: 'stay away.'"

The Bush administration is busy trying to push through 90 new laws with abbreviated public comment periods and accelerated rule-making procedures. Many of these last-minute laws would benefit industry by reducing regulation. Earlier this month OMB Watch summarized some of the action items the Bush administration is trying to roll out before the end of the 43rd presidential term. Some of the alarming changes would devastate certain environmental protections and affect the EPA's oversight of the environment. The proposed changes include:

• Allowing mining companies to dump refuse into rivers and streams.
• Weakening the Endangered Species Act.
• Allowing factory farm run-off to pollute streams.
• Loosening regulations on placing power plants near national parks.
• Exempting factory farms from reporting air pollution.
• Loosening ocean fishing management regulations.
• Doing nothing about oil refinery toxic emission control which Congress mandated.

In other odious news, a Department of the Interior rule proposed at the beginning of the year would get rid of the ban against carrying loaded firearms in National Parks. 77% of retired National Park Service employees oppose this change. The Park Service might be thinking along the lines of, how would you like to run into a retired Vice President Cheney taking popshots at birds while you're hiking with your family though the Grand Tetons? The other danger is that lifting the ban would increase "impulse" kills of wildlife by gun-toting hikers.

Some more Bush rules, these from the Department of Health and Human services, would allow healthcare workers to deny certain services that they morally oppose, and would strengthen the requirements on certain HIV and AIDS grantees to explicitly oppose prostitution and sex trafficking. These populations are the very populations that most need the services and education about HIV/AIDS, and who are at risk of spreading the disease throughout the population.

The only good news is that some of these rules are the type of regulations that the Obama administration plans to reverse. The administration appointed Susan Wood to be co-chair of the president-elect's advisory committee for women's health. She recently told Bloomberg News: "We have been going in the wrong direction and we need to turn it around and be promoting prevention and family-planning services and strengthening public health."

However OMB Watch warns:

The next president will be unable to repeal or reverse any Bush-era regulations that are final and in effect. Short of actions taken by the courts in the face of potential lawsuits, the new administration's only option would be to restart the rulemaking process. A typical rulemaking can take years to complete.

The Washington Post reports that the Obama team is targeting administrative actions and executive orders that would be quickly undone "to reverse White House policies on climate change, stem cell research, reproductive rights and other issues, according to congressional Democrats, campaign aides and experts..."

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Acronym Required Wrote on Susan Wood's resignation from the FDA over the agency's handling of Plan B in 2005 and 2006 in "FDA -- Calling Off The Dogs" and The FDA's Medical Ideology". Acronym Required writes often about environmental regulation, or the lack thereof, and about the EPA.

More on Joe the Scientist

A couple of weeks ago we wrote in "Joe the Scientist Takes His Hits" about the middling wages of science post-docs. In a related article published by Science last week, Beryl Benderly notes in "Taken for Granted: Joe the Plumber and the Postdocs", that becoming a science graduate student used to mean a 4-6 year apprenticeship with a Ph.D. and academic job at graduation -- Ph.D. meaning, "teacher of philosophy".

These days Ph.D. training is followed by one or more 1-4 year post-doc positions. At some unidentified time some position follows, usually 6-10 years later -- and most likely not in academia. That "implicit contract" is broken, says Benderly. She writes on the movement by Ph.D. candidates and post-docs at some universities to join labor unions. The protections these scientists in training seek from the labor unions used to be offered by the "craft unions" the students joined as graduate students, writes Benderly. Graduate students and post-docs are no longer "promising aspirants to a prestigious trade", she says, but "employees of large organizations" -- universities.

The reality of the situation is well-illustrated by employment statistics. According to Georgia State economist Paula Stephan's 2005 analysis of data from the National Science, the number of graduated biomedical Ph.D.'s younger than 35 grew 60% from 1993 to 2001. However the number of tenure-track academic positions grew by only 7%. The probability that a young Ph.D. holds a tenure track position is now 6.9%. Yet 40-50% of incoming graduate students in biomedical research hope to get tenured faculty positions. These number don't factor in the increase in non-academic positions, however Stephan says that these openings don't accommodate all graduates either. ¹

Ph.D., Postdoc Training? Now For Your "Real" (ha, ha, ha) Career.

Despite the cries of from high-tech executives about lack of talent, the real problem, according to Stephan, is the lack of both federal and industry opportunities, not only in the US, but in other western countries. As many people know, there's a fine supply of scientists, biomedical as well as engineering, physics and other sciences. Here's a good summary of the situation (with humor) from a few years back. Industry constantly lobbies to hire more foreign labor in order to keep wages and benefit costs low. But there's a a real lack of demand that keeps many highly trained professionals underemployed, and persuades many a would-be-scientist to pursue other careers.

There's no pressure to change the system, where the many students trained very specifically in sciences will never use those skills. As Stephan's sees it, the post-doc system takes the pressure off faculty who take on Ph.Ds to amend the system. If all US students bowed out of science graduate education there's still plenty of supply from international students, for whom a US graduate degree is very valuable without a US faculty job at the end.

The "implicit contract", has actually long been dead. Back in April, we wrote a post, "For Glory of State, Primacy of Science", commenting on Charlie Rose's show about the state of science called "The Imperative of Science". The speakers agreed that all citizens should be more conversant in science. Some even went as far as to say that all citizens should have lab experience.

Dr. Harold Varmus, one of the speakers, spoke on expanded roles for trained scientists. He said that more and more scientists trained to the Ph.D. or post-doc level were now pursuing "journalism, biotech, law, and policy". He said that these were often referred to as "alternative careers"; which, he said, laughing, was a "somewhat disparaging term"; but, Varmus insisted, they're "real careers." It was the laugh that proceeded his insistence that puzzled me. Is it a "real career" -- or not? If so, do you really need 10 years of benchwork in a faculty science lab to get there?

¹ "Job Market Effects on Scientific Productivity." Presented at Programme 2005-2006 Du "Seminaire D'Enseignment Superior"

Autism's Dubious Research

They're back with an updated theory!! In "Autism, TV, Precipitation: Dismal Science", we wrote a farcical post about a study by economists Waldman et al. at Cornell, who posited that television watching and rainfall caused autism. The lead author attempted to stoke interest in a theory he developed while raising his autistic son by publishing a study. The team collected sketchy data sets and resolved the gaps with statistics, achieving tenuous results and conclusions.

Mark Waldman's paper caused the stir he probably wanted, eliciting ample coverage from the press, lay audiences, and patient families. But some scientists and economists felt the study was not properly rigorous or peer-reviewed. ¹ Joseph Piven, director of Neurodevelopmental Disorders Research Center at the University of North Carolina, said of the study and underlying data, "It is just too much of a stretch to tie this to television-watching...[W]hy not tie it to carrying umbrellas?"

So a year later, Waldman did exactly that. Instead of linking autism to television and rain, the authors linked autism only to rain, using data presented in their original report. This version is called "Autism prevalence and precipitation rates in California, Oregon, and Washington counties". It was published it in the medical journal Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine -- a nice coup for the authors.

Stay Tuned

Noel Weiss, MD, wrote the accompanying editorial in, titled "Precipitation and Autism: Do These Results Warrant Publication?". Yes, said Weiss, even though in "my opinion that this observation may well not lead to any insights into the etiologies of autism". He added: "the authors' analysis and the editor's decision to publish it are to be lauded, despite the uncertain ultimate contribution of this work and the possibility (likelihood?) that nonprofessionals are going to misinterpret and misuse it." The research isn't for parents, he indicated, who only need to "stay tuned" -- it's for researchers. Apparently over 100 news media who published the findings to the public didn't get the message.

Someone on the Huffington Post recently embellished Waldman's thesis by adding the discounted mercury theory of autism to the dubious rainfall theory, then proposing that the rain pulls the mercury out of the atmosphere, causing higher rates of autism.

Adjust your antennae for updates.

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¹ We also wrote "Autism Research Revisted", commenting on a a Wall Street Journal article that asked if economists were qualified to study autism. We suggested this was the wrong question.

YAY!

It's a new day.

"...His triumph was decisive and sweeping, because he saw what is wrong with this country: the utter failure of government to protect its citizens. He offered a government that does not try to solve every problem but will do those things beyond the power of individual citizens: to regulate the economy fairly, keep the air clean and the food safe, ensure that the sick have access to health care, and educate children to compete in a globalized world..." (NYT)¹

Yes, there's work to do. Yes, it will be difficult. But today we recognize how much America's just accomplished.

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¹Obama won despite warnings about possible GOP ballot fraud stemming from information dribbling out of the Ohio trial concerning 2004 Ohio ballot fraud. In the latest episode, Michael Connell, a consultant whose firm has been accused of computer manipulation, denied knowing anything about GOP rigging the 2004 Ohio election results. Connell works for Randy Cole. Cole owns 15 companies that work simultaneously on GOP election campaigns (Bush/Cheney 2000/2004, McCain 2008, many others), anti-Abortion groups and churches, GOP mass mailings, government contracts, etc. Stephen Spoonamore, a key witness in the trial brings the allegations, explains in a multi-part series starting here.

Stud's Terkel passed away October 31st at the age of 96. Robert Ebert, who had known him for years, described him as a man of "boundless curiosity and bottomless memory" -- a great listener. He was blacklisted during McCarthyism along with his wife -- Hoover thought he was subversive. In turn, Terkel suspected that Hoover "had a lifelong suspicion of those who thought the Constitution actually meant something". As Ebert put it:

"Was he the greatest Chicagoan? I cannot think of another. For me, he represented the joyous, scrappy, liberal, generous, wise-cracking heart of this city. If you met him, he was your friend. That happened to the hundreds and hundreds of people he interviewed for his radio show and 20 best-selling books. He wrote down the oral histories of those of his time who did not have a voice. In conversation he could draw up every single one of their names."

Ebert writes on Terkel here. Studs Terkel's recorded conversations with people across the U.S. bringing poignant humanity to subjects that many people would have just as soon dodged. He wrote books -- Division Street , on Chicago and immigration; Hard Times, on the great depression; The Good War, on World War II, Race, Coming of Age, Hope Dies Last: Keeping the Faith in Difficult Times, and more. His radio show ran for 25 years, and each night he signed off "Take it easy, but take it."

Terkel was always up to something. Last year, among many activities, he joined a suit against telecoms for wiretapping done at the bequest of the Bush administration. Acronym Required commented on his commentary in the New York Times concerning granting the companies immunity from lawsuits. We quoted his comment about living in the last century: "nothing much surprises me anymore. But I always feel uplifted by this: Given the facts and an opportunity to act, the body politic generally does the right thing." As Ebert said, he missed the upcoming election, but he didn't miss much else.

Several recent studies measuring biodiversity have found significant losses due to global warming and human activity. We know of course, that this has been happening for a while, but its good to be reminded of the path we're headed down. The scale of these species losses is challenging to fathom, and will be challenging to stem.

• In the latest issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a group of Stanford scientists found significant amphibian decline in Yellowstone National Park. The researchers found that the number of permanently dry ponds in the northern end of the park increased 4-fold due to changes in the park including rises in annual temperature and decreases in precipitation and snow packs. McMenamin et al found in "Climatic change and wetland desiccation cause amphibian decline in Yellowstone National Park" (doi: 10.1073/pnas.0809090105) that three amphibian species suffered significant declines in numbers since the 1990's. Ambystoma tigrinu decreased by 50%, Bufo boreas decreased by 68%, Pseudacris triseriata; and Rana luteiventris decreased by 75%. The numbers of a fourth species did not decrease -- Bufo boreas however, the scientists found only eggs or juveniles of that endangered species.


• In another PNAS article scientists from Boston University and Harvard found that 27% of the species documented by Thoreau in his studies of Walden Pond in Concord Massachusetts in the 1850's are now gone. The article "Phylogenetic patterns of species loss in Thoreau's woods are driven by climate change" (doi: 10.1073/pnas.0806446105) Another 36% were found in low numbers. The temperatures in Concord rose 4 degress Fahrenheit during that time.


• In the UK, the Department for Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs found that the number of "breeding pairs of farmland birds" is down 62% due to changes in agricultural processes including the use of chemicals and the decrease in mixed farming. Some species have decreased by more than 85%, and the several are now extinct.

Biodiversity is important for many reasons, some of which are documented in the book: "Sustaining Life: How Human Health Depends on Biodiversity". Eric Chiverian and Aaron Bernstein edit the book, with contributions by 100 scientists. The book takes the perspective that losing species will impact humans in many ways, including incidence of infectious disease, medical research, and food supplies.

A UCLA study published in the Neurobiology of Aging found that age related decreases in myelin correlate to decreased motor function after the age of 39. The researchers suggest that sensory and cognitive processing speeds are also effected by the loss of myelin.

That would be problematic for scientists. The age at which U.S. researchers get their first NIH grant increased from 34.3 in 1970 to 41.7 in 2004, according to a recent paper on arxiv.org by Yves Gingras et al. The authors studied 13,680 university science professors and showed that productivity rises between 28-40, rises more slowly between 41-50 and decreases until 50-55 years old. Although it's a measure with limited value, the authors counted "productivity" as published papers. For multi-author papers the study credited one paper per listed author. In short, the study found that scientists still produce papers up through retirement, publish in well respected journals, and are cited more frequently.

Neither study is earth shattering, but there's value to aging. Motor processing does slow down, but other studies have shown that with some motor function, movement accuracy improves, compensating for decreased speed. For many reasons, lab dynamics, prestige, networking, etc., older scientists may not publish more, but their quality of production (by measures by which people judge, anyway) may increase.

Book Search, More, Better

Google recently reached a settlement with the Author's Guild and the Association of American Publishers, which will pave the way for digitization of copyrighted books for on-line use. The authors and publishers brought suits against Google in 2005, accusing the company of copyright infringement. Google wanted to digitize books for internet perusal, but the publishers had their own opinion of that: "They keep talking about doing this because it is going to be good for the world. That has never been a principle in law. They 'do no evil' except they are stealing people's property."

Google paid $125 million to settle the suit, which will cover legal fees and fund the Book Rights Registry, to be modeled after the music industry's copyright clearing house ASCAP. Google will structure a deal to put thousands of digitized books on the web. Readers will be able to access books or buy a digitized copy and publishers and authors will get some percentage of the customer fees.

Newspapers Stop Printing

Print is steadily moving on-line. The Christian Science Monitor announced yesterday that it will soon (just about) cease printing:

"in April 2009 the daily print edition of The Christian Science Monitor will shift to a 24/7 daily Web publication. This will be combined with the launch of an attractive new weekly print publication that looks behind the headlines..."

The continued cuts to newspapers is not always seen as a good thing. Some papers aren't ready to give up their print editions (with much more lucrative advertising than on-line). Instead they cut staff. Noted one commenter:

New Jersey, a petri dish of corruption, will have to make do with 40 percent fewer reporters at The Star-Ledger, one of the few remaining cops on the beat. The Los Angeles Times, which toils under Hollywood's nose, has one movie reviewer left on staff.

As everyone knows, this won't be too good for many blogs and on-line media outlets either.

And Textbooks?

The textbook publishing industry should be next to change models and offer more open content. Congress recently passed a law that helps keep textbook prices transparent to students, professors and colleges. Six states have similar laws.

In the past couple of years the textbook and learning divisions of several publishing companies have changed hands, including Houghton Mifflin in the US to Riverdeep, Thomson Learning, Worters Kewer's educational arm, and Reed Elsevier's Harcourt Education. The companies weren't adept at changing their business strategy to meet the increasingly web savvy customer base, and alternative on-line options were increasing. Although five textbook publishers have now launched CourseSmart to offer online textbooks cheaper, it's not clear that this is a burgeoning enterprise.

In addition to the "traditional" textbook model, the Christian Science Monitor mentioned in a recent article a couple of "radical" textbook alternatives. One, Connexions (cnx.org), is a project of Rice University. Connexions offers Creative Commons licensed learning tools that are "non-linear modules" authored by independent authors and hosted on their site. The Connexions philosophy is based on their contention that the traditional textbook "system is broken." California State University has a site called Merlot, which I can't say I understand after spending, well, not very much time browsing through. There's also Wikibooks, and of course many professors simply write their own books from lecture notes.

Once Red State - Blue State, Now Internetland - Radioland?

The news is all economy and election: Warren Buffet, accustomed to being courted by the press, software tycoons and presidential candidates flexes his muscles and asks that everyone go buy stocks. The people totally ignore him. Greenspan rears his head, a haunting apparition, moaning about 'the one thing he didn't know'...The market swoons again....

Sarah Palin goes for the rich little poor girl image...McCain supporters stage increasingly hostile and bizarre threats to Obama supporters and all the media...The liberal Internet pulls for a landslide Democrat win that I believe parts of the blogosphere could accomplish by sheer force of editorial will. The liberal-nets feature daily reports from conservatives and their sons and daughters and commentators who either disapprove or are defecting from the Republican Party (Goldwater,Schwartzenegger, Powell, Buckley, Brooks, Adelman...) If Huff Po ran out of Republican offspring essays to feature I'm sure campaign enthusiasm would give editorial space to increase the pixel size of their headlines from 70-80 to 700.

Bloggers predict that the internet is bringing an end to the era of Rove style politics...Karl Rove writes a letter to the editor of Harper's to point out that Grover Norquist, not him, said: "We can go to students at Harvard and say, 'There is now a secure retirement plan for Republican operatives'"

The media talks about back-stabbing and Republican Hill staff's curriculum vitae reportedly flying out to corporations...Nobody's too happy that Imelda Palin spends a lot on make-up in addition to shoes. (Still, I think it's way to soon too start cheerfully humming 'We never promised you a rose garden')

Meanwhile in science news:

The Oddities in Commodities

• Chinese Milk Scandal: We last reported on melamine in milk made in China when the tainted milk had killed three kids and sickened a couple of thousand. Now 5000 are hospitalized in China, and products across the world are found to be toxic with melamine. Along with the "rabbit hole" of the economic despair and the "rabbit hole" of the McCain's campaign strategy, there's the imported melamine tainted "White Rabbit" candies found on candy shelves throughout the world. The United Nations noted this week that the Chinese government's oversight system needs "urgent review and revision".
  
  
• Scientists are Eager to Explore your Genome: Last month Sergey Brin advertised on his blog that his genome indicated an increased risk of Parkinson's. This week George Church announced the first 10 volunteers had signed up for the Personal Genome Project and release parts of their genetic information and medical records to Harvard investigator. Church is "hoping to offset ethical concerns" that the data may breed discrimination in jobs, health insurance and how volunteers and their families are perceived."

  Before you sign up, the "Personal Genome Project" wants you to know a couple of things. On the positive side they say you're doing good for "society" and your "donation" (if you will) might allow you to indulge in a little "self-curiosity". One possible negative they mention is that someone could "claim statistical evidence that could affect employment or insurance or the ability to obtain financial services for the participant."

• Open Access: In "Publish and be Wrong", earlier this month, the Economist pointed to a PLoS Medicine article that argues the science publishing model is seriously flawed. According to he authors, there's a false scarcity of publication slots at top science journals, and the criteria for publication doesn't assure that quality papers get published.

  The weight of the article rests with its title: "Why Current Publication Practices May Distort Science". Along with some familiar points, the writers offer shaky economic comparisons, vague criticism and recommendations. In one line of argumentation, the authors rework the idea that journals should include more negative results and fewer positive results. However its hard to see how publishing negative results (along with analysis, peer review, time) would help solve the problem of too much data and too few publication outlets, which is their primary concern. Peer review is so flawed they say, let's allow the more unprepared, less science literate readers, as opposed to scientists familiar with the research, sort through the data. Make sense?

  The team writes that many top journal publication results turn out to be flawed, and bases this on previous research by lead author John Ioannidis, an epidemiologist at Ioannina School of Medicine, Greece, who in 2005 wrote "Why Most Published Research Findings Are False". I didn't pick through the 2005 study, but assuming his assertions are true -- for the sake of discussion -- lots of published results get overturned. Therefore as I read it, lots of research is "negative", but published. So why isn't that "negative" research coveted as much by the authors of the current PLoS Medicine as the unpublished "negative" research they say are so important?

  Ioannidis et al assert that "scientific information is a commodity" and say there's a "moral imperative" to consider how its judged and disseminated. Maybe so, but if that then why separate the publishing from the foundation that its built upon (academia, tenure, granting)? And to be consistent, can we talk about drugs as commodities? And the moral imperative for generics?

  There's more to say, but in short, from my view, some of the most spurious research emanates from public relations departments of universities, or lobbyists in the form of press releases. Some of the most flawed research (sometimes what seems like reworked press releases) shows up in esteemed media outlets (for instance FT and the related Economist). And if I were a certain type of policy advocate who wanted to push policy under the guise of science I'd welcome the chance to elevate my editorial -- I'd pay to publish my "research" in PLoS Medicine along with all the genuine great research, and if I got rejected there than I'd settle for PLoS One, with all its real research. Upon publication I'd mail out press releases touting my PLoS research.

  Sure we have far from a perfect system, but open access has its pitfalls too.

  Along with Ioannidis, the collaborating authors are Neal Young, an MD at the NIH, and Omar Al-Ubaydli, an assistant professor of economics at George Mason University and a research fellow at the Mercatus Center.

Seen In Space

• India to the moon: India is aiming for the nation's first lunar exploration by putting an unmanned spacecraft, Chandrayaan1, into orbit for a 2 year mission on the moon.
  
  
• NF₃: The journal nature Nature reports that scientists found much higher levels of nitrogen trifluoride 3 from plasma TV's in the atmosphere then they had predicted.3 replaced perfluorcarbons and is "12,000-20,000 times more efficient at trapping heat than carbon dioxide". A UC Irvine scientist correctly predicted earlier this year that the emission rate of the chemical was more that previously assumed by scientists. An alternative technology to the plasma screens is LCD screens.

Picking Teams

• The American Bar Association lists lawyers who might be chosen by Obama or McCain to serve their administrations. For Obama they list Robert Sussman for the EPA, a former Clinton administration deputy administrator. They name Cass Sunstein as possible White House Policy Advisor (a libertarian, but "no idealogue" writes ABA). Sunstein has written extensively on various topics; see for instance "The Paralyzing Principle" about the precautionary principle in the December, 2002-2003 issue of Cato's journal Regulation. ABA also picked Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick as possible attorney general choice.

The The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institute awarded the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to Luc Montagnier and Francoise Barre-Sinoussi for their discovery of the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS. Montagnier is the director of the World Foundation for AIDS Research and Prevention in Paris. Barre-Sinoussi works in the virology department at the Pasteur Institute in Paris. The two scientists split the prize with Dr. Harald zur Hausen of the University of Dusseldorf who discovered the viruses that cause genital warts and cervical cancer.

The Nobel Prize committee commended the French scientists for their work identifying the virus that caused AIDS, work that established the foundation for further scientific characterization of HIV. In the 1980's Montangier and Barre-Sinoussi isolated and cultured cells from the lymph nodes of patients suspected to be infected with acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). In lab experiments they found the enzyme retroviral enzyme reverse transcriptase, which indicated the presence of a retrovirus in the lymph nodes. They then infected lymphocytes from donors with their retrovirus and found that the virus killed healthy lymphocytes which helped show that this virus was the infectious agent responsible for changing the immune response in the body and causing AIDS.

The discovery of the HIV virus was contentious, with US scientist Robert Gallo and Luc Montagnier each saying that they were first to discover the virus. Some early news media reports on the discovery in the 1980's said that the French team discovered the virus, while others indicated it was Gallo who first identified the virus. The French and US teams published papers in 1983 and 1984, and each filed patent claims for their discovery. It got a little heated with both teams vying not only for recognition but for the profits associated with the development of the test for HIV. New Scientist called the long running dispute "the tackiest sagas in the history of medicine..." (albeit with a lot at stake)

The two governments led by President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Jacques Chirac finally agreed to let both teams share recognition for the discovery. You can get a sense of how sharing worked for them in an article published in Scientific American in 1988 (when the magazine actually published full length articles). Gallo and Montagnier wrote the article, describing the scientific unraveling of the AIDS mystery at length and punctuating the interesting account with "clarifiers": "one of us ([Gallo or Montagnier])" or "the other of us [(insert name)]. Gallo later acknowledged that the strain of the HIV virus the French isolated had contaminated his lab's work. On yesterday's announcement of the Nobel Prize both teams cordially commended the other for the work each did.

The Nobel Foundation will announce more prizes this week and next. The physics prize was awarded today to three physicists from Japan and the US for their discovery of nature's broken symmetry. The announcement for the prize in Chemistry will be tomorrow. Literature and Peace will follow this week, with the Economics prize awarded next Monday.

It's the Economy and the Election...

When US citizens wake up each morning wondering what they might have lost from their retirement accounts overnight, and what they inadvertently gained: i.e., one morning you learn you're part owner of a gargantuan mortgage business, the next you find yourself lassoed into a giant insurance collective -- no one knows what's next. Will there be a knock on your door tomorrow AM and someone waiting to press a hoe into your hand?

When congress says they're reeling, they're "stunned" from the news delivered by the Fed at their big powwow last night, and when the press is overwhelmed with the ups and downs of an off-the-charts financial crisis and the back and forth poll numbers for McCain and Obama, we completely understand that you can't give science your usual riveted attention. With the Fed sucking up all these great liabilities and throwing the whole the "government needs to get out of the way of business" idea out the window -- or did we just all misunderstand what that really meant -- we agree that reading up on monetary policy and investigating your own sense of what "full-scale panic" means might be your highest concern.

Sure the future of permafrost is interesting, cell culture research and science curriculum really important, and yes, these things should definitely claim our attention and that of all four candidates. But I'm distracted wondering why GOP VP nominee Sarah Palin canceled more appearances in the last few days than the number of heavyweights the Republicans have pulled in to play defense in Troopergate. Palin's appearances have been canceled in Seattle & the Eastside, Virginia Beach, Dayton, Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Tampa and Central Florida, Virginia Beach, Cincinatti, Jackson Hole, and all of California, as well as other places. Did McCain shoo her off-stage with Fiorina to be seldom seen and not heard? Is she cramming for a American Politics 101 final? Dental work? Did she she see a Russian tanker trawling the water out her dining room window? Nervous breakdown? Sure the also "hot" Cindy McCain will replace Palin at some events, but there's got to be some disappointed Palin admirers.

Anyway, we tear ourselves away from those massive shim-sham distractions (for the moment), in order to glance at some recent science-ish news.

Some Science Headlines

• Thousands Tens of thousands of babies are sick and several have died from Chinese baby formula contaminated with melamine that compromises kidney function. This is the same chemical that was found in pet food imported from China to the U.S. last year. Officials in Singapore, Hong Kong and Bangladesh Yemen, Gabon, Burundi and Myanmar express concern that the tainted products might be available to consumers their countries also.

  Melamine has also be found in milk, yogurt and ice cream in China and Hong Kong. In 2007 the FDA found that US manufacturers of animal feed had also adulterated their product with melamine.

  Earlier this year, contamination of US supplies of heparin led the FDA to investigate and find myriad problems in the oversight process of the imported product. The agency discovered quality control issues, ranging from agency confusion about the real name of a Chinese plant that went un-inspected; to the crude processing methods of the pigs intestine in family-style workshops". Experts admonished drug makers (after the fact) that the shortage of pigs in China due to blue-ear disease should have served as a red flag to the possibility of spiked heparin.

  Heads will certainly roll (figuratively if not literally) in China over the milk scandal, but an overall plan about how to prevent the next batch of fatalities has yet to emerge. In this instance, neither US and Canadian health agencies have found melamine contamination in their milk products.

• In other news, the FDA has banned 31 drugs manufactured for export to the US by the Indian company Ranbaxy, based on an inspection of the company's Dewas plant that revealed cracked equipment, unsterilized and unclean preparation areas, inadequate procedure specification, and sporadic documentation of testing and cleaning.

  Yesterday, in response, Ranbaxy announced that it had hired Rudy Giuliani, last seen speaking on behalf of McCain at the GOP convention, to help lobby the US agency.

• Also: Environmentalists cheered last year when Florida penned an agreement to buy land in the Everglades from the sugar industry. Interestingly, some of those who pressed hardest for the move were free-market conservatives and groups such as the Cato Institute. Sugar subsidies were instituted back in the 1930's, but the industry has since shrunk, and been monopolized by a few firms whose prices were kept artificially high with the subsidies, crowding out foreign competitors. The Fanjuls, an entrepreneuring family originally from Cuba, own one of two Florida companies that control most of the sugar consumed in the US. Last Sunday the New York Times ran a great article about the buyout, digging deeper into some of the issues complicating the deal, and questioning whether the company actually arranged for their land to be lucratively bought out by the state when its business began to suffer in the downturn.

• In infectious disease news: The CDC estimates that 90,000 people die in the US each year from institution acquired infections from antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Science reports this week that the "perfect storm" of antibiotic resistance and diminished reserves of medicines portends trouble The situation not only demands new drugs, according to Science, it requires new drug targets.

  The journal summarizes two recent studies that work in this direction. In the first, a group of scientists created a class of synthetic antibacterials effective against staphylococci including methicillin and multi-drug resistant Staphylococcus aureus.(D. J. Haydon et al., Science 321, 1673 (2008)) The chemicals target specific proteins responsible for cell division. The August 22nd issue of Sciencecontained a report from another group who found a molecule that inhibits the gene which causes virulence and is turned on when certain conditions occur as the host responds to the infection. (D. A. Rasko et al., Science 321, 1078 (2008))

  On the prevention side of things, researchers at the University of Illinois found that tetracycline resistance genes can most likely be transferred from animal to animal in large hog containment areas into groundwater that feeds the public water supply. This could be one way that antibiotics used in feed to prevent infection and promote growth are adding to the overall problem of antibiotic resistance.

  And to get a sense of how far our understanding about microbes and mechanisms of infection, read up on Stanley Falkow from Stanford University, who was one of five scientists honored with a Lasker prize for his work on microbes and aspects of antibiotic resistance.

• Iran has detained AIDS doctors Dr Kamiar Alaei and his brother Dr Arash Alaei since late June. (via Nature News) The two were known world-wide for working to prevent and treat the disease, and for tackling issues around HIV/AIDS in model ways, for a country which long denied that HIV/AIDS was anything but a "Western Disease". Their disappearance in late June has drawn global concern and calls from various physician groups for the Iranian President to answer questions about the whereabouts of the AIDS doctors. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is scheduled appearance at a UN meeting next week.

• In other news: Both McCain and Obama have now submitted answers to questions about their science policy gathered by ScienceDebate2008. Some of their statements have been published here at the LA Times also. Several other science groups have submitted a document for both campaigns that lays out strategy for the incoming president on science and technology policy. Obama has named five science advisers who would serve his administration.

• Now for some old news: Last May the Anchorage Daily News (ADN), Sarah Palin tried to obfuscate the contents of report written by state scientists that supported the federal scientists' decision of list polar bear as an endangered species. Palin wrote in an editorial in the New York Times January 5, 2008: "I strongly believe that adding them to the list is the wrong move at this time. My decision is based on a comprehensive review by state wildlife officials of scientific information from a broad range of climate, ice and polar bear experts." But the state's biologists agreed with the federal assessment. Palin is has also been criticized for her positions on global warming, oil and gas drilling, Exxon Valdez oil spill damages, and the Endangered Species Act. Why does this sound so familiar to me?

Oops, we've inadvertently gone full circle, escaping politics with science then allowing ourselves to get whooshed back into the politics. But why not wonder about Palin? There's no outro to this post. We wonder what science policy would really be like in a McCain government, or in an Obama government? More like China? More like India? More of the same? Same, same but "different"? Science and technology depends on politics and government. We may think we know what science and technology looks like in an "extreme" market economy, we've seen its penultimate apex during the Bush administration. ¹ But lets not forget that we didn't anticipate Bush's actions. Now's the time to think beyond the rhetoric. I'm not sure I buy what many people insist -- that the candidates will be very alike on science issues. Now's the time wonder why McCain chose Palin if their philosophy is so different. Now's the time to learn more about Obama's science advisers.²

Perhaps we can have some government involved before the next giant catastrophe...? Before the energy investment bubble, the imminent infectious disease outbreak, the next bunch products consumed by citizens because manufacturers successfully slipped drugs cut with toxic proteins past the FTC or the FDA, the next species goes endangered, the growing storm of global warming, or the EPA....does whatever they do? There aren't too many science problems that won't be directly influenced by the new administration's policies.

¹ The book Supercapitalism by Robert Reich was interesting.

²Though it's certainly nice to see he has any now.

David Foster Wallace died last Friday, and tributes to him pour out, here, and here, here, and here, and elsewhere. I was only introduced to the Wallace's writing in the past few years, by a friend who stored Wallace's Infinite Jest on a shelf for years, not unusually, before reading it very slowly, over a period of many months, and occasionally sharing with me poignant, amusing, sad, or shocking snippets, insights, and footnotes.

I found Wallace's essays thought-provoking or entertaining even when obsessively self-reflective, overtly grim, sad, or downright depressing to read. Suicide and death were fair game in any context, from an essay on the seemingly benign topic of a cruise ship vacation, to long form fiction such as Infinite Jest, to a commencement address he gave to the Kenyon College Class of 2005.

With piercing observation and salient humor he buffered the sharpest commentary on vagaries of modern culture or various abysses a person might fall into, and he certainly didn't shy away from delivering this dystopian if hopeful fare no matter how stilted or predictable the occasion. In his Kenyon graduation speech he mostly avoided the usual soaring, upbeat yet forgettable accolades, the "pervasive cliche[s] in the commencement speech genre", and warned graduates of inevitable "day in day out" drudgery that would inevitably greet them in the future. He told them to keep their brains "well adjusted" in the face of the upcoming tedium, "alert and attentive". He called the mind the "terrible master", often and not coincidentally the target of firearm suicides, then described liberal education as the freedom that allows one to be "lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms".

In words of wisdom interspersed with clauses of modesty, he urged graduates in the thick of the "day in day out" to focus on the "important freedom", that which "involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able to truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day."

To me reading Wallace's writing was somewhat like watching an Olympic gymnast, or as he once described, Roger Federer's tennis, it's not necessary to identify with the performance in order to appreciate the talent. To this admittedly casual reader, his wisdom and view of the world kept his writing eternally optimistic despite his propensity to focus on some dark, unbearable moments of life.

Like many people, I found his use of footnotes fascinating, perhaps especially so because of my science background. Footnotes and endnotes serve many purposes for authors but they're essential in science papers, not only to document sources but to describe previous research, which lays the foundation for the experiments in the current work.

Scientists stand on the shoulder's of previous scientists, as the cliche has it, but the truth is that without the footnotes (more accurately "references"), scientists would be at sea. The common connotation of the word "footnote" as supplemental information, when it comes to science, necessarily but unfortunately diminishes the importance of this foundation information. Every new experiment depends on the veracity of the research contained in a footnote. And an untrustworthy footnote can ruin your week -- why when I repeat this scientist's work, do I get a different result? I was taught in science to pay inordinate attention to footnotes (i.e., references, i.e.,previous research) and to pay close attention to the assumptions researchers chose to build their work on.

In a lot of non-fiction however, the "footnote" merely augments the main body of work, or is used to expound on non-integral ideas, to aid a reader's independent study, or for routine documentation of sources. The footnote there, is used to help speed the reader on through, whereas David Foster Wallace used it for the exact opposite purpose.

Recently, the reputation of footnotes has been confused and corrupted by Michael Crichton and his ilk. Crichton the fiction writer deployed them cynically in his pseudoscience fiction to fool readers into thinking his fiction was actually non-fiction. Politicians and our current president highlighted the presence of the footnotes Crichton used to dispute actual science and to manipulate voters about global warming. Crichton used footnotes to the exact opposite purpose of how they're intended, and politicians were cynical in deploying them to their own end.

Wallace's footnotes were the antithesis of these politically constructed ones. Not that his prolific footnoting didn't confuse people. Charlie Rose asked Wallace in a 1997 interview : "What are the footnotes about? Where did it come from? 304 footnotes?"

Wallace explained that he inserted footnotes to "fracture" his writing, to make it more like reality. The alternative he said, was to jumble the sentences, but obviously you couldn't do that to the reader. As with every other topic, Wallace's ideas about footnotes turn out to be complex, but reading his footnotes is integral to reading his work. They're speed bumps that slow the reader down, perhaps drawing her in, perhaps repelling him -- but in any case forcing Wallace's reader to refocus again and again, to reconsider what might be important, what's true, and to think more deeply, even when the footnotes seemed inserted solely for amusement.

And sometimes they seemed to be just that, for your amusement. In his famous 1997 "Shipping Out: On the (Nearly Lethal Comforts of Luxury Cruise)"¹, he wrote about developing a "lifelong grudge" against the cruise ship's hotel manager. He explained in a footnote:

¹ "Somewhere he'd gotten the impression that I was an investigative journalist and wouldn't let me see the galley, bridge, or staff decks, or interview any of the crew in an on-the-record way, and he wore sunglasses indoors, and epaulets, and kept talking on the phone for long stretches of time in Greek when I was in his office after I'd skipped the karaoke semifinals in the Rendez-Vous Loundge to make a special appointment to see him, and I wish him ill."

Wallace continues on, expounding on his fascination with sharks and sharing in a subsequent footnote that during the first cruise ship dinner gathering he asked one of the waitstaff if they could donate "a spare bucket of au jus drippings from supper so that I could try chumming for sharks off the back rail of the top deck".

He quickly second guesses this odd request and wonders if it may have been "a journalistic faux pas", one perhaps so repulsively disturbing to everyone who learned of it, that they treated him differently, with the hotel manager reflexively barring Wallace's access to the ship's behind-the-scenes workings. Of course, despite the author's stated remorse about his subsequent lack of access, his essay doesn't suffer a whit, in fact this conceit of nautical isolation and his self-reported bumbling anchors the story.

The last essay of Wallace's I read was last February's,"The Compliance Branch", published in Harper's and originally presented at a conference in Italy in 2006. In Wallace's fictional account he observes and interacts with a "fierce" managerial baby. Unlike some of his other work, the essay is short, less than 2000 words; not sad, or only in the way "The Office" would be soul-sucking without the over-the-top humor; and contains none of Wallace's trademark footnotes.

I didn't know him, never read his work as prolifically as others, and don't claim to have any insight about who he was, but in digesting accounts of those who knew him better, it seems he lived the life he prescribed. I probably run amok of proper respect by quoting his work out of context, and also risk underselling him, but we'll miss his perspective on all things.

¹ (Harper's, 1997), also included in the collection, A Suposedly Fun Thing I'll Never do Again.

Have you ever tried to read original research on the web only to be barred from access once you clicked beyond abstract to full text? Or been offered a chance to read the article, special patient privilege, for $40-$50 -- only it's not clear that the article would be useful anyway?

The NIH reasoned that their new policy allowed better communication of science research. The guidelines took into account the recent proliferation of data made possible by high throughput sequencing and drug development, as well as increased data storage capabilities. The NIH simply adapted its policies to the glut of information in the electronic age and the need for better public access to tax funded research.

Now, pressed by opponents to the NIH measure including the Association of American Publishers and the Association of American University Presses Congressman Conyers (D-MI) has introduced the "Fair Copyright in Research Works Act" (HR 6845), which would stop the NIH from requiring PubMed posting.

In defense of NIH policy, yesterday Dr. Elias Zerhouni, Director of the NIH testified before Congress that the mandate increased access to research and encouraged increased impact of publicly funded scientific research without cannibalizing publishers profits. He noted that hundreds of thousands of users access papers every day, and that since Congress made the policy mandatory over 50% of NIH funded published papers are uploaded.

In turn, the American Physiological Society's (APS) Martin Frank, an opponent of open access who has tirelessly voiced his opposition to the NIH PubMed initiative, attacked the recently implemented NIH model. Frank said that his publishing company paid for peer review, publishing, and the "heavy lifting", and that PubMed access would "lead to subscription cancellations". As a result, he said that researchers of NIH policies, have "less freedom to choose where to publish". Without HR 6845, he said, researchers will need to resort to publishing in second choice journals, then in spiraling into hyperbolic rhetoric, he noted that researchers will be decimated by "authors fees" of these journals and will not be able to fund "treatments and cures for diseases".

Journal articles receive the highest readership immediately upon publication, after that readership drops-off significantly. Zerhouni and others testified that no library could cancel subscriptions since scientists depend on timely research which is not effected by the NIH's 12 month policy. The APS was arguing for control, Zerhouni said, by downplaying taxpayer investment and exaggerating their own contribution. He said that the publishers' appeals were not substantiated by arguments about economics or researcher well-being, rather the publishers wanted control.

APS head Frank managed to sidestep claims that scientists or NIH underwriters might have on their significant input to research while emphasizing only the publishers' contribution. He also noted that APP had already contracted with HighWire Press of Stanford which published many free articles. This too is a bit mysterious. If HighWire has that same 12 month policy, as it appears, than what about the NIH policy is really at issue? What does HighWire have to do with this?

The NIH narrowed an AIDS vaccine trial planned for U.S. testing. The trial, called Partnership for AIDS Vaccine Evaluation (PAVE 100) will be pared down to focus on the question of whether the vaccine lowers amount of HIV virus in the blood of those who are subsequently infected after vaccination. Scientists questioned the sense of moving forward with this larger trial last year in light of the failure of the multi-country Merck vaccine trials, as we commented in "New Directions for AIDS Research Funding".

In other AIDS research news,Weijing He and a team of colleagues in the US and UK found that a protein called DARC (Duffy antigen receptor for chemokines), that makes some African people resistant to malaria may influence HIV infections and AIDS outcomes. The small study published by Cell Host & Microbes shows that the existence of certain DARC mutations enables resistance to some malaria parasites -- though not Plasmodium falciparum, the most prevalent and deadly parasite.

The DARC mutation that prevents infection by some malaria parasites also seems to influence how successfully HIV invades and attacks the immune system. DARC codes a receptor on the surface of red blood cells that binds or tethers the HIV virus. The researchers found that a particular mutation of DARC increases the odds of acquiring HIV-1.

However the mutation also seems to increase the DARC protein's interactions with chemokines. Chemokines are proteins in the immune system that trigger inflammation, and they interact with HIV virus. Researchers have shown that the DARC protein acts by scavenging, retention, or transporting chemokines, and mutated DARC protein seems to lower levels of chemokines. In this study, once infected, people with the mutated DARC lived 2 years longer than those with the normal copy of the protein. While the study helps pave an outline of these interactions the authors predict (with understatement) that future research will show "the net effect of the relationship between DARC and chemokines on HIV disease in vivo is likely to be much more complex."

Making Grad Work Easier

In "The Companions of Mad Cows" a couple of years ago we mentioned that veterinarians in Alabama had diagnosed mad-cow disease, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in a downer cow. According to the Wall Street Journal article, officials had buried the cow on a farm in Alabama, but refused to divulge where. They were also searching for the bovine's "companions", to assure the disease was confined to one cow and hadn't been contracted through feed eaten by many cows. (Scientists don't think BSE is transmissible from cow to cow.) We wrote in that post: "we suspect that perhaps someday when the BSE stricken cow has long since been forgotten and decayed, some inquiring grad student will be stunned by the number of prions they unearth in a random soil sample of the unidentified burial site."

Now, a recent study indicates that prions could be made more infectious via certain soils. From the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Christopher Johnson et al. tested prions' ability to bind to different minerals that could then be orally transmitted to grazing animals. They published their results in PLoS Pathogens. According to the study, transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs), (which include BSE, scrapie in sheep, and chronic wasting disease) not only survive in some soils, but because prions selectively bind to certain minerals, might be more infectious in mineral laden clays.

Researchers in another study found that prions remain in biowaste after sewage treatment. Glen T. Hinckley and fellow scientists at University of Wisconsin published research in ASAP Environmental Science and Technology (via Nature News) showing that prions survive activated sludge treatment and anaerobic sludge digestion that's used to degrade waste in waste water treatment plants.

Lurking on Your Portabellos?

Nature News suggested forebodingly that we should assume prions are in biosolids leftover from wastewater treatment, and since "biosolids are often used as crop fertilizer, this raises the prospect of small amounts of prions being present on the surfaces of the crop plants - and without careful washing, they could therefore be ingested when the food is consumed." (Taken at face value this is bad and good. Bad for obvious reasons. But think how much less work grad students would have to do in gathering their specimens? -- straight from the dining hall salad bar to the bench.)

But really? Prions on your crudités? So far prions have not been found in wastewater, only in biosolids, and aside from the current research they haven't ever been found in routine tests -- although the authors of the wastewater paper point out that the the tests aren't sensitive enough to detect them. Prions would occur at very low levels since they are rarely found in humans, so the possibility that they would somehow end up on salad is not impossible, but according to an EPA scientist interviewed by New Scientist is quite remote. She added that alkaline treatment used by some treatment plants, though not the Madison one, would deactivate the prions.

Prions are know to be resilient to conditions that would kill viruses and bacteria, but studies have also shown prions sensitive to extremes in PH. For instance researchers found that prions that mice were less susceptible to prions than cows, because mice digestive systems contain greater amounts of hydrochloric acid. Authors of the first paper above hypothesize that when prions attach to minerals in soil this might protect them from acid and explain their enhanced ability to infect the host.

Charlie Rose concluded a thirteen part series on science earlier this week, with another interesting episode, "The Imperative of Science". Sharing his table were Paul Nurse, who shared the Nobel Prize of Physiology or Medicine in 2001 and is currently President of Rockefeller University; Bruce Alberts, a biochemist, author of texts like the definitive Molecular Biology of the Cell, former two time president of the National Academy of Sciences and Editor-in-chief of the journal Science; Lisa Randall, Harvard particle physicist and author; physicist Shirley Ann Jackson who is the President of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; and Harold Varmus, who shared the 1989 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, headed the NIH through a heady science period and is now the president of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. The focus was the importance of science and it naturally was an interesting, convivial, and lively, if general, discussion.

The group said that the US has become complacent about its long time position as a world leader in science. Increased global competition in science demands decisive action if the country is to maintain its status. The participants emphasized the need for better science education. Alberts brought up primary and secondary education, and they all discussed the importance of improving college curricula. They stressed that learning about the scientific process and experimentation should be made a central part of liberal arts education, and that all students, not just those who show great promise to be scientists, should learn and experiment at science.

Thinking scientifically is not only important to understanding science, these leaders pointed out, but to processing any complex problem. The goal is to resist "the dogma of talk radio" and to be an active participant in democracy. (They ran with the 'science is democracy' idea)

They all agreed when one scientist compared science to a frog sitting in the pot of water as the heat gets turned up. According to the allegory a frog that sits in cold water will stay and perish when the temperature is raised (by some demented frog torturer). When I heard this I applied the critical thinking and research skills that only scientific training can hone, and learned that the frog tale is an urban myth. The good news is that apparently frogs save themselves rather than fatally habituating to hot water -- though to be honest, mine is second hand information. Apart from urban myths, the urgency for science in America is real, as is the human tendency to disastrously ignore problems like global that creep up on us. It's not all about science.

The group discussed various ways to reinvigorate American science as was done with focus and enterprise after Sputnik. Perhaps a problem like global warming could rouse national science spirit, they said. (Coincidentally, Al Gore applied the same frog allegory to global warming in he movie "An Inconvenient Truth")

The scientists expressed nervous concern that our leaders be able to "connect the dots". A president needs to lead the nation to an understanding of science's central place in society and needs to focus attention on fundamentals like education and funding in order to assure both the nation's preeminence in science and increased public understanding of science. Politicians need to support science in a broad cross-disciplinary way, they said. The goal should not be to tackle a series of individual problems but to recognize the commonalities across disciplines and build a foundation upon which science progress thrives with long-term bipartisan support.

Rose asked whether there was enough interest in science among voters to warrant a presidential science debate, adding ""voters are there if you can get on the right side of it". The scientists expressed incredulity that there weren't already strong public science platforms, and supported a debate to reassure Democrat and Republican voters of candidates' commitments to national competitiveness via science.

Here's the link to watch/listen to the video its entirety.

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Before scientists went snorkeling in Borneo and plucked a frog, the charming looking Barboroula kalimantanensis, out from under a large rock in a fast moving body of water, the elusive species had been found only twice before. In 1978 Djoko Iskandar described the new species of frog in the journal Copeia (Dec. 28, 564-566), cataloging its webbed toes, rugose skin, flattened head, and the myriad anatomical features that distinguished it as a unique species. The second find was sighting was almost 20 years later, 1995, by the same scientist, Iskandar, who also collaborated on the current research.

As an endangered species, the frog is perhaps lucky that it's so difficult to locate, although it's still subjected to environmental pollutants and habitat encroachment from logging and mining. Not so fortuitous for these primitive frogs, the scientists decided to dissect the specimens for the first time and found that the species has no lungs. David Bickford, an evolutionary biologist at the National University of Singapore, explained that "because these specimens were so rare, they had never been dissected. If you have just one...in your museum, you don't want to rip it open!" (a different approach then some scientists take with their newly found marine species, Acronym Required has found). If unlucky for these frogs, the discovery was lucky for the researchers, as they got their name splashed across headlines around the world. ¹

The biologists hypothesize that the frog adapted to the highly oxygenated fast moving water by losing lung capacity. Since the frog lost its lungs, its body became more flattened and less buoyant, which researchers deduce helps it stay under rocks. As well, with its increased surface area respiratory capacity through its increased skin surface area.

Tetrapods without lungs are rare. There are lung-less salamanders and one species of caecilian, an earthworm-like amphibian, that don't have lungs, and some frogs with very diminished lungs, but this is the first species to have only cartilage in the place of lungs.

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¹ This news was in an advance press release supposedly ahead of a April 8th Current Biology article which we could not locate. Acronym Required usually doesn't publish research without reading the original source, but will update this post if needed. Update 05/06 - The article was published May 06, 2008 in Current Biology: Bickford, D.; Iskandar D.; Barlian, A; "Lungless frog discovered on Borneo": Current Biology, Vol 18, R374-R375, 06 May 2008.

A couple of years ago in "The Microbes Win", Acronym Required wrote about research done by Wright et al at McMaster University, who found that many species of microbes isolated from soil samples had significant antibiotic resistance to clinically useful antibiotics. Last week researchers at Harvard published a study in the journal Science (Dantas et al, "Bacteria Subsisting on Antibiotics":Vol. 320. no. 5872, pp. 100 - 103), advancing research in this area a step further.

The scientists managed to culture a significant number of soil isolates using antibiotics as the sole source of carbon. The bacteria that proliferated most proficiently on a diet of antibiotics were from the Pseudomoniale and Burholderiale orders. Bacteria in the genuses Pseudomonas or Burkholderia, like Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Burkoholderia cepacia are responsible for infections involved in meningitis, skin, lung and bone infections, swimmer's ear, and opportunistic infections in immunocompromised patients and those afflicted with cystic fibrosis.

The Harvard group suggest that the large genomes of Pseudomonas and Burkholderia species give them many diverse mechanisms of resisting bacteria and adaptive versatility, and that catabolism of antibiotics is just one tool in their arsenal of antibiotic resistance mechanisms.

These bacteria are very relevant clinically but scientists haven't observed utilization of this antibiotic catabolism, probably because there are many sources of carbon at infection site therefore catabolism of antibiotics isn't the most useful method of resistance. Since soil residing bacteria are exposed to natural sources of antibiotics, the research isn't extremely surprising, but may lead to further understanding of shared and unique antibiotic resistance mechanisms.

There's an interesting side note in the credit fallout, with its subprime mortage scandal, Bear Stearns debacle, and complex financial instruments that no one, not even the experts understand. The nervous economists desperately try to whistle past a recession, and people talk and write endlessly about pros and cons of regulation, then in the midst of all these problems, some prominent financiers are suddenly pushing for financial education of the public. Experts like Donald Trump, (an exemplar of financial responsibility), are speaking out and establishing programs to teach finance in high schools, colleges, and communities.

The Economist quotes Niall Ferguson, a historian at Harvard University, who says that no one understands finance and that even MBA students don't know "'the difference between the nominal and real interest rate."'

Blackstone CEO Peter G. Peterson is among the crowd bent on relaying a message of fiscal prudence. Part of his goal for retirement is founding and leading organizations like the Concord Coalition, whose mission is educating the public on financial responsibility, for instance by producing learning modules to sell to high schools and colleges.

Peterson is also organizing "grassroot" movements around financial education, and buying films that teach young people about responsible finance. He's especially intent on warning people about the pending disaster of entitlements, particularly social security.

Peterson's first film is scheduled for release in September and he's optimistic about its box office prospects. He told Charlie Rose the other night he's been "energized by what Al Gore's experience was" with the "Inconvenient Truth". However he added, "...I wish we had polar bears, I wish we had ice caps" to "dramatize" the story.

Ahh...but then he'd have the real problem of global warming to worry about.

The House voted 213 to 197 to expand the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. But it did not give retroactive legal protection to telecoms. Instead the bill proposes that companies present their case arguments before a judge when state secrets are at stake.

The Republican Party spent considerable time organizing a secret session yesterday, only the fifth since 1825, to convince the Democrats of the bill's necessary aspects. A two hour security sweep of the House chamber was conducted before the GOP presented classified information that in the end failed to impress the Democrats."We probably could have gone and eaten together at McDonald's...", Rep. Charlie Melancon (D-La.) told the Washington Post. Bush has said he would veto the bill.

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We also wrote about FISA here in "FISA: Turning Orwell On His Ear", and here in "FI-HISSS-SA".

In an essay on how to pronounce the surname of the Putin's presidential successor Dmitri Medvedev, Serge Schememann writes of English speakers vexed by the Russian language, and gently mocks language teachers who guide them. The author quotes a bilingual journalist from the Moscow Times, who once tutored an American actress how to pronounce the consonants T,D, and N: "the tongue must touch the upper teeth, not the alveolus like in English".

Schememann adds, "Russians have their own problems with American names". I bet. He writes, "I never touch the upper teeth with my tongue nor anything that comes up when I google 'alveolus'". Which is unfortunate, since I hear Ringley Brothers Barnum & Bailey Circus salaries are somewhat comparable to journalists'.

"Alveolus", is simply a "a small cavity or hollow", and often refers to the pulmonary alveoli (plural) in the lungs, which function during respiration to exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide to and from the blood. Accordingly, the Russian reporter's alarming suggestion -- tongue to alveolus -- might actually constitute a medical emergency. "Alveoli" also refers to other hollows, such as the sockets in which the teeth are rooted.

As most people know, the domesticated turkey that Americans eat for Thanksgiving descends from the wild turkey, Meleagris gallopavo, native to America. The Spaniards fancied the turkey when they invaded Mexico where turkey was indigenous, and then introduced the bird to Europe when they returned in the early 1500's. However, during the expansion of the Ottoman Empire, turkeys were thought by northern Europeans to be a product of Turkey.

Europeans also for a time called turkeys "India fowl", then confused the turkey with "Guinea fowl" and gave turkeys the same Latin genus name: "Maleagris". The species name that they settled on, "gallopavo" combines the Latin for rooster and for peacock. From these confusing origins turkeys have long struggled with their identity. First they were put in their own family, Meleagrididae; but now scientists consider turkeys to be part of the pheasant family, Phasianidae, in the subfamily Mealeagidinae.

In 1934, Dr. Frank Thone, a botanist and journalist for Science News Letter, wrote that other native American plants, tobacco, corn, and pumpkin, were also assumed by Europeans to be products of Turkey. ¹

The 1542 botany text by Leonard Fuchs, De historia stirpium commentarri insines, described corn and pumpkin as Turkish. The Yale medical library has scanned the plates of the wood cuts from Fuch's 1543 German translation of De historia stirpium, called New Kreuterbuch. As Thone describes, the plates for pumpkin and corn, refer to the vegetables as "Turkish cucumber", and and "Turkish corn".

Thone translated Fuchs explanation of "Turkish corn" history: "The plant here considered has been brought to us only recently from Turkey, Asia and Greece... thus far it has no Latin name other than Turcico frumentum. Corn now, is of course known as Zea mays. Thone wrote in 1934 that turkey still retained its "red fez" misnomer, while corn, tobacco, and pumpkin had been popularly reconnected to their proper American origins.

Digesting that, you can sit back in your stretchy pants and put your feet up on the ottoman...

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¹Frank Thone wrote "thousands" (according to his obituary) of articles for Science News Letters, now Science News, which was started in 1921 as a part of the Science Service. He was one of the reporters who covered the Scopes trial in 1925 and sought to use the trial to educate the public about evolution.

(corrected link 11/24/07)

The site Collegehumor.com does a skit of the un-aired pilot for the Fox Show 24, back in 1994.

I've just finished reading a fun book that I got at a book swap called How Proust Can Change Your Life, by Alain de Bottom. I liked it of course, although other reviewers who are more opinionated about incorporating Proust in a book title found it alternatively "clever"- "witty..funny..tonic" or "superficial..contrived..patronising".

Happily, I can stay in theme by reading a couple of new releases that not only include Proust but science too. In Proust Was a Neuroscientist, Jonah Lehrer writes about artists who, ensconced in their writing or cooking or painting, conceived of some aspect of sensory science ahead of the scientists. In Proust and The Squid, Maryanne Wolf writes about human development and reading.

On Proust's place in neuroscience, I didn't bring Proust along to fill in the empty moments between my neurobiology experiments as Lehrer did, and have yet to finish "In Search of Lost Time" -- I may not be the best judge. While Proust inspired books divert my attention, Proust stares down from the spines of seven unfinished volumes shelved up by the ceiling, mocking my frenzied schedule. Although some reviewers make it seem unique or iconically 21st century to mix literature and science, I contend that the pairing is natural. Scientists have always been a cultured lot to my mind, especially neuroscientists, and artists forever inquisitive about the natural world. Whatever the circumstances or pretenses Proust so often finds himself as muse, these two new books promise interesting reading.

When a story about the human appendix not being "useless after all" hit the press and blogosphere a month ago, quite a few science blogs explained that this "new" functionality idea was flawed and carefully pointed out the problems with the research, in the midst of what was largely unabashedly uncritical enthusiasm. The writers noted that this was not new research, just a review of the literature. More importantly, the Duke authors' proposal in the Journal of Theoretical Biology that the appendix was not vestigial but served to house beneficial gut bacterial was unproven (though some deemed it interesting).

Despite the effort, I noticed that Answers.com featured the appendix story in "Today's Highlights", and alas it wasn't listed as "fake news".

Studs Terkel writes in the New York Times today, that the current government wiretapping defies a 1978 law. In "The Wiretap the Time", Terkel argues persuasively that the case should be allowed to go to court. Mr. Terkel is a plaintiff in one of the lawsuits against the telephone companies that conducted broad wiretapping on behalf of the Bush administration.

The administration has been seeking to grant immunity to the telephone companies to protect them from such lawsuits, a move that critics say would set a dangerous precedent. The Senate has spent significant effort fighting the administration to gain access to key documents in order to proceed with the case. Civil liberties groups argue that the government is trying to cover-up possible wrongdoing.'"Immunity suggests that there's been a violation of the law and they want to be absolved from any liability," Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., told reporters. "I would like to know what happened before I absolve anyone from liability."'

Mr. Terkel, 95, speaks of the wiretapping that he's witnessed in the past century, the Palmer raids in 1920, the Bureau of Investigation raids, the Red Scare McCarthy era of the 1950's, in which Terkel was blacklisted and disallowed from working in television and radio "after refusing to say that I had been "duped" into signing my name to these causes."

In defiance of the 4th amendment, Bush has gutted the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, its "legal structure and social contract", says Terkel. Of his century of experience he writes: "nothing much surprises me anymore. But I always feel uplifted by this: Given the facts and an opportunity to act, the body politic generally does the right thing."

The Annals of Internal Medicine fails to explain its cover in its link, "About The Cover". So we'll guess. A face and neck transplant patient? A plug for the American Dental Association? A site hack by the Hell's Angels? Casual Friday at Kaiser? Any 'ole day in the Castro? Rounds on Halloween? Something else?

A Danish show called "Deadline" hosted an interview with Lawrence Lessig to discuss his new focus on government corruption. Lessig spent the last 10 years working to make copyright law more flexible and founding the Creative Commons. He's now turning his attention to political corruption, which he believes undermined his copyright efforts and subverts progress on monstrous issues where the U.S. lags behind, such as global warming and childhood nutrition. It's a good interview, and he gets to the heart of the problems. When challenged about whether we can actually pull this off he notes that it will be a long project, but says: "Even if I were absolutely convinced we're going to fail, that's no reason not to fight". Optimistically, Lessig points out that a positive first step towards progress is transparency in campaign finance, which is already well under way (he mentions the work of the Sunlight Foundation). Lessig also notes that the internet is only now starting to edge towards its democratic potential and that we are only now beginning to use peer production to solve these sorts of unwieldy problems.

Today, Craig Venter published his genome sequence in the journal PLoS Biology, along with a self-portrait so large, in the journal's 'Synopsis' version, that this startled reader recoiled with fright.

Sheesh. Science should be soothing...first you have your abstract, your introduction, the methods, results, discussion...No unassuming reader seeking to understand science's newest frontiers, for the greater good, should ever be confronted with SO MANY individual facial hairs, in such...lewd...detail. Shotgun sequencing indeed, he's a bit in the reader's face, as they say.

The published sequence is diploid, both his mother's and father's contributions. Much of the sequence may seem familiar, due to the fact that Venter contributed his DNA to the first composite sequencing human genome effort made by Celera (his company, which is also behind the current effort), the results of which were published in 2001. His genetic contribution to that effort was 60%. According to today's Financial Times unique scoop, Venter is predisposed to "novelty-seeking behaviour and a preference for evening rather than morning activity". News you can use.

However both the journal and the author stress that individual human traits are each influenced by many genes. The PLoS paper concludes that human-to-human sequence variation is five- to seven-fold greater than earlier estimates, which Venter says, proves that we are in fact more unique at the individual genetic level than we thought.

Yawn. Good enough. Nevertheless, maybe next time, a composite photo? Perhaps? To display your essential humanity?

Yesterday, Slate's Dahlia Lithwick expressed more indignation about the FISA vote last weekend, questioning the Democrats who voted for the bill:

With this FISA vote, the Democrats have compromised the investigation into the U.S. attorney scandal. They've shown themselves either to be participating in an empty political witch hunt or curiously willing to surrender our civil liberties to someone who has shown - time and again --that he cannot be trusted to safeguard them. The image of Democrats hypocritically berating the attorney general with fingers crossed behind their backs is ultimately no less appalling than an attorney general swearing to uphold the Constitution with fingers crossed behind his own.

Reason magazine also reasonably pointed out that Attorney General Gonzales once excused his own legal transgressions, because:

"the administration had to violate FISA because a Republican-controlled Congress in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 would not have agreed to the changes that a Democrat=controlled Congress has approved by a comfortable margin six years later"

The Republicans didn't have to be so sneaky all this time because, really, no one cares? Bloggers all over the internet urge you to barrage your representative -- the one who voted to further increase executive power and wiretapping -- for answers.

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Acronym Required also wrote about CALEA.

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Older, somewhat related, worthwhile, thoughtful entertainment: "The Lives of Others", and "Kremlin, Inc."

Lapham's Quarterly: "The journal that enlists the council of the dead", juxtaposes Senator Brownback's repudiation of evolution, with Darwin's skeptical analysis of Christianity.

Last week's New Yorker has a cartoon with a couple of executives looking out over the smoke billowing out factory smokestacks. One guy asks, "Can't we just dye the smoke green?"

Like green beer on St. Patrick's day? There's a festival of green spirit taking over businesses these days. Everyone's doing it one way of another, although some companies manage to sashay further down the spectrum of bizarreness then others.

British Petroleum (BP), at sea perhaps, with Lord Brown outed in a British dither of morality, designed a website to take advantage of this brave new world of green sentiment. At http://www.greencurve.com, BP describes a gas station that pollutes less, bragging: "..Be sure to check out our toilet seats". British Petroleum also designed another website, http://www.alittlebettergasstation.com. This site actually looks remarkably similar to BBC's teletubbies site. The sites share the same kelly green colors, the same twangy children's tunes, and many of those misshapen babies. The gas station site has games for (I think) children, like one called "Gas Mania", as well ringtones, screensavers, and "baby mail" (I have no idea).

Petrol is fun kids!

The Wall Street Journal published a front page story today about Justen Deal, who last year confronted Kaiser Permanente management about a 4 billion dollar IT project he thought had gone awry, and a projected 7 billion dollar budget deficit at Kaiser. In "How an E-mail Jolted a Big HMO", (temporary link) the Wall Street Journal noted, "flicking away whistle-blowers isn't as easy as it once was".

Acronym Required wrote an account of the story, "Healthcare IT: The Perfect Storm", last November. Why this story bubbled up on the front page of WSJ now, (albeit in their middle, soft news, people focused column ), when there's not exactly a dearth of seemingly critical world news, we don't know. Local papers have pretty much spurned the story. The IT aspects have been mentioned sporadically in healthcare blogs, the IT media, and the LA Times. This is an interesting business case not only in terms of dealing with internal IT implementation strategy and PR, but also for corporate human resource teams, who in this case, perhaps anachronistically, underestimated his kamikaze-like persistence.

EPA v. Massachusetts

The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 Monday, in Massachusetts v. EPA, that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is obligated to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. Twelve states, along with public health and environmental groups, had sued the EPA for failing to protect citizens against emissions. The case wended its way to the highest court after the EPA denied the appeal of the states asking it to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.

The EPA had argued that it wasn't authorized to pass mandatory regulations under the act, and that no causal link between greenhouse gases and emissions was proven. The agency also said that such regulation would be a "piecemeal", therefore would conflict with "the President's comprehensive approach".

Interestingly, the EPA relied in part on the court's opinions in a tobacco case, Brown v. Williamson. In that case the Supreme Court ruled that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) could not regulate cigarette smoke. The EPA noted in its arguments that in the tobacco case the court had considered "tobacco['s] unique political history" and the tobacco industry's "significant portion of the America economy". Climate change also has "political history", said the EPA. The agency reasoned that if it were to act on carbon dioxide and other emissions, that would alter Congress' intent for the Clean Air Act to regulate "local" pollution, and would force the EPA to apply the act to a very "global" problem. This, the EPA said, would have even greater economic and political repercussions than had the FDA been forced to regulate tobacco.

The court's majority opinion heartily rejected these arguments. The opinion recounted some of the science and political history of climate change and emissions, and compared this to tobacco's history, clearly outlining the strong differences between congressional intent and action in the two cases.

The EPA also reasoned that even if it did have agency in this case, the only way to control greenhouse gases would be to regulate fuel efficiency, which was the Department of Transportation's (DOT) purview. The court rejected this rational, noting that the EPA "has been charged with protecting the publics 'health' and 'welfare'", whereas "DOT sets mileage standards". The EPA couldn't "shirk its environmental responsibilities", said the court, by claiming some confusing inter-agency overlap.

The agency stated that it was following the Clean Air Act's allowance for it's best "judgment", and that given existing scientific uncertainty on climate change, it would be best in the EPA not take action. It also said that greenhouse gases weren't "air pollutants". The court said that such a stand was "arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with the law". Added the court, the "laundry list" of excuses of why the EPA couldn't respond, unbacked by any scientific reasoning, was inadequate excuse for inaction. The court ordered the EPA to find whether greenhouse gases endangered public health.

In the April 2, 2007 White House Press Briefing following the decision, acting Press Secretary Dana Perino asserted that the Bush administration has "long said that greenhouse gases are contributing to a warming planet and that human generated carbon dioxide is a large contributor..." But then she refuted the court, stating that the Bush administration policies have been successfully (and comprehensively) enacted via Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards, even though in fact combined fuel efficiency of the US car and light truck fleet has decreased since 1986. The Press Secretary also argued incorrectly, that increasing fuel efficiency would cause safety issues, which is oft-tried, but tired and false reasoning.

The minority court opinion argued that though global warming was real and problematic, the "redress of grievances of the sort at issue" was best left to the executive and legislative branches. (though, given that the Clean Air Act is Congresses current solution, one that the executive branch has blatantly flouted, this seems questionable). The minority disputed the state of Massachusetts' (plaintiff) standing, and also argued that the plaintiffs didn't convincingly show an injury due to "global warming". Furthermore the minority opinion said, it wasn't clear that the injury (loss of coastal land) was redressable with the Clean Air Act.

Bush responded to the decision by saying that any action must not hurt the economy. The U.S. couldn't do something when China was doing nothing, he noted puerilely.

EDF v. Duke Energy

The Supreme Court also ruled 9-0 in favor of the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) in EDF v. Duke Energy. The court ruled that the company needs to follow the rules of the Clean Air Act when refurbishing old coal plants.

Clean air proponents welcome the rulings.

A couple of days ago the Sea Shepherd conservation group announced a $25,000 prize for coordinates of the Japanese Whaling Fleet operating in the Ross Sea. The information will help the conservation group save time as well as fuel. Apparently the Japanese whaling fleet invested in satellite technology to help them evade activists. This puts the pursuers at a disadvantage, although they said they could try to "hide behind an iceberg" (also a dwindling option) to avoid satellite detection.

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that Congress put forth a spending bill for 2007 that increases spending for physical-sciences and biomedical research. (Democratic Leaders in Congress Propose Increases for Scientific Research and Pell Grants in 2007 Budget, January 30, 2007). The Chronicle listed the proposed increases:

"The bill, which totals $463.5-billion, would be especially generous to scientific research. The research budget of the National Science Foundation would rise by nearly 8 percent, to $4.7-billion. Spending for the Energy Department's Office of Science would increase by about 6 percent, to $3.8-billion. Spending for the National Institutes of Health, the largest source of funds for university research, would rise by 2.1 percent, or $620-million, to $28.9-billion."

The bill also increases the maximum Pell grant award by 6% per year. The House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on the bill on Wednesday. The bill also specifically bars the addition of any earmark funding.

The New York Times reported today that Bush updated an executive order that will alter public agencies' ability influence policy. The directive will impact government agencies when they issue policy guidance documents aimed at regulating industries, and as a result public health and the environment as well as civil rights and privacy measures will be effected.

Agencies are tasked with interpreting laws passed by Congress and making policy recommendations that are often non-binding, but can influence -- or as Bush claims, "coerce"-- policy regulation. The executive order, which the White House listed last week in the Federal Register, will give Bush more say over what the agencies publish by putting a political appointee in charge of a regulatory office attached to each agency.

Businesses welcome the executive order, which tries to prevent any "major" recommendations from being issued without significant vetting and oversight. Any regulation that would economically impact a sector by more than $100 million dollars is considered major. Agencies will also need to assess whether their recommendations can be accomplished through market mechanisms, which the White House deems to be the preferable. Bush further undermines potential agency clout by demanding they soften their language in guidance documents and not use "mandatory language". If the proposed regulation is considered potentially onerous to any business interest, the agencies will need to subject their recommendations to public comment, then accommodate the suggestions they receive.

These new rules keep the Bush agenda intact, even when a newly elected Congress might pursue a different ideological approach, for instance when balancing environmental imperatives with business priorities. Impeding the agencies clout by requiring an even greater prioritization of economic interests seems to compromise the mission of public agencies that are charged with assessing science data, health and welfare of citizens. At any rate the move underlines the administration's predilection for business -- sometimes at the expense of public welfare.

Update: In the final bill, San Francisco restricted Phthalates but not Bisphenol A (BPA). The second half of the post "Phthalates and Bisphenol A: Media and Politics" includes a timeline of the effort.

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The San Francisco Chronicle published an extensive article on a ban on phthalates and bisphenol A by San Francisco, California, to go into effect in December. The ban will be the first such action by city and aims to prohibit the sale, distribution, and manufacture of products that contain any bisphenol A (BPA) or certain levels of phthalates. Ordinance 060107 is specific only to products intended for children under the age of three, an age when kids are most susceptible to the toxic effects of the chemicals. The decision is supported by hundreds of studies showing deleterious effects of endocrine disruptors.

The Chronicle purchased "a random selection" of 16 childrens' products and sent them for analysis by STAT Analysis Corp., a laboratory in Chicago. Among the findings, "A rubber ducky sold at a Walgreens store contained a carcinogenic form of phthalate, DEHP, at levels 13 times higher than allowed under San Francisco's pending ordinance. A second form of phthalate was found three times above the limit.". Bisphenol A was found in a Disney Co. Baby Einstein rattle and "the face of the Goldberger doll."

The lab found oly three of the sixteen products which didn't contain phthalates or bisphenol A (BPA). The full Chronicle story and details of their findings is here. The law is similar to bans in Europe on these products. However, the law is now the target of a lawsuit by chemical companies, toy manufacturers and retailers. These same parties have long waged a vigorous campaign to discredit the extensive research behind the health ordinance.

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Acronym Required previously published Plastic Bottles- Protecting Your Baby, by the ACC" in January, 2005, which discussed safety concerns about baby bottles manufactured with bisphenol A. Bisphenol-A and Phthalates Bill in California, in January, 2006, reviewed research on bisphenol-A and campaigns of chemical industry organizations to discredit the research, and San Francisco Bans Bisphenol, Phthalates, in July, 2006, discussed this ordinance.

Researchers report in Naturwissenschaften (via Science) that women who test positive for antibodies to the Toxoplasma gondii virus bear more boys than girls. The virus infects over 20% of the world's population. Transmitted through raw meat or cat feces, it causes "flu symptoms" like muscle aches and pains in humans it infects, but is not considered dangerous unless the person's immune system is compromised or if they are pregnant. However, for women who have antibodies to the virus (from being infected previously) the sex ratio is increased from 51, meaning there 104 boys born for every 100 girls, to 60, which translates to 150 boys born for every 100 girls. Women with the highest levels of antibodies, about 72, have 260 boy babies per 100 girl babies.

The World Wildlife Fund lost seven members of their organization in a helicopter crash near the Kangchenjunga Conservation Area (KCA) last weekend. 24 people were killed in the crash including group including members of the WWF, and conservationists, scientists and scholars from Nepal, the U.S. Canada and Finland. The group had traveled to the area last week to hand over management of the Kanchenchunga Conservation Area to local groups. Our condolences to all involved, who collectively and individually accomplished tremendous work for our environment and communities.

Chris Mooney is everywhere. He just left La Jolla and Mountain View and he's in Portland. No he's not there anymore but he's coming back, after Seattle and before Madison and Raleigh. We saw him in the Haight, San Francisco, CA, when we were running errands. It was a little random. We had wended our way through the retro t-shirt shops and gutter punks who dye their snarled hair black to offset their blue eyes, the better with which to beseech you for money. Others asked for cigarettes...lights...change, with sleeping Rottweiller puppies chained to their sides and their appendages pierced with chains and pieces of washing machines and whatnot -- testaments to their pain and angst. We passed the tattoo parlors and stores with the incense and the 60's clothes from India and more gutter punks who chain-stitched crocheted scarves, perhaps for the upcoming winter and ongoing rebellion. This is the laid back pace of Haight street, where the clerks are a prouder, higher caste of punks, ordained to the chore of letting the masses know just how uncool they are. Fortunately, the clerks are most indignant about the gutter punks who should "just go back to their parents houses in Marin" or "get a job spraying deodorant in used shoes" -- at one of the many worn-out jean emporiums. Those are some highlights of the Haight - the craziness of the scene ebbs and flows. So with our errands checked off and our yen for hippy dippy punky Haight fulfilled, we ducked into a bookstore called The Booksmith, a clean, ambient, also well-lighted store, that's not a chain and not so much a scene. We wandered back to rows of folding metal chairs. They were testing the mike. Chris Mooney was scheduled to speak in 5 minutes.

So coincidental, I initially thought, since I had just read the book The Republican War on Science, and since Haight (though not the store) seemed like an unlikely venue. But it's not such a coincidence, since Chris Mooney is all over the place. Ubiquitous might be too strong a word, but, like Starbucks, he turns up everywhere, especially at adjacent corners of streets where you're likely to find liberal minded people convening to think the right things about political influence on the environment, evolution and other pertinent science fields. The Haight might not so easily fit this image, but The Booksmith, one of the few independent stores left in the city, certainly does.

The Republican War on Science covers the history and background of some big issues in public policy and science in detail. The introductory paragraphs of each chapter are especially catchy. If you happen to have been following this for the last 15 or 20 years (or more) you will be in familiar terrain, perhaps you will flip through and nod your head. If you are interested in the details they are all there. If you've followed other areas of science and public policy such as some of international development issues, especially around health, the tensions and compromises described will also be familiar. To the majority of people, and scientists, this book will be eye-opening. I think it's timely and important, as it shows the government's sometimes underated capacity to influence science (and other things) for better or for worse. Its easy to take for granted a government's ability to beneficially influence science. This book heightens awareness of our current opportunity to watch government's detrimental (at least that's our view) hand in science. Good, thorough reviews of the hard cover edition are here and here and here.

Mooney has apparently updated this paperback edition to address his audiences' burning question- "what can we do?". What can we do about problems like Republicans 'hijacking' good science and contorting it to promote bad policy, about media's banal coverage of science, about politicians who are uninformed, about the preponderance of political appointees. Happily it was a full to capacity crowd who sat at the edge of every available seat and were passionate about these issues.

They all wanted to participate in the answers and the question of 'what can we do?' . Of course many times people ask "what can I do", but what they mean is, "what can I do that doesn't take much time, that doesn't cost anything, that doesn't cause me discomfort, that appeals to my lifestyle, philosophy and religious convictions, where I can get credit for doing something? People are more likely to deny what they can do when they're asked to contribute. However this was a sincere, well-intentioned crowd. Some people had traveled great distances to see him speak.

Chris Mooney offered some suggestions in his talk to this perplexing question, and I will mention a few of them -- I'm sure there are others in the new edition of the book. The author said scientists should more actively engage the public and venture forth in public controversies. The valuable Office of Technology Assessment OTA should be reopened. Politicians shouldn't use junk science to defend policy. There should be fewer political appointees in science leadership positions. Journalists shouldn't cover stories in a such a rote fashion, they should stop trying to balance science to suit the business demands of the papers. Someone said the problem was bigger then science. Another person suggested that more scientists should become politicians. Mooney said that having a few less lawyers wouldn't hurt. We would say that many scientists have some hurdles to overcome before becoming politicians, but they could always send a pledge sheet around their lab, right after the one raising money for the post-doc doing the marathon for cancer or the triathlon for the natural disaster victims.

The subject of the book is focused, as was the talk, on the the political efforts of the government to denigrate good science and invite speculation about methods and process, while at the same time courting dubious science, and framing the debates and science discussions to support their own agendas. Complicating the question "what can we do", however, is the fact that while you can try to narrow the subject to 'political attacks on science', this is really a vast topic, in fact it's not really one topic, but many. As well, you can even widen the scope of these issues to a set of broader perfect circumstances that have influenced the problems, such as a lack of general knowledge and passion about science combined with overwhelming technological advances in science; an erosion of institutions that used to assure certain traditions of science funding and integrity, with a demonically business oriented government. In this perspective, everything can get swept into the discussion.

Education for instance, plays a role in forming peoples' ability to reason scientifically, it can help them judge the rhetoric of politicians, and advocate for better policies. A graduate assistant attendee asked what they could do to help. Teach, Mooney exhorted, luckily your at Berkeley, he added (education was not the main focus). Certainly all the problems in education and science ennui don't start at the college level but college science curricula often do a lousy job at encouraging lifelong interest in science. One deceptively simple suggestion is to assure that the students don't end up loathing science. Could this effect political outcomes? We're not as worried about A level students, the ones you want to have in your lab under the auspices of a Howard Hughes grant, but the bell curve is tyrannous to the others. It precludes the majority of them from acing *Science 101* and if those students get a Cs,Ds, or Fs in biology will they hate biology for the rest of their lives? Will they say, as one student recently did "I hated this class. The teacher taught entirely from PowerPoints. You don't need to go to class because it's all in the book. The mean grade in the class was 30/100. I'm done with biology" Or will they say, as another student did, "I got a mediocre grade, but I loved the class! This guy genuinely loves biology and the challenges students present, and he made me appreciate the subject". You can peruse on-line rating sites like RateMyProfessor.com to quickly learn that among the outlier posts, teachers can literally, make or break a student's experience.

Will the "non-scientists" exit class after finals and forever shun science and scientists? Will they look for the simplest solutions even though those may be motivated solely by politics and may be scientifically unsound? Will those students make financial investments in industries that are deleterious to the environment? Will they vote for candidates who waver on their science votes, who are influenced by the base? Not everyone will master the Kreb's cycle in their freshman science class. But don't scorn or alienate those who don't, they may be casting a vote on your behalf someday. Science education is certainly beyond the scope of the book. The solutions are elusive. Various aspects of teaching -- the competing goals of teaching and research, the budgeting that effects lab curricula, the attrition rate of promising students to other fields, and the near impossibilty of altering the curriculm make this an unwieldy as well as tangential subject. But Al Gore was apparently inspired as an undergraduate to care about the effect of CO2 on the atmosphere. Others will be similarly influenced.

One person asked: If we work in discipline that isn't political, but it is still written about by the press in a skewed way, what can we do? In brief the author advised: write to the editor, talk to the journalists, correct the record when the facts are misconstrued. We would add that if you take a broader view of "politics", there is no part of science where politics doesn't apply. That goes for business and economics too. If your field is that obscure, than undoubtedly much of your time will be spent justifying your existence. Oh, no? Has your funding been cut yet? That's political. That's business. Has the doctor who sits on the board of the foundation that funds your obscure area of science asked you if his son can work in your lab this summer in turn for a reference? That's political. Is your lab housed in the windowless seismically incorrect cellar of a Cold War era building with peeling paint and nasty pale green cinder block walls, while across the street they're building a state of the art business school or stem cell research facility? Did the CEO of your pharmaceutical company just get ousted over a patent controversy, and does the new one think your "product" (the one that you just invested the last five years of your life in) is a market loser? Do you work in the oil industry to pay your bills although your passion and PhD are in conservation geology? Are you a science PhD working at a non-profit in a city where your hourly salary is approximately one-tenth of what your hairdresser earns? It's not only stem cell research that is affected by business and politics and economics, all of science is. It has to be, economics, politics, business (religion) are enmeshed in our society.

But while these problems may be shared among different areas of science we defy anyone to come up with *a* solution. While Mooney's themes all fit neatly under the "Republican War On Science" umbrella at first, once you delve beyond a casual familiarity with any particular issue or shift the focus away from the broader underlying problems, the generalization doesn't provide a framework sufficient to understand the complexity of the political and economic difficulties facing science. Regardless of the overlap, each issue will need its own panoply of solutions because each has a unique set of challenges. In this regard Mooney acknowledges that the problems need to be tackled individually.

As we all know, and we have discussed here, the motivations that drive Intelligent Design proponents are not what drive the denial of global warming. Stem cell research will likely be privatized, and the fact that the government isn't contributing to the funding, growth and regulation of that industry will have different implications than the government's failure to acknowledge global warming, and its subservience to oil companies.One could argue that both of these decisions are guided by liberal ideology and that the science will always be forced to yield to more powerful interests. The government won't hinder the economic progress of the oil companies, nor will it fund research that clashes with the Republican religious base, but it won't often stand in the way of private corporate interests that might fund stem cell research. In this view, although The Republican War on Science slogan still holds a certain allure, the Bush administration has not so much waged a war on science, as it has pursued an agenda that inflicts collateral damage on science. The business interests that the current administration turns cartwheels for will still be there when the Democratics manage to regain power. Importantly though, Chris Mooney's The Republican War on Science raises awareness about these important and interesting issues, and it's good for us that he's on tour to promote these ideas. Here's a link to the book.

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Acronym Required covers these topics frequently. Articles such as "Big Labels, Little Science", and Sea Change or Littoral Disaster touch on some issues, as well as others, especially those in our Science and the Media, and Public Policy Higher Education and Environment, Public Health, as well as other sections.

"Computers write news", is the headline under the left "Briefing" column on the front page of the Financial Times today. The front page teaser says "Thomson Financial, the business data group, has found a way to replace human beings in the newsroom and is using computers to write some of its reports. Page 3"

We can see how this might work. Your average financial story might very simply be composed of a noun (company name or sector), + a verb describing movement in space, + a number, and a few articles. For example: "Dow Industrials Climb 7.84 points to Extend Rally","...a slide in oil prices", "...futures contracts fell 2.5%", "...shares jumped 2%", "...the industrials have risen nearly 247 points" ...oil has plunged off 5.8% to a two-month low". Add a few adjectives like, "cloudy" "troubled", "psychological", "important", or "sunny", and you have the makings of a juicy investment news story if there ever was one.

But we can only speculate. There is no story about about computers writing news on page 3. Indeed, these new details might be hidden away somewhere in the paper, but we couldn't find them in today's FT. We know computers are already capable of generating "news", so what are those computers up to?

The New York Times author William Grimes reviews "The Big Oyster", by Mark Kurlansky, in "Before There Were Bagels, New York Had the Oyster". In an interesting sounding book, Kurlansky, the author of "Cod" and "Salt", details the history of the perished Hudson oyster. In Grimes' review, he contemplates "The Big Oyster" author's vision that the Hudson will be rejuvenated someday (in the nature sense here -- apart from the business sense).

"...[T]eeming mass of sturgeon, striped bass and shad swimming through the Narrows...up the Hudson...acres of fecund oyster beds...cleanse the waters of New York.

"This is no fantasy", Grimes says. Then, at the end of the book review, after contemplating the reality of the NY metropolis, its effluent, and its unlikely coexistance with oysterbeds, he asks "Is paradise lost forever?"

He points to groups like the Baykeepers, an environmental group devoted to the estuaries (who coincidentally, discuss the "commons" on their home page). The group projects hopefully that the estuaries and their oysters can be restored and served on NY restaurant tables. Oyster lovers we are, but realists also we tend to side with Grimes, who says: "You first."

Octavia Butler, who wrote captivating science fiction, died last week. She wrote short stories such as the award-winning Bloodchild, as well as fiction such as the Patternist series and was known for her humane, if to this reader sometimes alarming stories. Butler was a black, women writer, in a genre not known for black, women writers, but she was as matter of fact about her efforts to publish, as she was of her habit of writing a different sort of family history into science fiction:

"When I began writing science fiction, when I began reading, heck, I wasn't in any of this stuff I read," Ms. Butler told The New York Times in 2000. "The only black people you found were occasional characters or characters who were so feeble-witted that they couldn't manage anything, anyway. I wrote myself in, since I'm me and I'm here and I'm writing."

Octavia Butler achieved acclaim as the recipient of a MacArthur fellowship, two Hugo Awards and Nebula awards. Here is a tribute to her via YouTube

The history of Thanksgiving is somewhat murky, but the first harvest festival in North America was probably in Newfoundland. The American colonists most likely had a somewhat more modest festival than our cranberry laden myths would have it. Tryptophan in turkey doesn't cause post meal sleepiness. Nevertheless, for some in our audience who have the day off, we hope it was a pleasant pause in this November week.

The current "end to end" principle is being challenged by telecoms who want to control the networks and arguably access to which services get to use what resources. A lot of people were alarmed by Business Week's interview with the CEO of SBC - "Why should they be allowed to use my pipes" Ed Whitaker - glibly outlined his plan for global domination. In Newsweek he elaborated about more actions he would take to wrest power over the networks. But wasn't SBC, at one time, dependent on the graces of the same regulations they now want to smother? On the other side of the issue, Doc Searls discusses the tussle over whether the networks should be "owned", "controlled" or "managed", along with his take on the rhetoric that different sides of the Internet privatization issue use, in this interesting essay.

The newly opened Global Stem Cell Consortium is on hold following allegations that the famous Korean cloning researcher, Hwang Woo-suk, the "cloning king", crossed ethical boundaries to obtain human eggs for his research. The rumor first appeared that the researcher had used eggs from junior members of his lab in Nature (429, 3; 2004), but the recent announcement that University of Pittsburgh cloning researcher Gerald Schatten broke off ties with Hwang gives additional credibility to these original reports. Hwang's work has now been reportedly "thrown into an ethical cloud" that affects many organizations and researchers.

Some, like the Children's Neurobiological Solutions Foundation (CNS) are taking a wait-and-see stance. More, like Schatten and affiliated colleagues across in the U.S., are breaking ties with the consortium. The newest development will also affect governments' willingness to fund or participate in the cloning research, which has been stymied by these very same ethical issues. Science (subscription) quoted Hans Scholer of the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Medicine in Germany in "Stem Cells: Collaborators Split Over Ethics Allegations", (Nov. 18, 2005 vol.310; 5751, p1100), who said that the German government would now hesitate before letting its scientists to collaborate on the cloning project: "One argument will be that if Hwang was dishonest with a collaborator, how dishonest will he be toward the public?"

In last August's journal Stem Cells, scientists report that fetal cells enter the maternal brain in experiments with mice. In "Fetal microchimerism in the maternal mouse brain: A novel population of fetal progenitor or stem cells able to cross the blood-brain barrier?", Xiao-Wei Tan et al., found that fetal cell were especially abundant 4 weeks post-partum, and that the cells apparently differentiated. They also found that when a lesion was introduced, more fetal cells were present at that site. The authors did not investigate the physiological affects of the fetal cells. Via Scientific American's report: "Baby to Brain".

Hurricane "W"ilma comes from a place in the alphabet where hurricanes rarely emerge, though meterologists correctly predicted several late season storms this year. The 21st storm of the 2005 season ties this year with with 1969, which holds the record for number of hurricanes.

The storm is ferocious enough to wow former Hurricane Hunters who note with aplomb the stomach churning difficulties of flying into the hurricane eye:

"it's really tough to hit a 2 mile wide eye when you're flying crabbed over at a 30 degree yaw angle fighting horizontal flight level winds of 185 mph and severe turbulence".

I bet. Currently the forecasters predict that the storm will *weaken* to a Category 3 or Category 4 before hitting Florida then will track the NE coast perhaps to New England. It is now smaller then Katrina but that could change; optimistically, it is not estimated to generate the storm surge that Rita or Katrina did. There is more information at NOAA and here with intimidating satellite photos.

Nature (subscription) comments on the severe drought in the Amazon rainforest. In Santarem, where the Amazon and Tapajos rivers meet water, levels are 15 metres lower then normal.

Theoretically, drought could effect the forest by stunting growth so that the protective carbon absorption of the forest would be limited. This would add to the effects of deforestation, which hasn't slowed down despite years of attention to the problem. As well, fire damage from managed burning leaves the forest vulnerable to further drought. The result would be that the Amazon contributes to climate change rather then buffers it.

Note: Some people have commented that this is either a temporary effect, or drought due to local deforestation, rather than a permanent effect due to global climate change.

Science and Nature are reporting about reverse genetics research of the 1918 flu virus. The structure of the flu virus last year suggested that this virus was a bird flu that jumped directly to humans.

President George Bush warned of the avian flu today and proposed that the military be mobilized to deal with public health threats. His proposal was roundly criticized by public health officials who claimed that cuts to public health funding shouldn't have been so severe. The Democrats criticized the president for not moving on the issue sooner and proposed a "director of pandemic preparedness and response", or as some agencies are reporting it, a "bird flu czar"

Acronym Required previously wrote about disaster preparedness with regard to Hurricane Katrina here and here. We also wrote about Avian Flu in these articles: "Hopes For Avian Flu Vaccine"; "Modeling Epidemics", and "Avian Flu in China- Increasing Resistance"

If one's science experiment or paper is "elegant", it arrives at the answer or explains a problem -- often one that has remained elusive for years -- with clear, insightful form that prompts smiles, admiration and sometimes chagrin from one's colleagues. Einstein's descriptions of matter and energy are perhaps quintessentially elegant, though the description no doubt underplays their significance. Physicist Brian Greene does justice to all his subjects as he eloquently walks through E=mc² and how Einstein's vision for physics described anew the relationships between mass, energy and the formation of the universe, in "That Famous Equation and You", published in yesterday's New York Times.

"But by September, confident in the result, Einstein wrote a three-page supplement to the June paper, publishing perhaps the most profound afterthought in the history of science. A hundred years ago this month, the final equation of his short article gave the world E = mc²."

The equation is well entrenched in our culture, it's faddish even, blithely plastered onto T-shirts and posters and paraphernalia for sale in campus stores. While many people wear the formula across their chests however, they often misconstrue its significance. Greene points out that Einstein actually published about M=E/c² and the paper emphasized the creation of mass from energy that Greene describes via a jousting scenario, not the creation of energy from mass associated with nuclear reactions. The equation describes not just the extraordinary energy reactions but ubiquitous, everyday ones:

"There is nothing you can do, not a move you can make, not a thought you can have, that doesn't tap directly into E = mc². Einstein's equation is constantly at work, providing an unseen hand that shapes the world into its familiar form..."

The theory reoriented how scientists thought about energy and led to Einstein's General Theory of Relativity and then to Einstein's work to derive a "single theory encompassing all of nature's laws".

"For the better part of his last 30 years, Einstein pursued the "unified theory," but it stubbornly remained beyond his grasp. As the years passed, he became increasingly isolated; mainstream physics was concerned with prying apart the atom and paid little attention to Einstein's grandiose quest. In a 1942 letter, Einstein described himself as having become a "a lonely old man who is displayed now and then as a curiosity because he doesn't wear socks."

Today this work continues and it "is no curiosity - it is the driving force for many physicists of my generation", says Greene. Succinctly describing the formation of the universe is not trivial but the task has progressed significantly. Now scientists:

...[have] established beyond any doubt that a fraction of a second after creation (however that happened), the universe was filled with tremendous energy in the form of wildly moving exotic particles and radiation. Within a few minutes, this energy employed E = mc² to transform itself into more familiar matter - the simplest atoms - which, in the course of about a billion years, clumped into planets and stars."

"During the 13 billion years that have followed, stars have used E = mc² to transform their mass back into energy in the form of heat and light; about five billion years ago, our closest star - the sun - began to shine, and the heat and light generated was essential to the formation of life on our planet."

It's good to be reminded of this "unseen hand" that is so often subordinated to some distorted permutation of the "invisible hand". While the latter is used to press us on in our daily chores, when we understand the former we are put in our place and reminded of the relative power of each.

Obviously the excerpts cannot do justice to the article, located here. The author's research is in the area of string theory and he has written a couple of books including the well-reviewed popular science book The Elegant Universe.

A reader contributes pointers to an interesting no-holds barred, multi-part article in the LA Weekly called "Clear and Present Danger". Specific to pollution in Los Angeles but relevant to many cities in the US and world-wide, the articles include diverse information from smog formation, health risks associated with pollution and the politics surrounding air quality issues.

Citizens living in places like Long Beach speak out about being subjected to large amounts of toxic diesel fumes and there are accounts from doctors who are working with ever younger populations of asthma and cancer patients. Educators continue to lobby for better air but it's unclear how much traction their getting on the issues. There are maps illustrating different risk areas within LA and timelines showing various legislative attempts and backsliding. The articles offer plenty of warnings and dire statistics but suggestions as well.

Hurricane Rita is beginning to weaken, according to some of the latest reports. The central atmospheric pressure has increased from 897mb last night to 915mb today. There is a new eyewall opening, and maximum winds have decreased to 155mph, making the hurricane barely Category 5. The path has also shifted to the east, closer to the Louisiana border. Still nothing to be trifled with; meterologists predict that the storm surge will be 15-20 feet over normal.

Researchers at Cornell University propose that the US plains should be home to mammals such as lions, elephants, camels, extinct animals that that roamed parts of the Americas. Their scheme, called "Pleistocene re-wilding", was presented in this week's journal Nature (Vol. 436, No. 7053); "Re-wilding North America". The Financial Times Science Briefing (emphasis on brief) reports that Harry Greene, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and one of the authors, said about the program:

"If we only have 10 minutes to present this idea, people think we're nuts, but if people hear the one-hour version they realize they haven't thought about this as much as we have."

Apparently the authors will test their theory with a pilot study that will reintroduce the endangered Bolson tortoise on a private ranch in New Mexico. The tortoise once thrived in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Mexico but now can be found only in New Mexico.

The authors propose re-wilding as a way to encourage biodiversity. In a National Geographic interview they explain their reasoning:

"The ecological justification is restoring these important species [and their] interactions. We know that these animals play a really important role in how they interact with the environment-through predation, for example and how they maintain biodiversity. A lot of that was lost 13,000 years ago in North America when we lost most of our large mammals."

They have faced some criticism, and admit that changing people's attitudes about the idea might take some time. Fitting then, that they start with the tortoise.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) funded a report from the National Academies' National Research Council (NRC) that concludes that high school students have shoddy science lab experiences. The study suggested that labs needed to be 'included in science education, designed with clear learning outcomes in mind, be interactive, and include learning about the scientific process.' The study adds fodder to the call for US schools to step up efforts to increase competiveness and understanding in math and science.

"In an increasingly complex, high-tech society, U.S. high school graduates need a basic understanding of science and technology to lead productive lives, the report says. To improve their understanding, most science laboratory experiences must be reformed."

Of course improving science education is complicated by school funding challenges, and confusion about which science curricula to teach.

In Sichuan, China, Streptococcus suis has infected 198 people and killed 36 (numbers being updated frequently). This is a dramatic increase from the 17 killed and 41 more infected that Nature reported on July 25.

Streptococcus suis is common in pigs, but rare in humans, so the outbreak has scientists worried about whether the bacteria has mutated. Symptoms in humans include flu-like symptoms, deafness, bruises, high fever, fatigue, nausea, vomiting, coma. Most of those who have been infected are farmers who butchered infected pigs or sheep.

The Los Angeles Times reports that Chinese officials say they have a good handle on the disease. China public health officials are sending and making vaccines to send to the area, and are distributing notices to farmers who may be affected. They have also set up roadside quarantine stations to stop dead pigs from reaching markets.

Scientists and public health officials are speculating about whether the outbreak has occurred via human to human transmission. Experts worry that because of the rapid transmission as well as reported human to human cases more may be involved than S.suis.

In a related article about Avian Flu in China last month Acronym Required mentioned WHO reports that the H5N1 strain of the virus (not the S. suis bacterium) was capable of being transmitted via pigs, which would potentially lead to a species jump to humans.

Many species of the plant genus Saussurea are valued by herbalists for their medicinal uses. Although the plants have been being used medicinally for hundreds of years, research has recently confirmed that their use for medicinal purposes was not whimsical. Saussurea lappa for instance, has anti-inflamatory properties and anti-viral potential, while Saussurea eopygmaea and Saussurea medusa have anti-tumor activity. Saussurea medusa and Saussurea laniceps, both commonly known as "Snow Lotus", are harvested at altitudes of 3-4,000 meters by herbal doctors and others seeking the flowers. The flowers are used as therapies for blood disorders, high blood pressure, fertility and menstruation problems. Generally the flowers are thought to be most effective when they are harvested right before they go to seed, which prevents the seeds of these select flowers from being dispersed.

Researchers Jan Salick and Wayne Law published a study forthcoming in Proceedings of the National Archives of Science (PNAS) that reports that the selective harvesting of the Saussurea laniceps has caused a reduction in the size of the flowers in harvested regions compared to flowers in unharvested regions. They also found that specimens in flower collections over the past century are much larger than what is currently being sold in shops. On the other hand, the species Saussurea medusa, with a purple flower that is apparently less desired, has not decreased in size. The background and purpose for the study are described here.

Researchers have known for years that the habits of harvesters could impact the evolution of species. The phenomena was previously been seen in fish populations that are heavily fished, activity that causes genetic adaptations in response to harvest. The greatest adaptation is a decrease in the average size and very slow recovery of population numbers, though sometimes the headline news belies this reality.

We commonly hear about endangered species as a result of the loss of habitat due to human population development and encroachment, or environmental warming trends. The affect of selective harvesting of the prime species specimens, and the potential direct impact on species evolution are also important to consider.

At 1:52 AM EDT on July 4th, a copper probe going 23,000 miles per hour crashed into the comet Tempel 1, located 83 million miles from earth. The probe was launched from Deep Impact, and the $333 million dollar mission considered a success. NASA scientists were jubilant. The goal was to learn what comets are made of, so information will be forthcoming over the next few days, weeks, months. The spacecraft launched on January 12, 2005. Details about the mission can be found at National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA's) mission page. Photos are here.

Science Magazine reports that a group of scientists at Chiron, the Institute for Genomic Research, University of Messina Medical School, and Brigham and Women's, have engineered potential vaccine candidates for Group B Streptococcus using genomic screening techniques or reverse vaccinology.

Group B Strep (GBS) is a leading cause of death in neonates. The bacteria resides in the mucosal tracts of adults, where it can cause infection but is generally not lethal. During birth women can pass the infection to babies, where it can cause sepsis, meningitis and sometimes death. In the U.S. a systematic testing and antibiotic administration program for women in the last weeks of pregnancy is used to prevent infection, however each year the infection causes hundreds of deaths worldwide.

Conventional vaccine development uses various methods, such as the attenuation of the virus advanced by Sabin to produce the polio vaccine, isolation of protein subunits, or recombinant methods to isolate candidate antigens from bacteria or viruses. These resulting proteins are then tested to see which ones if any stimulate immunity (without toxicity) in animals or humans.

Several vaccine strategies specific to GBS exist, such as isolating the polysaccharide capsule (that surrounds the bacteria) which is then conjugated with cholera or pertussis toxin subunits. In addition to the logistical and regulatory challenges of the clinical trials, however, one of the difficulties that these vaccines face is that there are many different serotypes of disease, so a vaccine that is developed for one population say in Europe, may not be suitable for another.

The Chiron group used reverse vaccinology, a technology it had previously investigated for other disease vaccine targets such as type C meningococcal disease, caused by Neisseria meningitidis for which they manufactured a vaccine called Menjugate, used abroad.

Reverse vaccinology uses the whole genome of an organism to isolate all possible antigens "in silico" by comparing the sequence with the sequences of known antigens and toxins, in order to identify likely vaccine antigens. Recombinant expression systems (where the gene is isolated and produced by another bacteria) were used to produce candidate antigens, then these were screened to discern which candidates produced protection against the virulent strains. This method of vaccine development, though not without limitations, has the potential to advance at a faster rate, because the availability of complete genome information accelerates the identification of protein candidates. Chiron explains the difference between conventional vaccine development and this new method here.

The researchers used multiple strains of Group B Streptococcus in their genomic analysis and screening. They ended up with 312 surface proteins that were then screened for protective activity. Four antigens were identified that when tested alone, had restricted activity. These were then combined and the result produced broad spectrum protection against multiple virulent strains of GBS.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has tentatively approved the generic versions of Lamivudine manufactured by Aurobindo Pharma Ltd. of Hyderabad, India and Ranbaxy of India. The generics are a version of Epivir manufactured by Glaxo Smith Kline. These approvals will allow the drugs to be used in developing countries as part of the United States AIDS initiatives which provide fast-track approval process opportunities for promising AIDS drugs. This drug is used in combination with other antiretrovirals.

Health Partners Research Foundation published a study on ethical research conduct with the University of Minnesota in this months journal Nature (subscription) (435, p737). The researchers surveyed 3,247 scientists who received support from National Institute of Health (NIH) grants. Gross scientific conduct is considered plagiarism, fabrication or falsification of results. The studied confirmed previous data that showed that this type of misconduct is infrequent, however the study found that there are other behaviors that are considered 'less problematic' that nevertheless seriously compromise the integrity of science:

"Thirty-three percent of our survey respondents admit[ted] to one or more of the top-10 behaviors. [T]he scientific community can no longer remain complacent about such behaviors..."

The "top ten behaviors" included changing data, failing to present oposing data, and unethical use of ones own data. Other behaviors in the 'top 16' included inappropriate research design and inappropriate assignment of authorship as well as inadequate record keeping. 27% of study respondants said they kept inadequate research records.

The study has been criticized by several scientists for asking questions where the responses were difficult to interpret, for instance the San Francisco Chronicle quoted David Magnus, director of the Center for Biomedical Ethics at Stanford who was critical of two questions, as were other scientists.

His point is well taken. Since the respondants were limited to "yes" or "no", its hard to evaluate certain answers. For instance about fifteen percent of the total cohort (about half of those surveyed returned usable surveys) said they had changed "the design methodology, or results of a study in response to pressure from a funding source." But what exactly does this mean? Science research is a collaborative process. Since research is peer reviewed, it is rare that a study is published without revision since often additional experiments are required to further test or validate a result. Editors and peer researchers review studies according to variable critera, but the process is generally rigorous. As well, grants come under tremendous scrutiny before approval. Again, this *can be* political, however the intense competition makes well thought out grant writing essential. Sometimes grants need to be scaled back to accomodate funding restrictions, or sometimes researchers will decide to come at a problem slightly differently due to feedback or if they get a particular preliminary result. However this is part of the process. It shouldn't be looked at askance.

On the other hand, all the behaviors in the survey potentially skew the presentation and interpretation of research, so while scientists may understandably defend their discipline, the results are problematic. One interesting trend in addition to the fact that 33% of the scientists admitted to at least one of the behaviors is that there wer significant differences between the younger and older cohorts, in the number of scientists who admitted to each behavior. 38% of the mid-career scientists admitted at least one of the behaviors, compared to 28% of the early career scientists.

The Financial Times reports that US hotel telecommunication revenue dropped 50.3% between 2000 and 2003. Long distance revenue fell by 59.3% while local revenue fell by 26.2%. Revenue from internet and fax access rose by 9.1%. Profits on hotel phone surcharges during the 1990's were as much as 50%. Dramatic, but not surprising.