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Unsung Successes Of Using Science To Guide Policy

This is a response to this week's Ask-A-ScienceBlogger question.  I must say, it took a while to come up with a reasonable answer.  I finally settled on environmental policy. The rel="tag">Environmental Protection Agency href="http://www.epa.gov/history/org/origins/first.htm">was established in 1970, mostly in response to popular concern about the damage that was accumulating in the environment as a result of industrial activity.  See the EPA page, href="http://www.epa.gov/history/topics/epa/15b.htm">Why EPA Was Established, for details. There are two reasons for choosing…

Primitive ant people...

...are at it again: The twilight zone: ambient light levels trigger activity in primitive ants What's unfortunate about this title is that the judgement "primitive" has nothing to do with the research. It is unnecessary. The study is about how one species of ant uses ambient light levels to trigger foraging.  It's a nicely done bit of work.  But whether or not these ants are "primitive" has zilch to do with the science. Back in the day, western anthropologists would study Primitive Culture. Such terms are no longer used in that field, and for good reason. It's not just that labeling other…

The eggs that weren't

I did not expect everyone to nearly instantaneously solve yesterday's termite ball mystery.  I'm either going to have to post more difficult challenges (from now on, nothing will be in focus!) or attract a slower class of reader. Cuckoo fungus grows in a termite nest. As you surmised, those little orange balls are an egg-mimicking fungus. It is related to free-living soil fungi, but this one has adopted a novel growth form that is similar in diameter, texture, and surface chemistry to the eggs of Reticulitermes termites. These hardened sclerotia are carried about the termite nest as if…

E. O. Wilson writes fiction...

...and it's about ants, of course: The Trailhead Queen was dead. At first, there was no overt sign that her long life was ending: no fever, no spasms, no farewells. She simply sat on the floor of the royal chamber and died. As in life, her body was prone and immobile, her legs and antennae relaxed. Her stillness alone failed to give warning to her daughters that a catastrophe had occurred for all of them. She lay there, in fact, as though nothing had happened. She had become a perfect statue of herself. While humans and other vertebrates have an internal skeleton surrounded by soft tissue…

Battle of the Pavement Ants

Battle of the Pavement Ants, definitely not Tetramorium caespitum While walking through the park yesterday, I happened across a sidewalk boundary dispute between two colonies of Pavement Ants.  As is their habit, these little brown ants opted to dispense with diplomacy in favor of all-out warfare. Incidentally, if I had to pick one thing that annoys me about the purely molecular systematists, it is their tendency to avoid dealing with the taxonomic consequences of their work.  A recent paper by Schlick-Steiner et al (2006) gave a detailed picture of the genetic structure within the…

Public Service Announcement: Formica nitidiventris = F. pallidefulva

In the comments, James Trager brings to our attention his recent synonymy of the venerable Formica nitidiventris with Formica pallidefulva. This is one of the most common ants, and in my opinion one of the prettiest, in eastern North America. Many of us from the east learned of this ubiquitous species incorrectly as F. nitidiventris, so the synonymy may take some getting used to. In any case, the name nitidiventris is sunk, so you'll only make yourself look obsolete if you persist in using it. The Trager et al (2007) revision of the Formica pallidefulva group is excellent, by the way.…

Need help in overcoming my inner guilt

There is irony in doing research on women engineering faculty members, and being a woman faculty member in engineering. One side of my brain tells me that the research says women (and men) who self-sacrifice for their students and colleagues burn themselves out, and instead should figure out how to say no more often; the other side of my brain tells me, "You've worked through the last 2 weekends and are tired, but your 4 students and postdoc need work plans from you before you leave for a conference in Europe on Friday, and you have 2 reviews for IJEE due Friday, and you have to read another…

Moving advert from Cancer Research UK

Although I'm American, much of my training and early independent career was influenced by British cancer researchers. At the time, their laboratories were supported by ICRF, the Imperial Cancer Research Fund. In 2002, ICRF merged with the Cancer Research Campaign to create Cancer Research UK (CRUK). I have several friends who work for Cancer Research UK, not the least of whom are blogger/author Ed Yong (Not Exactly Rocket Science) and writer/musician Dr Kat Arney, author of the aptly-named blog, You Do Too Much. Together with fellow professional science communicator Henry Scowcroft, they…

"Stop blogging. Stop blogging right now!"

Oy vey! So this is how to handle them bloggers? Thanks for my morning chortle walking back from the driveway this morning with the Sunday New York Times: And four months ago, a Wasilla blogger, Sherry Whitstine, who chronicles the governor's career with an astringent eye, answered her phone to hear an assistant to the governor on the line, she said. "You should be ashamed!" Ivy Frye, the assistant, told her. "Stop blogging. Stop blogging right now!" And how dare you exercise the First Amendment! But PharmGirl just castigated me on putting this up, saying that we really need to get over the…

Disappearance of Tiffany Sessions

Nineteen years ago, University of Florida junior, Tiffany Sessions, disappeared from her townhouse complex in Gainesville, Florida. What happened to her remains a mystery today. While a graduate student, a certain pharmacology blogger lived for two years in the same complex as Miss Tiffany up until five weeks before she disappeared. Along with a few dozen other UF students, they shared the same running route that bordered the pasture of the university's agricultural institute. Some thought that she was abducted somewhere along her run but others say she was last seen talking with someone in…

Epigenetics Alert! UStream "Office Hours" with Duke's Randy Jirtle today at noon EST

Here's a great, last-minute opportunity to interact one-on-one with a major player in the field of environmental and dietary influences on gene expression. From the Duke University Office of News and Communications: Charles Darwin famously reasoned that genetic traits change over many generations through natural selection, but the new field of “epigenetics” is finding that nurture can change nature more directly. Duke Professor Randy Jirtle will discuss epigenetics and answer viewers’ questions during a live “Office Hours” webcast interview at noon (17:00 GMT) Friday, Jan. 22, on Duke’s…

Have I ever told you how proud I am of my Scandinavian ancestry?

I am descended from Vikings, and I try to bring that wild-eyed berserkergang ferocity to blogging. But have you ever seen Swedes cook? YEEEEAAAAAH! That's the way to do it. You should have seen me this morning, when I was preparing the vegetable soup that will be simmering all day for our dinner here (yeah, it's a vegetarian soup. What can I say? I'm only half Scandinavian. The blood has been thinned with that of those domesticated English and Irish and Scots). I was flinging the big knives around viciously, and I'll tell you, their own mothers wouldn't recognize the bodies of those tubers…

Moses was stoned. No, really?

For its inaugural issue, the new interdisciplinary peer-reviewed journal Time and Mind has seen fit to publish a paper suggesting that Moses, among others of his time, didn't actually commune with any god, but was simply high on a local psychotropic plant extract. Ya think? In "Biblical Entheogens: a Speculative Hypothesis," (10.2752/175169608783489116) Hebrew University pyschology prof Benny Shannon draws on "comparative experiential-phenomenological observations" (his own drug trips), along with the documented effects of the psychoactive substances available to the ancient Hebrews. He came…

How do whales really hear?

Whales hear through their jaws, right? Maybe not, if a new study is correct... Researchers from San Diego State University and the University of California have been using computer models to mimic the effects of underwater noise on an unusual whale species and have discovered a new pathway for sound entering the head and ears. ... Since 1968, it has been believed that noise vibrations travel through the thin bony walls of toothed whales' lower jaw and onto the fat body attached to the ear complex. This research shows however that the thin bony walls do not transmit the vibrations. In fact…

Out -of-body experiences explained

The New York Times' Sandra Blakeslee reports today that a group of researchers has managed to induce the famous "out-of-body" feeling that sometimes accompanies near-death experiences. So goes another piece of evidence for the "soul." They employed virtual reality gear to play havoc the senses: Usually these sensory streams, which include vision, touch, balance and the sense of where one's body is positioned in space, work together seamlessly, Dr. Botvinick said. But when the information coming from the sensory sources does not match up, the sense of being embodied as a whole comes apart. The…

How to embarrass your country

I am so embarrassed to be a Canadian. A member of Canada's Parliament has given voice to an effort to add Bigfoot to the country's Species at Risk Act. Read it and weep: The debate over their (Bigfoot's) existence is moot in the circumstance of their tenuous hold on merely existing," reads a petition presented by Lake to parliament in March and due to be discussed next week. "Therefore, the petitioners request the House of Commons to establish immediate, comprehensive legislation to affect immediate protection of Bigfoot," says the petition signed by almost 500 of Lake's constituents in…

Karl Rove is an atheist?

While reading a hilarious New York magazine interview with Christopher Hitchens, I came across the news that Karl Rove is a apparently an atheist. Really? Well, Christopher Hitchens may have his problems -- his defection to the pro-war camp a few years back was and remains disappointing -- he's not known for inventing this kind of thing. Atheist Revolution explores the issue further, but it really all comes down to this exchange: Has anyone in the Bush administration confided in you about being an atheist? Well, I don't talk that much to them--maybe people think I do. I know something which…

Carl Sagan

Carl Sagan died 10 years ago today, I''d rather celebrate his birth, but there's this Carl Sagan Memorial Blogathon going on and I can hardly resist making a mention. With Sagan's passing, the world lost one of its leading champions of reason, but also one of its most eloquent describers of the wonders of the universe. Anyone who hasn't had a chance to read his Demon-Haunted World - Science as a Candle in the Dark, should get a copy now. Here's a favorite quote from same: "Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or…

Disappearing evo bio degree

The government spokesthingies say it's just a oversight. "On its own, it's not really a smoking gun," Glenn Branch of the National Center for Science Education tells New Scientist. "Inadvertant" is the explanation supplied to the New York Times. But the white space where "evolutionary biology" used to be in a list of science majors eligible for federal student assistance sure looks suspicious to me. Here's a screen grab of the controversial list, taken from a pdf at the AC/SMART grant website. See? Right where 26.1303 should be. The conspiracy theory is weakened, however, by the fact that…

Thankfulness

Ok, ok, I admit there's post-1900 classical that I really like. Copland and Gershwin in particular were mentioned by a number of people, and both are great. I made my first acquaintance with Copland when I was a little kid watching a NASA documentary, and in the background of some dramatic launch was his Fanfare for the Common Man. Gave me chills. Now to the actual post: I'm thankful for many, many things. One of them is having the next few days off from school. Now large parts of that time off are going to be spent studying, but that's not a bad deal considering there will also be…

EXTREME CLOSE-UP!!! Get something scanned under an electron microscope for free

What would an extreme close-up of your sandwich filling look like? What about your hair? The cluster of dust in the corner of your living room? The grain of pollen stuck to your coat? Scientists, of course, have ways of finding out, using electron microscopes to look at the tiniest of objects in glorious detail. Now you can do the same for free. A company called ASPEX, who bill themselves as "a leading producer of benchtop SEM (scanning electron microscopes", is offering readers a chance to send in a sample of anything and see what it looks like in extreme close-up. To take them up on the…

Buying science

This week's Nature has a substantial and fairly even-handed article on the unease Templeton funding causes. Jerry Coyne is prominently featured, so you know it isn't an entirely friendly review. Religion is based on dogma and belief, whereas science is based on doubt and questioning," says Coyne, echoing an argument made by many others. "In religion, faith is a virtue. In science, faith is a vice." The purpose of the Templeton Foundation is to break down that wall, he says — to reconcile the irreconcilable and give religion scholarly legitimacy. They also quote scientists who found the…

Climate change and the IPCC reports. Should you trust?

Well, despite the political fallacies inherent in drafting such reports, the answer is an unequivocal "hell yes!" But a piece at the SCQ by Sarah Burch (which constitutes the second part of an FAQ about the IPCC reports) is better at telling you why: Given the deluge of noble mandates and far-reaching policy proposals emanating in ever-increasing numbers from that devious hub of sycophants and climbers that we call Ottawa, we must (being the ever-so-enlightened socio-scientific critics that we are) carefully evaluate the straw that broke dear Stephen's back: that is, the most recent IPCC…

Novel Idea: "Think Tank Will Promote Thinking"

A story in the Post yesterday, "Think Tank Will Promote Thinking: Advocates Want Science, Not Faith, at Core of Public Policy," begins this way: Concerned that the voice of science and secularism is growing ever fainter in the White House, on Capitol Hill and in culture, a group of prominent scientists and advocates of strict church-state separation yesterday announced formation of a Washington think tank designed to promote "rationalism" as the basis of public policy. It's being promoted by the Center for Inquiry-Transnational, which apparently also just put out a "Declaration in Defense of…

Posing As a Physicist, easy; But posing as a model? Let's see them do that.

An article yesterday in Slate discusses Sociologist Harry Collins's recent experiment with credibility and authority: "The Amateur's Revenge: Posing as a physicist--and getting away with it." He did this: In a recent experiment of his design, British sociologist Harry Collins asked a scientist who specializes in gravitational waves to answer seven questions about the physics of these waves. Collins, who has made an amateur study of this field for more than 30 years but has never actually practiced it, also answered the questions himself. Then he submitted both sets of answers to a panel of…

I hope these people aren't your friends

Japan has a tragic and devastating earthquake. American responses follow a range of attitudes. One that is normal and appropriate is sympathy and outreach by donations to organizations like the Red Cross; if you're in that group, good for you, congratulations on being a human being. Another response that is far too typical is for people to drop to their knees and start praying to their fairy-tale magic man in the sky, being about as ineffectual as is possible while still feeling smug about it. That's human too, it's just dumb. You don't get congratulations for being a stupid human being, but…

The moment of truth

With around 1,000 pages to digest, only the most committed of climate policy wonks can give you an an honest assessment of the just-released draft of H.R. 2454, the Waxman-Markey bill that may or may not get the U.S. on the road to climate repair. Reaction so far is, predictably enough, mixed. Greenpeace hates its, claiming that it would, at best, cut greenhouse gas emissions by between 4 and 7% below 1990 levels by 2020. Congress should, therefore, go back to the drawing boards. Al Gore and company have chosen to back the bill -- and they want everyone associated with his Climate Project…

The problem with Thanksgiving ...

... is that the rest of the world doesn't stop while you're off stuffing your face with the family. And by the time you're back in the saddle, the virtual stack of papers to read and work to catch up on threatens to bury you before the season's first snowfall. So while I dig myself out, here's a great little snippet from Gavin Schmidt, one of the forces behind RealClimate.org and a leading light in the climatology community: It has become fashionable for some commentators to describe environmentalists and their climate change arguments as having "'religious fervour" or of "being dogmatic".…

The truth about red pandas

This is Toby, a red panda at Houston Zoo. This article lead to this comment: Don't be fooled. The Red Panda's "cuteness" is simply a reflection of the human tendency to anthropomorphize animals. In reality, the Red Panda is a vicious omnivore, willing to eat (or try to eat) anything it can put into its mouth. Packs of Red Pandas have been know to strip live elk calves to nothing but bone in mere minutes. These predators are primarily nocturnal, and a Red Panda roused from sleep during daylight hours will attack anything that moves, ripping and shredding interlopers with razor-sharp teeth…

Iowa faculty on the “Evolution Academic Freedom Act" (HF 183)

There’s a petition and statement going around regarding HF 183 for Iowa academics to sign. The text reads: We, the undersigned members of institutions of higher learning in Iowa, urge our legislators to reject passage of "The Evolution Academic Freedom Act" (HF 183) introduced by Rod Roberts (R-Carroll). The language of this bill comes primarily from the Seattle-based Discovery Institute, which has conducted lobbying efforts and political activism against the teaching of evolution since 1994. Evolution is as established a scientific theory as any other theory in science. It is misleading to…

Oklahoma wins in the 2009 race to destroy science education

NCSE is reporting that the first anti-evolution bill of 2009 will be from Oklahoma. Senate Bill 320 (document), prefiled in the Oklahoma Senate and scheduled for a first reading on February 2, 2009, is apparently the first antievolution bill of 2009. Entitled the "Scientific Education and Academic Freedom Act," SB 320 would, if enacted, require state and local educational authorities to "assist teachers to find more effective ways to present the science curriculum where it addresses scientific controversies" and permit teachers to "help students understand, analyze, critique, and review in an…

A storm on steroids.

We had quite the storm here in the Valley on Thursday. Wind gusts up to 100 mph. Lots of rain. And more than 1,500 lightning strikes in a single hour. Round about 7pm we could see the lightning to the east of us here in Tempe and it was still going on around 2am. It was the most amazing lightning I've seen in years. Storm cell after cell swept through the Valley. Power lines and trees fell, and nearly 80,000 homes lost power. An $8.4M athletic facility at the University was demolished with a month of opening. Sky Harbor airport closed two runways. I found myself in a bar which not only lost…

On manufactroversies

Leah Ceccarelli in the Seattle Times: My own research seeks to reveal what makes today's manufactroversies work. First, I've discovered that modern-day sophists skillfully invoke values that are shared by the scientific community and the public, such as free speech, skeptical inquiry and the revolutionary force of new ideas against a repressive orthodoxy. It is difficult to argue against someone who draws on these values without seeming unscientific or un-American. Second, the modern sophists exploit the gap between the technical and public spheres. Scientific experts who can't spare the…

Nobel Prize in Physics for Fiber Optics, CCDs

The Nobel Prize in Physics for 2009 has been announced and goes to Charles K. Kao for "for groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibers for optical communication" and to Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith for the "for the invention of an imaging semiconductor circuit - the CCD sensor." I'm crazy busy so don't have time to comment on the physics of these awards at the moment, but the thing that struck me about this selection will probably strike a few others and can be summarized in two words: Bell labs. Boyle and Smith are retired from Bell labs which is…

Yreka Phlox

Yreka Phlox (phlox hirsuta) is a endangered perennial subshrub with small beautiful purple flowers native to my hometown of Yreka, California. And now, it's Yreka's' official flower. The official resolution from the city council: "WHEREAS the Yreka Phlox is a hardy, enduring plant that grows in poor soils with little water and is known also as Phlox hirsuta; and WHEREAS, its flower is a lovely and cheerful harbinger of spring; and WHEREAS, the Yreka phlox is unique to our hometown; and WHEREAS, the late City Attorney Larry Bacon had a vision for conservation of the Yreka Phlox which…

“Biological Information: New Perspectives”

That's the title of an academic science book. It sure sounds sciencey, doesn't it? It got accepted by Springer-Verlag for publication. And then inside it claims that one of their conclusions is that "conventional chemical and evolutionary mechanisms seem insufficient to fully explain the labyrinth of information that is life". Oooh, more of that fancy science talk. It must be taken seriously! Only, it turns out that this book was being peddled as a contribution to the category of "Engineering and Applied Science" rather than biology, because if it were proposed to Springer-Verlag as a biology…

Rep Joe Barton Thinks Oil in Alaska Disproves Global Warming

Okay, well he didn't exactly say that, but he certainly is a smug son of a gun who asked a grade school question to a Nobel prize winner in physics, apparently expecting a "gotcha" moment (via TPM): Dudes even so proud of himself that he (or his staff) posted this video on his YouTube page. BEDEVERE: Exactly. So, logically... VILLAGER #1: If... she... weighs... the same as a duck,... she's made of wood. BEDEVERE: And therefore? VILLAGER #2: A witch! Then again, what should you expect for someone who produced this: Wind is God's way of balancing heat. Wind is the way you shift heat from areas…

The Risk-Takers, the Doers, the Makers of Things

My favorite line from today's inauguration speech: In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of short-cuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted - for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things - some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labour, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom. The following…

Bouncing Back From Droping Off The Edge

Whew. That was quite a quarter! Talk about drinking straight from a firehose. Okay, okay, I still have a long list of missed deadlines that I need to get to ASAP, but at last it feels like maybe I can see the light at the end of the tunnel (don't tell me its the next quarter, I want to be delusional for at least a few days.) The winter break is always a great time, most importantly because "OMG snow!" (Seattle got another four plus inches of snow last night. Dude, that's like a two feet equivalent in most of the rest of the northern U.S.!) and because of all the great Christmas cheer (…

Zooming in on the Origin of Life Science Foundation

I'd been wondering about the credibility of David L. Abel, an Intelligent Design creationist who claims to work in the Department of ProtoBioCybernetics and ProtoBioSemiotics, Origin of Life Science Foundation, Inc. I tried to track down this foundation with the lofty title, the million dollar prize, and the elaborately specific departments, but the best I'd been able to do was find a google satellite image. Huh. That looks suspiciously like a suburban house. So then someone from the Evil Atheist Conspiracy's vast network of spies and agents decided to drive by and get a picture. Why, it is…

Teaching Generalizations of Probability

Hoisted from the comments, Robin asks: So, with that in mind, here's a question. What do you think about teaching quantum mechanics as noncommutative probability theory? In other words, by starting with probability theory and alluding to probabilistic mechanics (e.g., distributions on phase space), and then introducing quantum theory as a generalization of probability. This is how I think of quantum theory all the time now -- and it makes tremendous sense to me. I think it's how I want to teach it. And I'm curious what y'all think. This is roughly how I like to introduce quantum theory,…

The Leveling of Education or Information Overload?

I grew up in the middle of nowhere. I read all, and I mean all, of the science and math books in my local library (and nearly all of the Scientific American magazines as well.) Because this was before the internet was ubiquitous these were the only resources I had. These days I often wonder how my life would have been different if I would have had access to open courses like the one described in this article. There is one part of me that thinks this will change the entire landscape of learning for rural kids. On the other hand, by not having total access to the entire world of knowledge…

Windows Launch Party Photo

It's not photoshopped, and it really was for the Windows 7 launch. style="display: inline;"> The picture was taken in Sietes, Spain, which had been decorated for an advertisement for the event.  In point of fact, the href="http://www.spanishnews.es/20091012-tiny-spanish-village-has-the-attention-of-microsoft/id=1255/#more-1255">people of Sietes are not a particularly good customer base: The tiny village of Sietes Spain will be the new location for an advertisement from Microsoft about Windows 7, which is slightly ironic given the software giant has chosen a place that only has one…

New Kind of Cloud

In 2008, we href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7574684.stm">were informed that a kind of cloud formation had been named: the mammatus formation, so-called because it resembles a breast.  Sort of.  Whatever. href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7574684.stm"> A new development is more serious.  The href="http://cloudappreciationsociety.org/">Cloud Appreciation Society has suggested that the name asperatus be given to clouds that portray a particular kind of turbulence. Flickr photo by Vince Perritano, Creative Commons license Other, more…

My cunning plan has worked!

In my talk at the Society for Developmental Biology, I encouraged more scientists to take advantage of the internet to share science with the public. Someone fell for it! Saori Haigo has started a blog, and she even explains why. I've started this blog because I believe I have a social responsibility as a professional scientist to communicate science openly to the people. I will blog about what I think are important topics in the biological and biomedical sciences and explore the value, current issues, and realistic expectations of what we gain from doing research on that topic. In addition…

Tonight at NAS: Communicating about Evolution

For DC readers, as part of a spring lecture series on evolution and medicine sponsored by NIH and the National Academies, I will be speaking tonight at 7pm at the National Academy of Sciences Auditorium at 2101 Constitution Avenue, NW (adjacent to the State Department and National Mall.) Go here for more information on the free talk. The topic of the lecture is "Communicating about Evolution" and I will be discussing themes covered in recent articles and forthcoming book chapters. I previewed some of these themes in video interview segments last year with Big Think. Here is a synopsis from…

McCain's Supporters Distrust Him on Climate Change

How strong is the partisan divide on perceptions of global warming? The tendency for Republicans to doubt the reality of climate change means that they are even distrustful of John McCain's advocacy for action on the problem. From a news release for a survey just released by Anthony Leiserowitz of Yale University and Edward Maibach of George Mason University: In the race to earn undecided voters' trust on the issue of global warming, the two candidates are in a dead heat. Fifty percent of undecided voters trust John McCain as a source of information about global warming and 51 percent trust…

WPost on McCain's History of Support for Deregulation

Expect to hear a lot about this from the Obama campaign over the next few weeks. See the front page article at today's Washington Post, detailing McCain's reaction to the Wall Street bailout. As the article reports, before McCain was for regulation and "reforming Wall Street," he was a leader against it. In 2007, he told a group of bloggers on a conference call that he regretted his vote on the Sarbanes-Oxley bill, which has been castigated by many executives as too heavy-handed. In the 1990s, he backed an unsuccessful effort to create a moratorium on all new government regulation. And in…

Quoted at E-Magazine on Presidential Science & the Election

E-Magazine has a feature out on the (non)-role of science issues in this year's presidential race as well as the failed attempts at a Science Debate. I'm quoted in the article, as is my friend Chris Mooney, and other experts such as Harvard's Sheila Jasanoff. Of note are these plans and comments from Obama's science staffer: Democratic nominee Barack Obama often cites the role of science and technological innovation in driving the U.S. economy. Jason Grumet, Obama's climate change advisor, told E, "Senator Obama believes that there is a fundamental need for transparency in government. He…

Video: Luntz Focus Group on Palin

A few things are interesting about this clip showing a focus group run by Frank Luntz with Minnesota voters on behalf of the AARP. First, when Luntz asks the participants to name the first things that come to mind about Palin, you notice that no one mentions issues or her stand on them whether it is climate change, abortion, stem cell research, taxes etc. Instead, with the miserly public, the first thing that comes to mind are aspects of her personal narrative and identity. Moreover, the metaphors and frame devices that have dominated the campaign to date are applied to Palin to make sense…