WHRC debuts detailed maps of forest canopy height and carbon stock for the conterminous US
at 6:23 am on Monday, 25 April 2011
http://bit.ly/gnwFRM
Can Science and Religion Get Along?
at 9:32 am on Tuesday, 8 March 2011
“WASHINGTON, D.C.—Can pastoral warnings of fire and brimstone be redirected toward a heating planet in the interest of preserving God’s creation? Or are those who build creation museums hopeless ideologues whose Stone Age ideas should be buried once and for all?
“Those were among the topics of discussion at a seminar here yesterday at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science . . .”
So opened an online Science NOW article of 19 February 2011.
read the article
Load ‘n Lock Language
Blood libel, eh? Shows what happens to a person who owns a Thesaurus to look up cool sounding words, but neglects to look them up in a dictionary (or in this case even an encyclopedia). Does the speaker know what a blood libel is? Which is more chilling? ignorance? Or whatever the option is?
I am rereading Umberto Eco’s address to the Italian Parliament called On the Press. This is from his book Five Moral Pieces which I highly recommend for all five pieces in it. Migration, Tolerance, and the Intolerable, and Reflections on War are also awfully relevant right now. I then found a free copy of George Orwell’s Politics and the English Language on-line, and reread it.
Just to ground myself even more securely, I also revisited Aristotle’s Rhetoric to make sure I was correct in remembering that most political speech (writing) falls under the special topic of “Deliberative”. The purpose of Deliberative rhetoric is to persuade somebody to do or not to do something. Appeals used in Deliberative rhetoric fall under two heads: 1) worthy vs unworthy or 2) advantageous vs disadvantageous. Aristotle recognizes what centuries of deliberative rhetoric have since proven, that most human beings, especially at the cultural and intellectual level most useful to politicians, “the advantageous” whips “the worthy” nearly every time. What this means is that we would be as wrong to expect a high level of discourse from politicians on the prowl as they would be wrong to try to appeal to the desires and fears of their constituencies to be good or worthy rather than to be rich or safe.
Aside: Our president presented a beautiful example of another special topic: epideictic (ceremonial). Its subtopics are honor or dishonor, or praise or blame. Funeral orations are a familiar example of the type. Most common items of discussion in ceremonial speech are the following virtues or their corresponding vices: Courage, temperance, justice, liberality, magnanimity, prudence, and gentleness. As you view, hear, or read the orations honoring the victims of the Tucson massacre, look for the use of these rhetorical devices. Notice that each topic area comes with a vocabulary. One cannot think or cause another person to think a certain way without a certain vocabulary.
There has been, for a considerable time in our country, a vocabulary of mistrust, anger, fear, hatred, racism. etc. Notice that all of these appeals are loaded with emotional content. In short, the arguments that use this language are not rational appeals to our better selves, but most of them appeal directly to deep-seated emotions and fears. In short they are all logical fallacies, and would not be accepted in any rational argument.
I believe that it is extremely naive to suppose that the language of a discourse doesn’t make any difference. Such a naive assumption negates two thousand years of grammar, rhetoric, and semantics. Hundreds of men and women have written about the influence of language on thought and action, and the activities above (rhetoric, et al), and that certain uses of language can permeate a whole national tone (Orwell chastises England for allowing the degeneration of their language). When the most popular and biggest “news” organization habitually appeals to fear (immigrants, blacks, Hispanics, lesbians and gays, socialists, atheists, Democrats, etc.) and maintain in almost all stories a sense of anger, rage, mistrust, etc., then I believe that the general tone of the discourse will have the same undesirable flavor. When a communication medium concentrates on presentations that are trying through negative emotions to affect what we do, rather than what we know or understand, then they are no longer news organizations, but political/religious organizations. When they manipulate us by preying on our basest and least worthy instincts, they are despicable.
For most people thought consists of internal monologues or dialogues. Of course these thoughts are normally made up of words. The thinker has to use a language, and the language one uses (vocabulary, tone, etc.) is determined by the vocabulary one knows. Most politicians, for example, don’t know the vocabulary of most sciences, and thus, usually make perfectly irrational statements if they feel the urge to speak on scientific matters. I cannot talk intelligently about quantum physics because my physics training was Newtonian with a nod toward Einstein.
If the only political-speak I had heard consisted of logical fallacies based on strong, base emotions, then all my thoughts about politics and politicians would be expressed with this vocabulary. If, perchance, I were an unsettled young man suffering from paranoia or schizophrenia, whose thought processes are tangled in all kinds of ways we would have trouble imagining, and who has shown a obsession with language and how language means — if I were that young man in that environment, might I not act out my fear and paranoia with a gun?
There is nothing definite about this. The young man was insane, and insane people do inexplicable things. So one cannot blame the incident entirely on any or all of the purveyors of political garbage. But it is very unlikely that the incident occurred in a vacuum. The young man, just by being on the street, going to school, etc. was bombarded by this violent emotional tension every day. I cannot but believe that the political atmosphere of the last few years limited his options.
The great shame is that it is much easier to buy an assault weapon with a super magazine than it is to get help for a desperate and ill young man. A major topic for further discourse should be the availability of health care for everyone, and emphasis on mental (or brain) disorders. This would include the need to improve the way we are currently treating returning military people with serious head injuries. Instead, we are getting the same old language — “kill Obamacare”, for example.
Can “Supernatural” phenomena be scientifically tested?
at 9:56 am on Tuesday, 2 November 2010
A recent article on the Cosmic Variance blog has a very nice description of how science might go about responding to claims of the supernatural. This article adds, significantly, I believe, to the discussion of the relationship between religion and science.
Cosmic Variance, 11/10/2010. http://bit.ly/dkhqKG
Who Are the Science Deniers?
at 9:28 am on Tuesday, 7 September 2010
Hopefully without sounding angry, I would like to briefly explore a rough categorization of people who deny either Darwin, Einstein, or global warming. It appears that they disbelieve for similar reasons, and can be divided into three rough groups.
1) They don’t understand the science or they are simply not interested enough to think about it themselves and they accept the word of someone they consider an authority.
2) They can understand most of the science pretty well, at least in general, but they deny it because they don’t want to believe it. Their reasons may be religious, economic, or political.
The religious denier of evolution, for example, believes evolution theory contradicts the word of God. The same person may believe that God created the earth for mankind to dominate and would not let us harm the earth by our activities. Or they may believe that it is irreligious hubris for humans to presume to want to control the climate.
The economic denier is likely to have an interest in fossil fuels, manufacturing, the stock market, or other issues that might suffer if global warming theory interferes with commerce or the economy in any way.
The non-professional political denier might not want government messing with their life-style by making a bunch of regulations, rules, and limits on things they think ought to be free.
3) There are surely some deniers who understand the science pretty well in general, and who understand it well enough to know that it is probably true, but have ulterior motives for denying it. A preacher might not want to affirm global warming in a sermon to avoid offending or frightening his flock. A politician might deny it because s/he knows his/her constituents don’t believe global warming or are hostile to the idea for other reasons. I believe there are a lot of politicians who understand global warming pretty well, but who are denying it now that we are about to have an election where the lines are solidly drawn around global warming. We have senators and congresspersons who have supported and even introduced bills for energy policy based on global warming, who now deny the science and are voting against bills they previously supported. It looks suspicious when nearly all Democrats appear to believe in human-caused climate change, and nearly all Republicans are deniers.
Opinion-makers are hard to figure. Many of them simply want to stir the pot. Their business thrives on controversy and if there is not a controversy going they will invent one. Some of them have literally millions of avid followers. The climate change controversy was practically invented by them and they restir this pot on a regular basis, using the same old, solidly refuted propositions they started out with. They don’t give a damn about the science.
Men are not animals
at 9:01 am on Tuesday, 10 August 2010
This parody of creationist arguments is so close to the truth it is painful to watch!
Critique of Cal Thomas’ article “More Abandon Climate ‘Myth’”
at 1:05 pm on Wednesday, 9 June 2010
“After spending years promoting ‘global warming,’ the media are beginning to turn in the face of growing evidence that they have been wrong.”
Just who are these media he talks about? Given the title of the piece, and this opening, one would suppose that some startling new evidence of flaws in the science was causing “media” to abandon the “climate myth.” However, Thomas does not cite any new science at all and doesn’t actually use any scientific information. He simply refers to some old denier scandals, such as the notorious and oft refuted climate-gate even though most of the articles don’t connect to the science at all, but to public opinion.
That quote is the first paragraph of the article and Thomas apparently didn’t read any further or he would have discovered that the article does not support his argument at all. We learn that the “rebellion” was from a tiny percentage of the Royal Society, who had been selected because they were hoped to be sympathetic to the cause, and asked to sign a petition to open the discussion on climate to more deniers. The article says that only a third of those asked actually signed, and nearly all of them were non-climate scientists and were retired.
The conclusion of the Royal Society? “Nothing in recent developments has changed or weakened the underpinning science of climate change.”
Hardly a groundswell of opinion shift. Add to this fact that the London Times has been a leading denier of climate change from the very beginning. The reference to this article is completely empty of information and is used only to vaguely suggest that the Royal Society is being forced to change its stand on climate change because of something wrong with climate science. Thomas is counting on the reader’s just taking his word for it that the article suggests scientists were suppressing the truth, and will not go to the trouble to find and read what the London Times article actually said.
Thomas next refers to a Newsweek article titled “Uncertain Science”, in the May 28 edition of newsweek.com, which he admits up front doesn’t support his thesis very well. The article, by Stefan Theil (who is not a science writer), is about how the general pubic is losing confidence in global warming, primarily because of other issues they hold to be more urgent, and because scientists have not done a very good job of communicating. No news there. No sudden abandonment of the “myth”.
Next, he drags out the old “polar bears are thriving” argument. According to Arctic Focus, October 27, in a routine re-evaluation of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) the convention recommended that all commercial trade in polar bears will be against the law. The Nunavut, whose income depends heavily on guiding sportsmen on polar bear hunts, claimed that polar bears were not currently under any stress in their part of the arctic, and asked for the hunting restrictions not apply to their territory. It is obvious that the Nunavut have a special interest. In fact, the polar bears may be thriving in their particular part of the arctic. That would not suggest that the science of climate change is affected in any way by this occurrence. Hence, there is no support here for Thomas’ assertion that climate change is a “myth”. He just need an opportunity to say “polar bears” and “thriving” in the same sentence, which is, in fact exactly what he did.
His reference to the New York Times has to be quoted in full to be appreciated:
LONDON — Last month hundreds of environmental activists crammed into an auditorium here to ponder an anguished question: If the scientific consensus on climate change has not changed, why have so many people turned away from the idea that human activity is warming the planet?
When I first read this I couldn’t believe that a New York Times editor had let such an obvious gaff pass. But then, unlike Mr. Thomas, I read the article. The article described a meeting in which hundreds of scientists and others gathered to discuss why global science had gone from being one of the hottest topics amongst the general public in Britain to being taken seriously by less than 30% of the population. The Times writer used two of the commonest of all logical fallacies to help explain the sudden shift. It was a “rhetorical” question with no fewer that two classical logical fallacies!
First it the equivocation on the word “consensus.” “Consensus” means “agreement”, or solidarity of opinion. The question about consensus is agreement amongst whom? The big question is “If the scientific consensus on climate change has not changed, why have so many people turned away from the idea. . . “Scientific consensus” would clearly mean a general agreement amongst scientists. In his very next sentence Thomas declares that there was not a consensus. It would seem that consensus should refer to “scientific consensus” above, but, no, the next sentence boldly declares that the consensus is amongst “those of us who didn’t get an ‘A’ in science”! By using a perfectly common word to mean two entirely different things, he has bamboozled himself. Or is he trying to deliberately bamboozle us?
The simple fact is: anyone who didn’t get an “A” in science does not get a vote in a scientific consensus. A scientific consensus is an agreement amongst experts. There was an overwhelming consensus amongst scientists, and the consensus has grown even stronger as more and more evidence supporting global climate change becomes available.
Appealing to a consensus view for support of an opinion or belief is called an “appeal to authority”. The value of the argument depends entirely upon on the quality of the authority and the relevance of the authority’s expertise to the subject. I think most reasonable people would agree that a “consensus of scientists” should carry more authoritative weight than a “consensus of those of us who never go an “A” in science” in the evaluation of a scientific thesis. Once one has determined whether the authority is reasonable and likely to actually be an expert in the subject under consideration, one must decide how much to depend on that authority’s opinion.
The 20th Century philosopher, Bertrand Russell, provided a good guide to evaluating expert opinion in his little book Let the People Think (London, 1941, p.2):
“When the experts are agreed, the opposite opinion cannot be held to be certain;
“When [they] are not agreed, no opinion can be regarded as certain by a non-expert;
“When they all hold no sufficient grounds for a positive opinion to exist, the ordinary man would do well to suspend his judgement.”
In the case of global warming the consensus of scientists is a trustworthy authority. And the experts (the climate scientists) are in agreement (over 94% at last count — an overwhelming majority).
Next, this big question (If the scientific consensus on climate change has not changed, why have so many people turned away from the idea that human activity is warming the planet?) is, itself, an example of the fallacy called argumentum ad numerum (appeal to numbers) or argumentum ad populum (appeal to the people). It is a logical fallacy that is taught to ever college student who takes freshman English. It is an appeal that is often used in political advertising, as in: “Nine out of ten of my constituents oppose the bill, therefore it is a bad idea.” How many people believe a thing has nothing to do with its truth or relevancy to a current situation. The oceans are getting warmer. Masses of data from all over the world demonstrate it. It does not matter at all what you or I or ten thousand Scandinavian sailors believe. Facts are facts. And the overwhelming number of expert scientists agree that the science behind climate change is good science. According to Bertrand Russell, any opposing view is unlikely.
The big job for scientists now is to try to get those who never got an “A” in science to understand enough about climate change that they will vote for people who can effect the kinds of change that will be required to mitigate the situation.
The horrifying thing about Thomas’ using this paragraph (in which he used both an unqualified) in an argument that is opposite to what Elisabeth Rosenthal was demonstrating in her quoted material, is that he fell for both fallacies! This seems to prove, beyond any doubt, that Thomas didn’t read the article. He took what he thought served his purpose and ran off to write his article.
Thomas obliquely refers to an article in the third most popular newspaper in Germany, Focus. He doesn’t actually cite anything in the article except the mention of El Nino, La Nina, and “shifting winds” as drivers of weather. These three phenomena are thoroughly described and accounted for in the scientific literature. He missed a big chance to enumerate a whole list of popular denier arguments that were featured in the article. (All of the arguments in the Focus article have long been debunked.
He then appeals to an authority, the meteorologist Joe D’Aleo, recently of the Weather Channel. Mr D’Aleo would seem to be a person who is qualified to speak on the subject of climate. Unfortunately, if Thomas represents D’Aleo’s views correctly, he is the person who confuses cause and effect in discussing El Nino, La Nina, and “shifting winds”. Also if we follow the advice of Bertrand Russell, since Joe D’Aleo is in the tiny minority of scientists who deny the importance of climate change, his conclusions are unlikely to be correct. It is fair, in this instance, to mention that almost all of D’Aleo’s publications are sponsored by Exxon, so he also has a vested political and financial interest.
TO BE CONTINUED
STRONG EVIDENCE ON CLIMATE CHANGE UNDERSCORES NEED FOR ACTIONS TO REDUCE EMISSIONS AND BEGIN ADAPTING TO IMPACTS
at 11:12 am on Tuesday, 25 May 2010
(News from the National Academies, May 19, 2010)
WASHINGTON — As part of its most comprehensive study of climate change to date, the National Research Council today issued three reports emphasizing why the U.S. should act now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and develop a national strategy to adapt to the inevitable impacts of climate change. The reports by the Research Council, the operating arm of the National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Engineering, are part of a congressionally requested suite of five studies known as America’s Climate Choices.
“These reports show that the state of climate change science is strong,” said Ralph J. Cicerone, president of the National Academy of Sciences. “But the nation also needs the scientific community to expand upon its understanding of why climate change is happening, and focus also on when and where the most severe impacts will occur and what we can do to respond.”
Read the rest of the entry here.
U.S. Science Body Urges Action on Climate
at 11:27 am on Thursday, 20 May 2010
By JOHN M. BRODER
(NY Times, May 19, 2010)
WASHINGTON — In its most comprehensive study so far, the nation’s leading scientific body declared on Wednesday that climate change is a reality and is driven mostly by human activity, chiefly the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.
The group, the National Research Council, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, issued three reports describing the case for a harmful human influence on the global climate as overwhelming and arguing for strong immediate action to limit emissions of climate-altering gases in the United States and around the world — including the creation of a carbon pricing system.
Read the rest of this entry here.
The Anthropocene Debate: Marking Humanity’s Impact
(Yale:Environment 360, May 17, 2010)
Marking Humanity’s Impact
Is human activity altering the planet on a scale comparable to major geological events of the past? Scientists are now considering whether to officially designate a new geological epoch to reflect the changes thathomo sapiens have wrought: the Anthropocene.
by elizabeth kolbert
The Holocene — or “wholly recent” epoch — is what geologists call the 11,000 years or so since the end of the last ice age. As epochs go, the Holocene is barely out of diapers; its immediate predecessor, the Pleistocene, lasted more than two million years, while many earlier epochs, like the Eocene, went on for more than 20 million years. Still, the Holocene may be done for. People have become such a driving force on the planet that many geologists argue a new epoch — informally dubbed the Anthropocene — has begun.
Read the rest of this entry here.
RPT-BP’s US Gulf project exempted from enviro analysis
at 8:18 am on Friday, 7 May 2010
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN0621334420100506?type=marketsNews
Project won categorical exclusion from full review
HOUSTON/WASHINGTON, May 6 (Reuters) – U.S. regulators exempted BP Plc (BP.L) from a detailed environmental review of the exploration project that ultimately resulted in the deadly Gulf of Mexico explosion and subsequent oil spill, documents show.
The Minerals Management Service granted BP’s project a “categorical exclusion” from full environmental analysis normally required under the National Environmental Policy Act, according to documents made available by the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group.
(Reuters, May 6, 2010)
EPA’s First Federal Coal Ash Regs Garner Qualified Praise from Advocates
at 11:29 am on Thursday, 6 May 2010
Facing mounting pressure from environmental groups, the Obama administration yesterday proposed the nation’s first federal rules that would regulate the disposal of toxic coal ash from coal-fired power plants.
“The time has come for common-sense national protections to ensure the safe disposal of coal ash,” said U.S. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson.
EPA offered two dramatically different options for the rules—the first under Subtitle C of the the Resource Recovery and Conservation Act would treat coal ash as “hazardous” waste, meaning the pollution controls would be mandatory in every state and EPA would have to enforce them.
The other option, presented under Subtitle D, would ask states to set guidelines through a weaker, household waste designation. Compliance would be enforced through citizen lawsuits with no federal oversight.
EPA said it will hold a comment period over the next 90 days in a “national dialogue” on the competing proposals.
Gulf Oil Spill Pictures: Aerial Views Show Leak’s Size
A boat makes its way through crude oil on the water’s surface on Wednesday, about a week after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig sank into the Gulf of Mexico. Even now authorities can only guess at the size of the spill, because the ongoing leak is deep underwater.
Most large oil spills in history stemmed from tanker accidents, and their sizes could be reckoned based on the holding capacity of the wrecked vessels.
(National Geographic Daily News, April 29, 2010)
Bill McKibben on Cochabamba, Congress and Eaarth
Twenty years ago, environmentalist Bill McKibben wrote The End of Nature, but his warnings went largely unheeded.
Now, as people are grappling with the unavoidable effects of climate change and confronting an earth that’s suddenly melting, drying, acidifying, flooding and burning in unprecedented ways, Bill McKibben is out with a new book about what we have to do to survive this brave new world.
(Solve Climate, April 18, 2010)
Climate Crock takes on Lord Monckton, Part 2
http://climateprogress.org/2010/04/16/climate-crock-takes-on-lord-monckton-part-2/
Climate Crock Takes on Lord MonctonHere’s Part 2 of Peter Sinclair, our favorite climate de-crocker, taking on The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley (TVMOB):
View Video
(Climate Progress, April 16, 2010)
How to Preserve the Breadth of Life on the Planet
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-to-preserve-the-breadth-of-life
A barometer measures atmospheric pressure. Now a coalition of biologists is calling for a similar scientific tool to measure extinction pressure on Earth’sbiodiversity—a so-called “barometer of life“.
After all, scientists have conclusively identified only a fraction of the species that exist on Earth; the roughly 1.9 million species catalogued to date may represent only 20 percent of the total biodiversity on the planet. . .
(ScientificAmerican.com, April 9, 2010)
Washington Sues to Revive Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Plan
at 2:44 pm on Thursday, 15 April 2010
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=asjDMpsF50qc
April 14 (Bloomberg) — Washington state, home to a former U.S. nuclear-weapons plant undergoing cleanup, sued the Obama administration to stop it from abandoning plans for the Yucca Mountain radioactive waste repository in Nevada.
The government’s decision to withdraw its license application for Yucca Mountain will frustrate Washington’s plans to clean up the Hanford Nuclear Weapons Reservation, a site located in southeastern Washington that was created in 1943 as part of the Manhattan Project, state Attorney General Rob McKenna said in a statement.
(Bloomburg.com, April 14, 2010)
Arctic Sea Ice (Part 1): Is the Arctic Sea Ice recovering? A reality check
at 11:24 am on Tuesday, 13 April 2010
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Arctic-Sea-Ice-Part-1-Is-Arctic-Sea-Ice-recovering.html
The dramatic downwards trend in the annual summer extent of Arctic sea ice – and marginal increase in Antarctic sea ice have both sparked intense debate and commentary. Viewed in a global context, the amounts of polar sea ice are relatively small compared with the massive total volumes of ice in the land based ice caps of Antarctica, Greenland, and the Himalayas. If we take into account the observations of recent accelerating ice mass loss from these areas, plus the mean length, thickness and mass loss from the worlds glaciers (and we consider that the often cited Antarctic sea ice is significantly thinner on average than the Arctic sea ice, and much smaller in extent during the melt season), it is evident that the global reservoir of perennial ice is diminishing.. . .
(Skeptical Science, April 12, 2010)
Drought Turns Southern China into Arid Plain
at 1:45 pm on Saturday, 10 April 2010
It is hard to imagine a less fitting environment for a mollusc than the arid plain of Damoguzhen in southwest China.
There is not a drop of water in sight. The baked and fissured earth resembles an ancient desert. Yet shellfish are scattered here in their thousands; all so recently perished that shriveled, blackened bodies are still visible inside cracked, opened shells.
Far out of water, the aquatic animals are not the advance guard of evolutionary progress; but the victims of a drought that has devastated their habitat and now threatens the livelihoods of millions of people in surrounding regions. The Chinese government is so worried about the drought that it has embarked on a massive rain-making operation, involving firing thousands of shells and rockets into the sky to seed clouds.
(Solve Climate, April 8, 2010)
Wildlife manager or exterminator?
http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/57271/
Alaskan wildlife biologists are questioning the new head of the Alaska Division of Wildlife Conservation at the Department of Fish and Game (ADFG) — both his qualifications (or lack thereof) and his pro-hunter management strategies.
A group of nearly 40 retired state biologists wrote a letter last month toDenby Lloyd,commissioner of ADFG, asking for a reconsideration of the recent appointment of Corey Rossi as the new department head. The letter argues that Rossi is a single issue advocate for hunting, and lacks basic qualifications to be an entry-level scientist with the department, and that the appointment “marks a departure from a science-based approach” to wildlife management.
| “Wildlife is a public trust resource belonging to all Alaskans and, as such, there are additional management and conservation needs along with hunting,” John Schoen, primary author of the letter to Lloyd, said in an email toThe Scientist.
(The-scientist.com, April 6, 2010) |
Gut bacteria are what we eat
http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/57272/
Gut microbes, which help humans degrade otherwise indigestible plant material, acquire some crucial digestive enzyme genes from the bacteria in the food we eat, according to a study published this week inNature. This new finding provides an example of horizontal gene transfer by which diet can influence the genetic diversity and functionality of the human gut microbiome.
“It’s a fascinating story,” said microbiologistJeffrey Gordonof Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, who did not participate in the study. “It shows that there’s a dimension to human evolution that’s occurring at the level of our gut microbiome.”
(The-scientist.com, April 7, 2010)
Super Stemmys, a stem cell story
http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/57276/
Stem cells to save the day! Or the heart, at least. That’s the plot of a new children’s book on adult (or repair) stem cells, published by theRepair Stem Cell Institute(RSCI) — a Dallas- and Bangkok-based public affairs company that provides interested patients with contact information for stem cell treatment centers around the world.
“It’s a nice idea,” said cell biologist Mahendra Rao ofLife Technologies,a California-based biotechnology company. “I think it’s good to tell kids about all current events, [including] technological breakthroughs,” and “it’s a nice book for kids [with] illustrations [that] are nice and a logical flow to it.”
(The-scientist.com, April 8, 2010)
Water Quality, Scarcity Increasingly Becoming Business Risks
at 9:34 am on Saturday, 10 April 2010
Water has been predicted as “the next big thing” in environmental issues for a while now, and the prediction looks to be coming true.
Amid concerns that climate change and a growing global population are putting pressure on an already scarce resource, the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) announced this week that it is calling on companies to begin reporting on their water use as well as their carbon emissions.
(Solve Climate, April 9. 2010)
Water has been predicted as “the next big thing” in environmental issues for a while now, and the prediction looks to be coming true.
Amid concerns that climate change and a growing global population are putting pressure on an already scarce resource, the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) announced this week that it is calling on companies to begin reporting on their water use as well as their carbon emissions.
RA-10 Inquiry Report: Concerning the Allegations of Research Misconduct Against Dr. Michael E. Mann, Department of Meteorology, College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, The Pennsylvania State University
at 8:51 am on Saturday, 10 April 2010
http://www.research.psu.edu/orp/Findings_Mann_Inquiry.pdf
Beginning on and about November 22, 2009, The Pennsylvania State University began to receive numerous communications (emails, phone calls and letters) accusing Dr. Michael E. Mann of having engaged in acts that included manipulating data, destroying records and colluding to hamper the progress of scientific discourse around the issue of anthropogenic global warming from approximately 1998. These accusations were based on perceptions of the content of the widely reported theft of emails from a server at the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia in Great Britain.
(RA-10 Inquiry Report: February 8, 2010)
US National Science Board tries to suppress knowledge of Americans’ scientific illiteracy
by Greg Mayer
Today’s issue of Science contains a news article (first pointed out to me by Matthew) about a clumsy (and now failed) attempt by the US’s National Science Board (NSB) to suppress a finding by a National Science Foundation (NSF) survey that Americans’ knowledge of evolution and cosmology remains poor, and well behind that of European and east Asian industrial nations. I am shocked and disconcerted that the NSB, the governing board of the NSF and official science advisers to the president and Congres, would do this. (Update below.)
(Why evolution is true, April 9, 2010)