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DonorsChoose Bloggers Challenge Update

We're one week into the DonorsChoose Bloggers Challenge, and we're already off to a great start. Thanks to some generous donations, we've already (as of the publishing of this post) raised $295 here at The Scientific Activist (30% of our $1,000 goal). Even more impressively, the participants at ScienceBlogs have together raised over $12,500. And, we still have over three weeks to go! So, let me thank you all for your generosity, and, if you haven't donated yet, please take a look at the projects that need funding. Even a little bit goes a long way. One project that I'd particularly like…

States Continue to Take Stem Cell Research into Their Own Hands

As debate begins today on HR 810, the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act, this post from the archives describes how some states have had to find their own solutions for supporting embryonic stem cell research in the face of a ban on federal funding. Hopefully tomorrow's vote will make these unnecessary. (12 May 2006) As the federal government continues to hold on to a restrictive embryonic stem cell research funding scheme--one that prevents the use of federal funds for any research associated with new embryonic stem cell lines--others are having to take up the slack. Chris Gabrieli, a…

SpongeBob: The Jig is Up!

SpongeBob, that iconic, impossible character living in a pineapple under the sea. You've been living a lie, you know? Here it is. The jig is up, so to speak. Imagine this. An iconic figure revealed to be a lie. No, it's not the first time. When I was a boy, it was Dino the dinosaur from "The Flintsones," in his purple glory. Really? Here's the amazing part. The designer himself has fessed up. It appears that the iconic undersea pineapple is changing its character, in response to brilliant Vi Hart's investigative, mathematical reporting. Don't believe me? The "confession," such as it…

Science Is Stupid, And Getting High

Ridue's Flickr photostream. This is not an endorsement for use of marijuana. I've always known that scientists and the news media don't get along so well, but this is a bit much. A study just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences describes how fatty foods can increase your appetite: UC Irvine researchers Daniele Piomelli, Nicholas DiPatrizio and colleagues found that fats in these foods make them nearly irresistible and trigger a surprising biological mechanism that likely drives our gluttonous behavior. The apparent culprit? Natural marijuana-like chemicals in…

The Two Ton Sugar Burden

Source - Pancreatic beta cells needed to produce insulin. Atlas carried the weight of the heavens on his shoulders. Americans may be carrying a burden of almost two tons of sugar from a lifetime of satisfying their sweet tooth. The New York Times article "Is Sugar Toxic?" describes the risk in a compelling way: Yes, the average American consumes 3,550 pounds of sugar in a lifetime, according to USDA estimates. The recommended daily intake of sugar is far less than the US average of 11.9 teaspoons: How much is just right? The American Heart Association recommends limiting the amount of…

Could Myriad Benefit If They Lose Their Case?

Source. Bioephemera provided an excellent overview of the ongoing appeal to the "Myriad gene patent case." Jessica Palmer wrote: Myriad Genetics's patents on the breast cancer genes (BRCA1 and BRCA2) were invalid because genes are unpatentable products of nature. Could Myriad Benefit If They Lose Their Case? I believe that if Myriad and the biotechnology industry itself embraces open innovation, that ironically they could indeed benefit. Let me explain. A review in Science stated (April 2010): A legal bombshell hit the biotech world last week: A federal judge in New York City used…

Natalie Portman: Academy Award Best Actress and Chemist?

Source: Flickr user ppjumpping I've been a fan of Natalie Portman since she was 12 years old, performing in an extraordinary, compelling film, "The Professional (1994)." In addition to being an Academy Award winning best actress, she's also a co-author on a Journal of Chemical Education article. Yes, even chemists can take on Hollywood. When Natalie Portman was a High School student at Syosset High School in Long Island, then Natalie Hershlag, she co-authored this paper in The Journal of Chemical Education: "A Simple Method To Demonstrate the Enzymatic Production of Hydrogen from Sugar"…

Healing a Lizard On a Nail

© Reza Deghati courtesy of Sony World Photography Awards Source. This evening, I had the pleasure and honor to meet photographer Reza Deghati at one of his exhibits {The Human Rights Institute at Kean University}, "One World, One Tribe." His images convey a compelling story of the unity of the human race. "The message of One World, One Tribe is we all have the same blood all over the world. The blood is the same color," said Reza. "We may have different colors, different languages, but the essence of humanity is the same for everybody." Reza shared a story about a "lizard on a nail" with…

Young People Can't {Can!} Do Real Science

"We also discovered that science is cool and fun because you get to do stuff that no one has ever done before." With my academic training and years of reflecting on how to teach science, I don't think I could develop a more compelling statement than this, written by a group of elementary school students. As graduate students in science, we struggle mightily to get a paper published in a top journal. This story reported by Ed Yong in Discover magazine reminds us that pure science, the process of discovery, can be accomplished by young children. Some would argue that you need to be a…

Evolution: The Story of LIfe on Earth

From time to time, my office receives publisher's copies of books, uninvited and not upon my request. Today, a copy of Jay Hosler's "Evolution: The Story of LIfe on Earth" arrived. {The hubris of explaining the "story of life on earth" is unimaginable to me, but that's another story.} This piques my interest; is a careful review warranted, or should it be added to my "to do" list that increases with each semester? I fully recognize that this is a "hot button" issue, and I don't want to enter the debate per se. I am simply a curious scientist. According to Amazon: Product Description…

Read Ben Goldacre's Missing Chapter

Journalist, doctor, and debunker Ben Goldacre has released the infamous missing chapter from his best-selling book Bad Science. This did not appear in the original edition because it covered the malfeasance of Matthias Rath, who was suing Goldacre for libel at the time. Rath lost his case and consequentially everyone, including Goldacre, is free to discuss how Rath is killing people in South Africa with his claims of curing HIV/Aids with vitamin pills. Best of all, Goldacre has released the chapter under a Creative Commons licence: This is an extract from BAD SCIENCE by Ben Goldacre…

BBC Life Is "Coral Reefs"

Figure 1: Deep sea coral. Click to awesomely embiggen! Another awesome exclusive video from our friends over at BBC Life Is. This month, the theme is corals, and the video (behind the fold, since it takes up a decent amount of bandwidth) features an interesting new attempt in Fiji to restore coral reefs. They write: Home to a quarter of the planet's marine life, wonderfully weird-looking, and of course brilliantly colourful, coral reefs are often hailed as one of the greatest of the ocean's wonders. Despite being the home to so much amazing underwater life, almost unbelievably reefs only…

Grad Student Dooced for Blogging

This is old news, but I just heard about it. A microbiology graduate student at the University of Wisconsin has a blog. He finished his rotations and chose a lab. His to be advisor found out about the blog and read it. After concluding that the student did not really want to be in grad school, he decided to not accept the student into his lab. The grad student got dooced: Yesterday I received an email from my (former) PI, a Dr. WH, that I can no longer join his lab, despite having already joined about a week and a half ago. Needless to say I was perplexed... I frantically emailed my (former)…

Phylogeny Friday - 28 April 2006

Over at my old site, I lamented the apparent death of distance based tree building algorithms. Just as all of life on earth can be divided into three domains, phylogenetic methods can be split into three groups: distance based, maximum parsimony, and maximum likelihood. Distance and parsimony based approaches have been around for a while (and were used prior to the availability of molecular data). The combination of molecular data and more powerful computers allowed large molecular datasets to be analyzed using parsimony methods. Our great computing power has also allowed for the advent…

Seed's Trend Toward Spreading Fallacies

I have to say, it's kinda cool to have my opinion acknowledged and used to correct an error. It looks like I pull some weight around here (not as much as some folks, but the 100 or so page views a day mean something). But I ain't done yet. In honor of my dedication to correcting errors in the popular press, I have added a new category called "Science News" to this blog. In this installment, I will point out another error published by Seed. Not all of my posts will be devoted to copy-editing my bosses, it just so happens that they're now one hit away from a trifecta for the day. This one…

Morphological embryology of a sea spider

Tanystylum bealensis male, ventral view, showing eggs and instar 1 (protonymphon) on ovigerous legs. in. 1, instar 1 (protonymphon); pa, palp; pr, proboscis; 1, first walking leg; 2, second walking leg; 3, third walking leg; 4, fourth walking leg. Surely, you haven't had enough information about pycnogonids yet, have you? Here's another species, Tanystylum bealensis, collected off the British Columbian coast. That's a ventral view of the male, and those bunches of grapes everywhere are eggs and babies—males do the childcare in this group. These animals also live in relatively shallow water,…

On the Genetics of Virgin Birth

There's an interesting discussion going on at Pharyngula regarding virgin birth in Bethlehem Komodo dragons. Two captive females in Europe recently gave birth to clutches of eggs despite no to minimal contact with males. The progeny are all homozygous at the each of the seven loci surveyed, with alleles matching those of the mothers. The logical conclusion to be drawn is that the eggs arose via parthenogenesis -- either by reabsorption of the second polar body or suppression of the second meiotic division. Take note that this is not clonal reproduction -- the progeny contain two copies of…

Ramblings on Darwin, Money, Fish, and Turkey

For the last month, I have been a visiting researcher in the conservation science unit at Cambridge University, which turns 800 (!) this year. Another impressive birthday is today: Charles Darwin's bicentennial--a grand event here in England, although they do admire Darwin daily (note the 10 pound note): Across the nation, events are commemorating Darwin and his contribution to science, including two of my weekend plans: the British Natural History Museum's Darwin exhibit and tonight's lecture at the Bath Royal Literary & Scientific Institution by Shifting Baselines' own Daniel Pauly (…

OMG, Larry and George Sittin' In a Tree...

Larry Craig, or as we call him in Minnesota, Happy Feet Larry, stepped in where Michelle Bachmann could not perform, in an overt act of erotic love with the President of the United States, George Bush. I starting watching the That Big Speech by George Bush just before midway last night. In time to hear him say that he wants to be the first President of the United States to usher in legislation specifically outlawing (rather than simply not funding) several entire areas of scientific research, at the same time doubling funding on research on nuclear power. Oh, and he also wants to be the…

Technology News

Slashdot has a number of interesting technology tidbits you may want to know about: Later this year, at ShopRite supermarkets in the eastern US, Microsoft will be rolling out computerized shopping carts. These carts will allow people with a ShopRite card to enter their shopping list on the ShopRite site from home, and then pull up the list on their grocery cart when they swipe their card. The new carts will also display advertisements depending on where in the supermarket the cart is, using RFID technology to help locate it." [source] "IBM is molding its Jazz technology, which helps…

Twin Cities Science Events

At the Bell Museum of Natural History Cafe Scientifique: Looking at Lichens Tuesday, January 8, 2008; 6 p.m. Kitty Cat Klub, Dinkytown We've all seen lichens growing on rocks, trees, or buildings. Yet their unusual and complex structure often goes unnoticed. Though they appear to be a single entity, lichens are actually complex and versatile organisms. Bell Museum Curator of Lichens, Imke Schmitte, will discuss the evolution of lichens, which species provide food, medicines and clothing dyes, and which help out nature by cleaning the air and adding color to the landscape. Cafe…

Elephants Are Not Ethnic-Blind

I have had this experience. I've traveled literally hundreds of kilometers by foot together with Efe (Pygmy) hunters in the Ituri Forest. We see very few animals. The few we do see are attacked, killed, and eaten. Well, a lot of them actually get away, but that is the idea. But I've also traveled many kilometers (not as many) alone. I would see many animals, and yes, they would run (or climb or whatever) away, but not as desperately. They knew I was not really one of the hunters, although I tried my best to look tough and hungry. Of course, when I use the word "animal" here I mean…

I watched the news today, oh boy.

I went to the gym today and spent about an hour on the treadmill (yeah, I know, good for me) and from where I was I could see the CNN-playing TV and the Fox-playing TV. I usually position myself so I can't see Fox because I find it disturbing and annoying, but the gym was crowded so I did not have that choice. One of the main news stories that cycled through the CNN show was this one: Former President George W. Bush was forced to cancel a planned trip to Switzerland this week over concerns of protests linked to the Bush adminstration's treatment of detainees. ... Activists also planned to…

Today's excessive religious hysteria

A gay rights group called Soulforce had a sit-in (it warms my heart to hear the traditions of the 1960s have not completely died) in the offices of Al Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and typical homophobe. One of our local bible scholars, Reuben David, an assistant professor of Communication Arts at North Central University, took it upon himself to criticize these militant gay rights activists; I'm really impressed with his perspective: Osama Bin Laden's threat against the West is milder compared to the movements of [Soulforce founder] Mel White and others who…

NASA's Kepler Mission Discovers Its First Rocky Planet

It is very hard to see cold, small, rocky planets like Earth when they are running around stars that are light years away, but Kepler found one. S, it turns out, we are not alone, at least in relation to geology. NASA's Kepler mission confirmed the discovery of its first rocky planet, named Kepler-10b. Measuring 1.4 times the size of Earth, it is the smallest planet ever discovered outside our solar system. The discovery of this planet, called an exoplanet, is based on more than eight months of data collected by the spacecraft from May 2009 to early January 2010. "All of Kepler's best…

The Fred and Wilma Flintstone Museum

Ken Ham's fabulous fake museum is going to open soon, on May 28. There are grounds for concern here. But Eugenie Scott, a former University of Kentucky anthropologist who is director of the California-based National Center for Science Education, said the information provided in the museum "is not even close to standard science." Scott visited the museum recently as part of a British Broadcasting Corp. radio program. Although she didn't get a tour, she saw enough to know that the museum will be professionally done. And, she says, that's worrisome. "There are going to be students coming into…

High Level Assembly Language Programming Book

Randall Hyde's book is now out in it's second edition. Your computer has little dohickies in it that know how to read and respond to commands that are, in turn, stored in (and read from) other dohickies. These instructions are collectively known as "machine language." If you do an programming at all, you probably know this. A form of this very low level language that is designed to be somewhat more readable by humans is known as Assembly Language. Higher level languages allow programmers to avoid messy details like the kind of hardware their program may run on, and higher level…

EpiWonk reanalyzes the dataset that DeSoto and Hitlan played with

One of the great "myths" of the mercury militia, that movement that insists no matter what the actual scientific evidence shows that it absolutely, positively has to be mercury from vaccines that cause autism is the Myth of the Poor Excretor. In other words, the claim is that autistic children are somehow "poor excretors" of mercury, thus making the mercury that used to be in vaccines more toxic to them so that it gave them autism. One of the key pieces of evidence cited to counter this myth is a study by Ip et al (2004) that failed to find any correlation between hair and blood mercury…

The value of a nap

A cup of coffee or a nap? Which would you prefer to get you through the hump of a tiring workday? While the cup of coffee may seem more practical, taking a midday nap is becoming more convenient in New York City. The New York Times recently wrote about a spa in New York City (called Yelo) that has started selling 20-40 minute naps for stressed out professionals and executives from $12 a session. While the idea of paying for a nap (which can be had for free) may be absurd, it begs the question: Is there any health value to taking midday naps? Some scientists agree, as I discovered in…

Stress Hormones Regulate Late Fasting in Penguins

Anyone who has seen the movie March of the Penguins knows that these animal undergo long periods of fasting. There are actually 3 stages of fasting in birds. Phase I: This is a short phase in which they burn stored fat for energy. Phase II: In this long phase, animals are constantly losing body mass and trying to spare proteins. Fat continues to be the main source of energy. Phase III: Animals enter this phase if fat reserves start running low. This is when changes in hormones and metabolism occur resulting in a switch from using fats to using proteins for energy. Along with the…

Metabolic Scaling of Ants

The research of James Waters and Jon Harrison from Arizona State University on ant metabolism was recently featured in a press release from The American Physiological Society. Mr. Waters and Dr. Harrison have measured the standard metabolic rates of individual ants as well as whole ant colonies. What they found was that the colony produced only 75% of the by-products that would be produced by individual ants if each lived in isolation. In other words, the metabolism of the colony was less than the sum of each individual ant's metabolism. Moreover, they found that larger colonies had lower…

The Power of the Science Fair

I can still remember how excited I got in junior and senior high school when it was science fair season. My friends and I would kick around ideas and make elaborate plans for what we were certain would be that year's shoo-in winner of the school fair. And once we captured the school's top prize, we would surely breeze through the city, county, and state prizes -- all the way to the nationals. But while we never made it to the nationals (nor to the state, county, or city competitions), we still couldn't wait to work on our science fair creations each year. One year I used some little-known-at-…

Are our youth underperforming in math and science?

I am Peter Economy, and I have for as long as I can remember been a fan and practitioner of both the arts (specifically, the musical arts) and science. Some years ago, I had the very good fortune to be invited by Harvey Seifter to help him write a book on New York's Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and its unique leadership model. As you may know, one of the things that sets Orpheus apart from most other orchestras is that it has no conductor. Instead, different musicians within the orchestra take on leadership roles depending on their own talents and interests. The book -- Leadership Ensemble:…

Whose playbook are they reading?

Earlier this week we noted that the Bush administration is continuing its efforts to rewrite history with regard to its stance on global climate change. From E&ETV: Monica Trauzzi: We've seen a change in tune of sorts from the president recently relating to climate change. Beyond this latest proposal, he also mentioned climate for the first time in this year's State of the Union address. Would you characterize this as a major shift in his position on climate change? Jim Connaughton: No. I would characterize it as a continuing advancement of the president's strategy on climate change. He…

Aussie Scientists in a Political Pickle

Recently, Australia's leaders seem to have been second only to the Bush Administration in their denial of the consensus around climate science. Just in case anyone thought being a researcher in Australia was all toast and Vegemite (not that we've actually heard that anywhere), the Sydney Morning Herald paints a picture of Aussie scientists who look a bit like some of their beleaguered Yankee counterparts. From "California dreaming, to stop an environmental nightmare": "Those of us who inherited this idea of Australia as a team player in the world have had to adjust over the last couple of…

BBC to Skeptics: Show Your Hand

The "Green Room," a BBC News environmental opinion series, threw the gauntlet down to skeptics last week. In his column "Skeptics: Cards on the table please!" Richard Black issued a challenge to skeptics claiming that science is biased in favor of research confirming man-made climate change: If you have evidence of research grants turned down because of a clash with the prevailing consensus, of instances where journals or conference organisers or consensus bodies have rejected "inconvenient" findings, please send it to us; my email address is at the bottom of this article. With the…

A spring day

Most mornings, I get up with my daughter, or more accurately, I wake her up. We have our little morning rituals---I turn on her lamp (or this time of the year, open her shade), pick her up and take her downstairs (something I might not be able to do for much longer). I turn on the TV and let her wake up slowly---she's not the morning person I am. Usually, there's a good deal of whining and moaning, stalling and kvetching. This morning, though, she was up and ready to go. Today, her family was coming to see her in a school play, and she had memorized her lines and just about everyone else'…

Dumb and Dumberer

The Syney Morning Herald has the latest evidence from the plagiarism scandal at the University of Newcastle (my previous posts are here and here) (my emphasis): The University of Newcastle sat on its "most serious" plagiarism allegations for more than four months, only acting when a television show peppered the institution with questions, the Independent Commission Against Corruption heard yesterday. But the vice-chancellor, Roger Holmes, told ICAC it was coincidental that one day after the media inquiries, the university finally began…

Outbreak! (again...)

Salmonella is lots of fun. Human infection usually involves fever, abdominal cramping, and diarrhea, which is often bloody. Salmonella infections are reasonably common, especially food-borne outbreaks. It's unknown exactly how many people in the U.S. suffer from salmonellosis each year since many probably never seek medical care or never have a stool culture done. The CDC gets approximately 40K reports of salmonella in the U.S. each year with about 400 deaths (the real case number is estimated to be closer to 1.4 million). Most of these cases are preventable. There are two large…

Naturopaths getting it wrong in Canada

Over at Skeptic North there has been an ongoing discussion about naturopathy. Since it looks like naturopaths are going to get prescribing privileges in Ontario, it's reasonable to subject their practice to some pretty intense scrutiny. One naturopath left some interesting comments about treatment of heart disease, citing relevant literature, but failed to show an actual understanding of the clinical realities of treating heart disease. This is not surprising given that naturopaths aren't required to do residencies like real doctors are. Another comment referenced the Canadian…

Senator Frank Lautenberg: Xenophobe or pandering to xenophobes?

While driving into work this morning, I was a bit disturbed to hear a news report about a speech New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg gave yesterday to a group of dockworkers in Newark who were protesting the proposed takeover of several U.S. ports by a company owned by the United Arab Emirates. Quoth the Senator (parts from my memory and part from this account): Don't let them tell you that this is just a matter of transfering the title. That's baloney. We wouldn't transfer the title to the Devil, and we're not going to transfer it to Dubai. The workers erupted in applause at this line. The…

Warbloggers on that Lancet study

One interesting feature of blogspace discussion of the Lancet study has been the comments from warbloggers, who, despite not even knowing what cluster sampling is, have been absolutely certain that the methodology of the study has been discredited. For instance, Arthur Chrenkoff admits: I'm not a statistician but none the less concludes that Shannon Love had demolished the study. (Daniel Davies deals with that "demolition"). Or Michael Totten at Instapundit, who is certain that the study uses very bad methodology. Bill Trippe sent him a correction: Did…

Summer reading list

I'm looking forward to having some time to read this summer. I've planned a total of two weeks away from work, and if all goes well, I'll get some time to plow through a few good reads. My first trip away will be my usual gig as a camp doctor in Ontario. Last year I brought up The Great Influenza by John Barry, which was ironic, given I landed at flu central. My second week off will be up in northern Michigan. Here's my list, which is heavily biased in subject matter (I'm far too lazy to give a three-source bookstore link, so you'll have to google them): Breakthrough: Elizabeth Hughes…

It's "Sod off, God!" week

My favorite ferocious feminist has declared this to be "Sod off, God! Week" at I Blame The Patriarchy. There's no respite from the patriarchy blaming, but she is taking a sledge to a few sacred cows as a sideline. Like this: Take ritual, for instance. My suspicion is that ritual is no deep human need. As a concept it gives off quite the lip-wrinkling whiff of eau du primitif. And what about that trio of stinky undertones — conformity, obeisance, and orthodoxy — that comes with it? Add the collateral conditions of exclusivity and tradition, and you got yourself all the field marks of one of…

Dr. Phil follows Dr. Oz's descent into psychic woo

Will it never end? First we had "America's Doctor," Dr. Mehmet Oz, credulously featuring psychic medium scammer John Edward on his show last year. Sadly, but typically, Dr. Oz was completely taken in by Edward's cold readings, even the most transparent ones. Even if his previous shows featuring Joe Mercola and a faith healer weren't enough to convince you that Dr. Oz either has no critical thinking skills or does have them but doesn't care about anything but entertainment, bread and circuses, this one should have been. My readers have now told me today that it looks as though in 2012 Dr.…

Painted ladies! Take me away!

When you lose your job, you find yourself taking on new hobbies and projects. Some of them are productive. Some are fun. And some just satisfy the kid in you. So, say hello to my painted lady caterpillars! These cuties will be spending the next three weeks of their lives with me before being released into the flower-filled courtyard of my building, where they will hopefully get busy and help make more flowers during their short, 2-4 week lives. I thought it would be fun, distracting, and great CV-fodder to take you all along with me. Aren't you lucky?! I'll keep you up-to-date on the…

What Is Biogeography?

As followup to this post, I will discuss what biogeography is. Largely, biogeography can be seen as subdisipline of the fields of ecology and evolution. Biogeography has traditionally been the study of the distribution of species across the globe, why a species occurs or does not occur in a given locality. As ranges of organisms overlap, an understanding of distributions then encompasses diversity or the number of organisms in a location. Modern biogeography includes any pattern of any geographic variation, body size, diversity, morphology, gene frequencies, in any ecosystem-such as the…

A Quiet Place for Whales

Natural Resources Defense Council is leading the fight to make the Pacific Ocean off California a more peaceful place for migrating whales. So far, they have strong support from the California Coastal Commission, who denied the US Navy sonar training exercises once before. A review is due on January 10. NRDC is asking for your support in an email campaign below. Dear California NRDC BioGems Defender, We won the first round in our local fight against deadly sonar. But round two starts today -- and we really need you to make your voice heard! Last month, NRDC Members and activists sent…

Greenpeace and Protecting Underwater Canyons

John Hocevar visited MBARI yesterday discussing Greenpeace's research on canyons in the Bering Sea. We've discussed this research before but a followup is worthy of another post. Greenpeace has been trying to convince the powers that be to protect deep-sea diversity from fisheries practices. Unsurprisingly, some people don't give a damn about the deep. It's all I get mine and make some Benjamins. Some of the focus has been on Zhemchug and Pribilof Canyons. Zhemchug is the largest canyon in the world by volume (19x Monterey Canyon where my current interests and research are focused) and…

Another broken satellite

Congratulations to the US Navy for skeet shooting a satellite from ships at sea. You have to admit, its an impressive feat. But will it become a trend? One candidate isn't even off the ground yet. Satellites used to fly instruments designed to do one thing, like measure ocean color for instance, but nowadays instruments are multi-tasking like the rest of us. In the scientific space race, this means some instruments suffer the cost of others. Space veterans tell me we're sending the technical equivalent of a Swiss Army knife into space rather than a simply designed, nicely weighted piece of…