Science Policy
evolgen | July 1, 2007It's not entirely obvious at first, but this article in the New York Times is about the problems with gene patents in a world where one gene does not equal one protein. Now, we've known that this model isn't entirely correct, what with alternative splicing and all. Additionally, the human genome also contains many "genes" which are only transcribed into RNAs, but not translated into proteins. All of this has been pretty much accepted by geneticists for a few years.
But rather than putting all of this in the appropriate context, Denise Caruso muddies the waters by overemphasizing the…
revere | June 25, 2007It is infuriating how stodgy biomedical sciences are in terms of information sharing. It's not clear how much of this is bred of inherent conservatism, the pressures of a very competitive field or just plain technobackwardness. But while mathematics and physics have had preprint servers for years, biomedicine has had nothing or virtually nothing (that last to cover myself in case I am forgetting something or just didn't know about it). What's a preprint server?
A preprint is a version of your scientific paper prior to its publication. Maybe it hasn't been submitted yet and you are circulating…
scientificactivist | June 22, 2007I'm at a conference right now and unfortunately don't have time to write extensively about this, but for those who were not aware, President Bush vetoed the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act (S. 5) on Wednesday. There are not enough votes in the House and Senate to override this veto, so it's clear that our lack of federal funding for embryonic stem cell research will continue until we have a new President in the White House.
On Wednesday the President also announced an executive order to encourage research into alternatives to embryonic stem cell research. As I've written before, these…
evolgen | May 28, 2007A couple of weeks ago I suggested that the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) would no longer be funding de novo genome sequencing projects via white papers. They appear to be shifting their focus to resequencing projects to study variation (ie, this) and take a closer look at well studied organisms (ie, ENCODE, which now has Drosophila and Caenorhabditis versions). But the distribution of genomic resources is extremely biased towards a few species. What should those researchers who work on organisms without genome sequences do if they can't solicit funds from the NHGRI?
As…
evolgen | May 2, 2007The Savannah River Ecology Laboratory (SREL) is experiencing a financial crisis. They have received financial support from the Department of Energy (DOE) for over fifty years. The DOE has cut funding, which may force SREL to close down. SREL operates as a unit of the University of Georgia, but depends on money from the DOE maintain operations. Besides basic and applied research, SREL is also involved in teaching, outreach, and environmental monitoring.
I have reproduced information from SREL on how you can help encourage the government to continue funding this important research station.
The…
ddobbs | April 17, 2007From the Never Thought You'd See This Department comes the one-person play Big Pharma, in which writer-director-actor Jennifer Berry apparently skewers said industry. How many plays get reviewed by both the LA Weekly and PLOS Biology? At least one.
As the PLOS Biology review notes,
Anyone who has experienced the assault of the pharmaceutical industry's marketing campaigns would appreciate Jennifer Berry's one-person play Big Pharma: The Rise of the Anti-Depressant Drug Industry and the Loss of a Generation. Since the mid-1990s, spending on drug promotion has grown steadily, reaching $21…
evolgen | April 8, 2007Matt Nisbet and Chris Mooney are arguing that science education is so fucked up and the press are so piss poor that scientists need to go swift boat vets in order win the public debates against anti-science types. According to Nisbet and Mooney, the general public are too stupid to understand the real science, so scientists need to dumb it down. And we can't rely on the press (which everyone calls "the media") to accurately communicate science, so we need to give them catch phrases and slogans. Scientists need ad wizards to convince the public that the earth is more than 10,000 years old,…
scientificactivist | March 14, 2007(See update here.)
The Congressional Committee on Oversight and Government Reform--chaired by Henry Waxman--will hold part two of its "Hearing to Examine Allegations of Political Interference with Government Climate Change Science" on Monday, 19 March, at 10:00 am EST. The full witness list is supposed to be made available later today (Update: It looks like the list isn't going to be posted today, but hopefully it will be sometime soon). To see it (once it's posted), and to watch the video of the hearing (once the hearing has begun), go to the committee's schedule page.
The witness list…
evolgen | March 5, 2007A discussion of open access data using bird flu and other disease data as examples.
The recent scares over bird flu have led many researchers to investigate the epidemiology, genetics, and disease risks of the virus. The researchers are focused on both preventing the transmission of the virus into human populations and preparing for a potential pandemic. By analyzing DNA sequences from different viral strains, researchers can understand how the virus spreads within and between populations, how it changes over seasons, and what (if anything) we can do to predict its next evolutionary jump.…
ddobbs | February 1, 2007
Mind Matters, the "blog seminar" I edit at sciam.com, this week hosts a debate (which readers can join) about a) how best to estimate the prevalence of post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD) in Vietnam veterans and b) ultimately, how to calculate the cost-benefit ratio of war. Three researchers (Harvard psychologist Richard J. McNally, UC San Francisoc psychiatrist Charles Marmar, and psychologist William Schlenger, of Abt Associates) with a long history of work in PTSD among Vietnam vets grapple with the implications of a recent study that seemed to revise sharply downward long-standing…
ddobbs | January 18, 2007Now comes more news -- unflattering to the company -- about Eli Lilly's, um, selective release of data about its antipsychotic drug Zyprexa. Lilly is trying to squash the full release (aka "leak" or "unauthorized publication") of internal company documents that allegedly reveal its attempt to cover up Zyprexa's dangerous side effects. But as Jake at Pure Pedantry outlines and the New York Times details, the attempt -- which itself hardly looks good -- will likely fail, partly because many of of the documents have already been posted on web servers outside the U.S. ,and thus out of reach of U…
scientificactivist | January 10, 2007One of the primary goals of Congress since the Democrats' stunning November 2006 election victory has been restoring federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. President Bush first imposed the restrictions on embryonic stem cell research in August 2001. After the House voted in May 2005 to overturn these restrictions, the Republican Senate stalled for over a year before finally voting in favor of reversing the funding ban as well in July 2006. Bush vetoed this legislation later that month, and both the House and the Senate were short the necessary 2/3 majority to override the veto.…
evolgen | January 8, 2007The NYTimes reports on the impending budget crunch at US science funding agencies. The last Congress only passed spending bills for the military and domestic security, leaving nine others at the same level as the previous year. If we take inflation into account, the stagnant budgets result in a decrease in funding of 3-4% for most federal science and engineering programs.
Congressional Democrats do not plant to update the unfinished spending bills, and will extend them in their current state through September. (To learn how to petition your congressional representatives to increase funding…
evolgen | January 6, 2007
There is currently much debate over the ethics of chimeras -- organisms that are partially one species and partially another. This debate is especially heated when humans are one of the species involved. Nature has published an editorial on the controversy. I don't intend to comment on the position of the editorial, but rather on the sloppy use of language by the unattributed author.
I don't know enough about the research and clinical applications of chimeras involving humans to make any claims about the ethics of such creations, but I do know enough about biology to get all hot under the…
evolgen | January 5, 2007We still have a chance to increase the NIH budget for this year. Go here to contact your US Senators and Representatives to request that they increase the NIH budget -- the last congress failed to vote on a budget for the NIH, resulting in a FY2007 budget identical to that of FY2006. From the website with the petition:
The Congress reconvened today in order to finish the FY 2007 appropriations process. The Labor-Health and Human Services-Education appropriations bill (Labor-HHS) that funds the NIH is one of the nine bills that still need to be considered. Unless funds are added to the NIH…
evolgen | December 22, 2006
Eugenie Scott and Glenn Branch are two of the leaders in the movement to keep the science in science classrooms in American public schools. Both Scott and Branch hold administrative position at the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), and they've displayed great commitment to maintaining the scientific integrity of American primary and secondary education. Of recent note is their new book Not in Our Classrooms, which offers an introduction to modern creationism and science education in the United States.
Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for the Separation of Church…
revere | December 15, 2006The Bush Administration hates science. Science is reality-based and some truths are politically inconvenient. But there are things that can be done. Like this:
The Bush administration is clamping down on scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey, the latest agency subjected to controls on research that might go against official policy.
New rules require screening of all facts and interpretations by agency scientists who study everything from caribou mating to global warming. The rules apply to all scientific papers and other public documents, even minor reports or prepared talks, according to…
evolgen | December 8, 2006My university has been hosting panel discussions on science, religion, and teaching. I missed the first installment, which consisted of faculty members from science and humanities departments and a local clergyman. The second discussion was led by four students from a course cross listed in Science and Technology Studies and Philosophy. The topic of this discussion was teaching science and religion, but the discussion often strayed to the intersection of science and religion in general. It would have been nice if they stayed on topic. I, however, can't hold much against them, as I once took a…
evolgen | November 21, 2006The new issue of Current Biology contains an interview with Drosophila geneticist Michael Ashburner. Here's a quote from the article:
Scientists should realize that if they submit to journals -- like those published by Elsevier, Springer, Kluwer, Wiley and the like -- then their work will be less accessible and not as widely read as it would be if it was published in an Open Access journal.
Current Biology is published by Elsevier (who are also involved in the arms trade), which means that Ashburner is pushing for Open Access publishing in a non-Open Access journal. Good stuff.
Ashburner's…
scientificactivist | November 20, 2006Since we had an interesting discussion here back in September about the rapid decline in success rates of NIH R01 grants, I should point readers over to Effect Measure for some informed commentary on a recent article in Science (subscription required) from NIH Director Elias A. Zerhouni. The success rate of Type-1 grants, for example, fell by more than one half from 2000 to 2005, a bad sign coming from the nation's flagship biomedical research grant program. Certainly, then, Zerhouni has some 'splainin' to do. I'll defer to Effect Measure, though, to summarize and comment on Zerhouni's…