Technology
sb admin | January 9, 2008Several months ago, I tried to get a simple question answered by NIOSH about part of its process for awarding mine safety research grants. The technical staff with whom I spoke probably knew the answer to my question, but they weren't sure whether the information could be disclosed or not. Fair enough. They suggested that I file a FOIA request which I promptly did.  More than 4 months later, I'm still waiting for an answer.Â
Granted, this is nowhere near the worst FOIA performance (see annual Rosemary Award), but my question to NIOSH was straightforward, and I guarantee they have at…
gregladen | January 8, 2008University of California, Irvine infectious disease researchers have shown the effectiveness of a potential alternative to the existing smallpox vaccine that can replace the current biodefense stockpile for this lethal virus.
Philip Felgner and Huw Davies with the Department of Medicine found that the modified vaccinia virus Ankara (MVA) produced the same antiviral response in human and animal studies as the current smallpox vaccine, Dryvax. The study is part of a national effort to develop a replacement for the Dryvax vaccine, which causes serious complications in some people. The results…
cmooney | January 4, 2008A propos of the ScienceDebate2008 project, my latest Seed column has just gone online. It's about how we must reinvent the role of the presidential science adviser for the modern media and political era. An excerpt:
Because formal US science advising was born during the Cold War, the emphasis often lay upon finding someone who intimately grasped nuclear security issues. The tradition lingers up to the present: The past four science advisers, including Marburger, have all been physicists. Yet while nuclear security issues remain vital, the science policy portfolio has dramatically diversified…
nisbetmc | December 31, 2007
At Time magazine, a focus on who will break out of the pack?!
As the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary approaches, it's all horse race all the time in the news media with an almost exclusive focus on "insider" coverage of campaign strategy and a fascination with who's ahead and who's behind in the polls. Lost in the media spectacle is any careful coverage of issues and policy proposals, or serious discussion of candidate background. In fact, it seems there's never been a time in 2007 where issues have taken primacy over the sports game of political coverage.
Consider that an analysis by…
evolvingthoughts | December 28, 2007
Found in an old manuscript in the ruins of an old university:
Well this year has been pretty much the same as those that went before. We planted crops, most of which failed because we only had the poverty of seeds we could find by the side of the now-decayed roads. Out children died of diseases that were once thought to be gone. It is time at the end of this century to reflect on the past two centuries - the second dark ages...
It is astounding to think that we have come to this pass after rising so high in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. We once went to the moon, but now we…
jjacquet | December 27, 2007Great news! All the hard work by the team at the Intersection and beyond is paying off and there are now two Congressmen supporting the call for a debate. From the press release:
NEW YORK - A Republican and a Democratic member of the United States Congress, who are each also scientists, are leading an effort to push for a presidential debate on science and technology policy.
Congressman Vern Ehlers, R-MI, and congressman Rush Holt, D-NJ, have agreed to co-chair the non-partisan initiative, called ScienceDebate2008.com, whose signers also include fourteen Nobel laureates, several university…
sheril | December 26, 2007Chris already listed several amazing new signatories who joined ScienceDebate2008 and now we can finally announce the most exciting news yet!
NEW YORK - A Republican and a Democratic member of the United States Congress, who are each also scientists, are leading an effort to push for a presidential debate on science and technology policy.
Congressman Vern Ehlers, R-MI, and congressman Rush Holt, D-NJ, have agreed to co-chair the non-partisan initiative, called ScienceDebate2008.com, whose signers also include fourteen Nobel laureates, several university presidents, other congresspersons of…
revere | December 25, 2007Forty years ago I was the only doc in a bioengineering lab in a famous technical university. We had our own computer -- it took up a giant room -- and had attached to it a rare device in those days, a scanner for converting transparencies to computer readable form. It was really a cathode ray tube with a sensor on the other side of the transparency. The CRT scanned and the sensor sensed and an analog to digital converter converted. About that time I got interested, along with an engineering colleague, in taking two-dimensional x-ray images, which were really projections or shadows of the…
laelaps | December 21, 2007As was evidenced by the long list of books that I've read this year, I've taken in a lot of material, and picking the 10 best books is a bit of a challenge. What makes a good technical book doesn't make a good popular science book, but overall there were a few that stood out from the rest to become volumes that I'm sure I'll be revisiting over and over again in the future (unlike the works in the "Bottom 10" list from a few days ago). As hard as it might be to rank some of these, here are my favorite 10 books that I read in 2007;
10) The First Fossil Hunters - Adrienne Mayor
The traditional…
sb admin | December 19, 2007Updated 12/20: See belowÂ
Four workers were killed and at least 14 people were injured in a violent explosion at the T2 Labs in Jacksonville, Florida. The firm manufacturers Ecotane®, the gasoline additive "methylcyclopentadienyl manganese tricarbonyl" (i.e., MMT® or MCMT), which increases the octane rating of gasoline. The firm says that its Florida facility is state-of-the art, and uses a "novel, safe and efficient process." We'll have to wait for OSHA or the Chemical Safety Board to tell us whether they had an effective process management safety system.Â
The company's…
grrlscientist | December 17, 2007tags: science, public policy, politics, federal funding, research, reality-based government, 2008 American presidential elections, ScienceDebate2008
I was disappointed, but not really surprised, when three Republican presidential candidates -- Mike Huckabee, Tom Tancredo and Sam Brownback (who has since dropped out) -- declared that they do not "believe in" the theory of evolution (in my opinion, the correct phrasing should have been "do you accept the theory of evolution?" rather than using the misleading and incorrect phrase believe in, which implies blind faith rather than scientifically…
clock | December 17, 2007There are 33 days until the Science Blogging Conference. We have 199 registered participants. The Sigma Xi space accommodates 200 and we have ordered food for 200 and swag bags for 200. Apart from the public list, we also have a list with a couple of anonymous bloggers as well as about a dozen of students who will be coming with their teachers. So, the registration is now officially closed and all future registrants will be placed on a waiting list.
The anthology should be published in time for the event. Between now and the conference, I am highlighting some of the people who will be…
clock | December 14, 2007To keep the conversation about the Science Debate 2008 going, I decided to post, one per day, my ideas for potential questions to be asked at such a debate. The questions are far too long, though, consisting more of my musings than real questions that can be asked on TV (or radio or online, wherever this may end up happening). I want you to:
- correct my factual errors
- call me on my BS
- tell me why the particular question is counterproductive or just a bad idea to ask
- if you think the question is good, help me reduce the question from ~500 to ~20 words or so.
Here is the first one, so…
denialism | December 13, 2007Yes, I know, I'm stating the obvious again. But I just couldn't resist when I saw this. In his never-ending quest to attack all science that doesn't affirm his belief that vitamin D and fruit smoothies will cure all disease, he's gone after the new new induced pluripotent stem cell findings. As far as I know, he's the only one to criticize the new technology as a whole, and his reasoning?
Really I can't believe he's this stupid. Reasoning, is the wrong word for this.
Let's ask instead, what is his demented, completely ignorant, insipid, moronic justification?
While less controversial…
gregladen | December 12, 2007There is quite a bit of activity in the blogosphere about this initiative. Have a look...
Coturnix at A Blog Around the Clock has worked his encyclopedic magic to make a magic encyclopedia of related posts, here.
Denialism Blog is not in denial about the importance of this initiative, as can be seen here and here.
The Los Angeles Times has this:
Whether the issue is global warming, embryonic stem cell research, ballistic missile defense or the future of the world's oceans, the same bass line thumps in the background: Sound political decision-making relies, more than ever before, on…
jstemwedel | December 11, 2007I was reading John Timmer's post on Ars Technica about the call for a presidential debate on science and technology and found myself surprised at how many of the commenters on the post think such a debate would be a terrible idea.
It's not just that the commenters think that the presidential candidates would use all their powers to weasel out of taking clear stands that might get them in trouble with one constituency or another. There are quite a few commenters who make variations of this argument:
I don't see this as being a very good idea. These people are POLITICIANS, not scientists. I…
apalazzo | December 11, 2007Since the discovery of IPS Cells, the stem cell field has exploded. Here's a few links on the latest developements.
First, two cool papers came out recently.
In the first from the Jaenisch lab, mouse IPS Cells were differentiated into erythrocytes and used to cure sickle celled anemia in a mouse model. This would be a first application of these IPS cells in a therapeutic setting.
In the second paper from the Yamanaka group, mouse and human IPS Cells were created by overexpressing 3 of the 4 genes used in the original protocol. In fact the gene that was omitted in this new protocol is myc,…
scientificactivist | December 10, 2007Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum of The Intersection (along with Derek Araujo, Matthew Chapman, Austin Dacey, Lawrence Krauss, Shawn Lawrence Otto, and John Rennie) are spearheading a grassroots movement called Sciencedebate 2008 to try to convince the powers that be of the need for a presidential debate on science in 2008. For a comprehensive list of the reasons why this is a good idea, I would have to rehash almost everything I've written on this blog... and then some. The point is that science is playing a growing role in society and politics, affecting in some way almost every issue…
omnibrain | December 10, 2007After all, nearly every aspect of our continued existence relies on science, from climate control, to curing existing diseases and preventing new ones. New advances rely on a great deal of funding from the federal government and support from the public at large. Why is it that at best science is an ignored industry when candidates are running for office? The only time science is brought up is in reaction to public religious pressure (stem cell debate) or corporate pressure (global warming).
Maybe Al Gore screwed us! He was one of the only candidates ever to talk openly about and support…
gregladen | December 10, 2007Yes, of course there should. And a large number of prominent scientists have put their shoulders to this idea and are pushing hard.
This is embodied in the "Call for a Presidential Debate on Science and Technology"
You should seriously consider going to this site and adding your name to those supporting this initiative. Seriously. You may have come to this blog for the gravy recipe, or to get the latest news on the War on Christmas, but most likely you are here on account of your interest in science. So you are the kind of person they are looking for.
Is it adequate to have science and…