New Rule for Science Journalism...

Agreed!



[Hat tip to PZ Myers]

U.S. Math & Science Students Need Our Help

The U.S. ranks very low in math and science compared to other nations -- 35th in Math and 29th in Science. That's embarrassingly low, a threat to the future of our nation's economy, and most importantly it's a problem we can solve. So why are we so far behind?

While digging through TIMMS results can be thought provoking, you must, must, must watch this video which provides a sobering comparison between US student attitudes towards math and science with those of their counterparts from some of the top ranked countries. So click here if you can spare 3 minutes -- it's worth it! The video was produced as part of the Connect A Million Minds (CAMM) campaign, "Time Warner Cable’s philanthropic commitment to connect youth to ideas, people and opportunities that will inspire them to become the problem solvers of tomorrow."

You can see more CAMM videos here.  For more information, look here, here, here and here.

[Hat tip to DNLee]

The Power of Data Visualization & Comparison

David McCandless: The beauty of data visualization (TED Talk)

Computational statistics and computer programming abilities are -- and will continue to be -- valuable skills in the job market (and in the sciences).  If I could offer any career advice to students, it is to work hard to learn these two things well!

Do Night Shifts Cause Breast Cancer?

According to this review article, the answer appears to lie somewhere between maybe and probably.  While there seems to be a correlation between the two, more research is needed to determine whether or not there is a causal link as other plausible reasons for the correlation haven't yet been ruled out.

...Shift work. Excess incidence of breast cancer has been observed consistently in studies of women with prolonged exposure to shift work involving exposure to light at night (Kolstad 2008; Stevens 2009). Research needs in this area include a) a better definition of what is meant by shift work and related exposure metrics; b) studies of markers of circadian disruption in non–day workers; c) better descriptions of controls and their exposure to light at night; and d) investigation of the effect of variations in expression of circadian genes on cancer in shift workers. An emerging area of interest is the relative toxicity of occupational chemical exposure depending on time of day of that exposure. The marked circadian variations in cell division and DNA repair during the daily cycle are controlled by the circadian genes (Haus and Smolensky 2006; Stevens et al. 2007). Therefore, non–day workers may have very different susceptibility to occupational exposures compared with day workers. Studies are also needed to determine if shift work is associated with other cancers, especially hormonally related cancers, and prostate cancer in particular. If further experimental and epidemiologic evidence confirms a causal association between exposure to light at night and breast cancer, it will be important to develop interventions to reduce the risk.

You can read more here. For details, see the article and relevant references.

Reference

1. Ward EM, Schulte PA, Straif K, Hopf NB, Caldwell JC, et al. 2010 Research Recommendations for Selected IARC-Classified Agents. Environ Health Perspect 118(10): doi:10.1289/ehp.0901828

Bed Bugs!

Don't forget to click the video and jump over to the youtube page to tell Cornell that you like their video by clicking the "Like" button. 

More info on bed bugs can be found here, here and of course here.

2010 Arctic Ice Update: It's Melting...

Columbus Science Pub off to a GREAT start!

Here's a few photos and thoughts after tonight's inaugural Columbus Science Pub (more on the event here), held at the Hampton's on King near the OSU campus. The first speaker in the monthly event series? Dr. Tara C. Smith, professor of epidemiology and author of the kick-ass ScienceBlog, Aetiology.  Not sure what the organizer(s) thought, but I thought the event was a great success.

Figure 1.  Science education done right: on bed sheet, in a bar.

Tara's talk was titled Science Denial and the Internet, and covered topics ranging from HIV denial, this history of the anti-vaccine movement, and advice for the audience (which included both scientists and non-scientists) on how to weed out misinformation and promote better communication of science to the public.  By my count, there were a little over 50 people in the audience at it's peak.

Figure 2.  Some of the crowd.

So why do I consider this first installment of the Columbus Science Pub a success?

First, we had a good mix of folks in the audience: Non-science folks, science students, researchers and a few bloggers like myself and Richard Hoppe from Panda's Thumb.


Second, Tara's talk was awesome.  I think everyone learned something new and valuable - myself included - and had a great time to boot.


Third, following the talk the organizer Dan Siegal-Gaskins moderated discussions between audience members and the speaker.  Topics included the peer review process, how science gets communicated among scientists, the role of social networks and other digital media in communicating science, the dangers of being a science advocate (yes, they exist!), and challenges of confronting emotionally driven beliefs that run contrary to sound science. 

I'll try and get a copy of her talk to share some of the highlights, but in the mean time I'll share her closing slide which probably sums up the frustration my internet presence causes Dr. Wife™... ;)

For more details on her talk, see this Newsvine article by Brent Jernigan.

BP Climbs Higher On My Shit List

BP seems to be up to some really sleazy stuff.  I have zero respect for any organization that tries to pay away an entire community of scientists, just to cover it's ass when the shit hits the fan. Really, really bad form BP.  So scientists, please keep your wits about you and help your colleagues in kind.  As for BP, I decided to channel my disgust into something a bit less caustic than might actually be appropriate...

The First American Oil Spill?

The Lucas Gusher at Spindletop Hill, Jan 10, 1901
[Source: The American Petroleum Institute & PRI]

I was watching the History Channel this evening, and caught part of a program that included some of the history of oil prospecting in the U.S.

One of the pivotal drilling attempts occurred at the turn of the century in - you guessed it - Texas.  The particular location was on a hilltop called Spindle Top, located near Beaumont, Texas, and the find opened up the vast oil reserves below the Texas soil.

You can read more about those early days in the Hand book of Natural Gas by Henry Palmer Wescott (Yay, Google books!).

So why am I bringing all this up?  Perhaps not ironically, this early find started with a bit of an oil spill - nothing like the current disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, but it still caught my attention as an example of the real challenges we still face tapping these deep, pressurized pockets of crude.

While I'm poking around in historical documents, here's part of a newspaper article published in the Houston Daily Post shortly after the find on January 11, 1901.

OIL STRUCK NEAR BEAUMONT.
A Stream of Petroleum Shot Into the Air for a Hundred Feet.
Prospector Who Has Been at Work for Two Years
Has His Faith Rewarded -- The Flow Is Esti-
mated at 5000 Barrels Per Day.

Beaumont, Texas. January 10.--Beaumont is excited tonight and it has good reason to be. About three mils south of the city there is spouting an oil well the equal of which can not be seen elsewhere in the United States and probably in the world.

Captaion A. F. Lucas, a geologist of Washington, D. C., made the lucky strike. The captain has been prospecting in the vicinity of Beaumount for more than two years.  He has spent thousands of dollars with indifferent results until this morning, when the inside pipe in a hole in which he was operating blew high into the air, and it was followed by a six-inch stream of oil, which spouts nearly fifty feet higher than the sixtey-foot derrick.
...
The post correspondent visited Captain Lucas this afternoon, but that gentleman was so happy over his strike that he would not talk. He merely hugged the reporter and pointing to oil as it sailed high into the air, said: "Its equal can not be seen on this earth." Under existing conditions there is no way of estimating the flow of oil, but Captain Lucas says 5000 barrels per day would be exceedingly low...

By today's standards, it would indeed be exceedingly low, but at the time - that was quite a gusher! That well spewed oil for a few days before it was finally brought under control (if I can trust my recollection of what I heard on the History Channel...). While I doubt it got any bad press at the time - for better or worse - it went on to help fuel the last century of the modern industrial era.

Craig Venter on the "synthetic cell"

I received an email a few weeks back from a reader suggesting I do a post or two on Craig Venter's recent accomplishment taking a bacterial cell and swapping in a fully synthetic genome, essentially making a new bacterial species.  It's a great suggestion, as I think what Venter and his colleagues have done qualifies as some smokin' hot, kick-ass science.  Unfortunately, I've not had much time to read up on the details, as I've been a bit busy with a conference and some pressing thesis work I need to get done (like yesterday).

As it happens, I just now stumbled across an opportunity to (at least briefly) touch on the subject. Check out  this gem of an interview with Craig Venter.

If you'd first like a sampler of what's in the video, below are a few selections that caught my attention (though I strongly recommend you watch it in it's entirety at least twice... maybe more!).

When I was first asked whether I found all this amazing, scary or both, I went with both, leaning more towards amazing than scary.  Now that I've looked into it further, I'm squarely at amazing and so far from scary it's almost scary! Venter and his colleagues seem to have put a great deal of effort into subjecting their research plans to serious ethical considerations, as mentioned briefly below, making sure their synthetic cell was too crippled and dependent on specialized media to thrive outside of the lab. Not at all surprising, but worth mentioning.

So what's the big deal here? I mean, yes it sounds cool - but what's the point? How will this impact my daily life in the coming years?  To answer that question we first need to be clear about what exactly they've done: very briefly, they've slapped together a genome sequence in a computer (yup, just a string of ...AGATCCACTAC... only it received a bit more forethought than my sequence) using the genome of a real organism as a starting point.  Then, they made the DNA using some advanced biochemistry and custom instrumentation (think of the expensive instruments used to read DNA sequences, but working in reverse). Next, they took that genome and used it to replace the genome of a bacterial cell. After that, they let their little unicellular Frankenstein go about doing it's own thing, happily reproducing itself in a lab somewhere.

While most of the media focus is on little Frankenstein, the real gem here are the techniques and technology that made it all possible.  As far as making a new cell goes, they didn't quite go there. They tweaked the genome a bit on the computer, made the genome (which really is an impressive accomplishment) and handed it off to an existing cell.  To use Venter's computer analogy, what they did was something like the cellular version of reformatting a computer running Debian linux, and replacing the operating system with a copy of Damn Small Linux.  Not a big change to say, Windows, and definitely not rebuilding a new computer from scratch.

Still, there are many reasons why their accomplishment is darn cool.  First, here's Venter with the big picture....

Interviewer: What do you ultimately hope to do with a method like this?

Venter: Well, this is an important step we think both scientifically and philosophically. It's certainly changed my views of definitions of life, and how life works. It's pretty stunning when you just replace the DNA software in a cell and the cell instantly starts reading that new software -- starts making a whole different set of proteins -- and within a short while all the characteristics of the first species disappear and a new species emerges from this software that controls that cell going forward. When we look at lifeforms we see them as sort of fixed entities. But this shows in fact how dynamic they are, that they change from second to second. And, that life is basically a result of an information process -- a software process -- our genetic code is our software. Our cells are dynamically, constantly reading that genetic code making new proteins, the proteins make the other cellular components, and that's what we see.

From a more practical perspective, our own success as a species has been in large part due to our ability to mix and match the DNA of different organisms for our benefit.  We've advanced from simple selective breeding of livestock and crops, interspecific hybridization, and basic artificial selection up through the relatively recent discovery of DNA and the ability to alter genetic material directly.  Venter et al's new techniques are another big step in that same direction.  This may have many implications, such as this example mentioned by Venter:

Perhaps the most important, immediate application is ... we're already working at the Venter Institute and working with Novartis to try and make new vaccines very quickly. We think we can shorten the process by 99% for making the flu vaccine each year by using these new synthetic techniques.

For flu and other pathogens with relatively high rates of evolution, and for some newly emerging infectious disease, we're limited in how quickly we can mass produce vaccines. This is perhaps common knowledge following last years swine flu pandemic, but increasing our response time to vaccinate against emerging infectious disease by an order of magnitude or two could literally save millions of human lives.

Finally, they've also done some pretty cool things that have little to do with the frontiers of science and technology.  Nothing wrong with having a little fun while you work, right?

We've developed a new code for writing english language, other languages, with punctuation and numbers into the genetic code. In the first watermark [in the new genome] we actually have this code that needs to be decoded for people to read the rest. We even have a website built into the genetic code that if people solve it they can let us know that they've been able to read it.

Science, Innovation and the BP Oil Spill

Bill Nye (yup, the Science Guy) critiques suggestions to clean up the ongoing BP oil spill.  Decent commentary on some challenges posed by the spill, and the fundamental importance of scientific and technological expertise the effort will require.

Follow-up on Anti-Evolution Policital Attack Ad

An update following my earlier post.  I had suspected Tim James was behind the ad, but it turns out someone else helped foot the bill...

It looks like the responsible party is the True Republican PAC which is financially backed by -- get this -- a teachers' union and affiliate of the National Education Association, the Alabama Education Association (AEA).

Yup, that's right, it appears a bunch of Alabama public school teachers (unknowingly, I presume) helped pay for an ad lambasting the Governor because "he supported the teaching of evolution" (gasp!) and because he may not believe in a literal interpretation of the bible.

Alabama Policital Attack Ad Mocks Evolution?

I've been including a lot of definitions in posts lately, so here's another one inspired by this post over at Panda's Thumb.

Poe's Law

1. The eponymous law of the internet, that "Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humour, it is impossible to create a parody of [religious] fundamentalism that someone won't mistake for the real thing."
2. "Poe’s Law also has an inverse meaning, stating that non-fundamentalists will often mistake sincere expressions of fundamentalist beliefs for parody."[Source]

Here's an example of what I'm really hoping is a case of #1, but sadly appears to be a case of #2...

Please someone tell me this is either a joke, or that the candidate behind the attack is unlikely to ever hold the Governor's office!  Who might that be?? I'm guessing Tim James -- yes that same Tim James who wants Alabama to be English-only.

Seriously, it almost makes me want to send a campaign donation to Bradley Byrne... almost.

Click here for an update.

No Child Left Inside on Earth Day 2010

Many will soon be celebrating the 40th anniversary of Earth Day (April 22, 2010) by participating in various events and educational opportunities.  The No Child Left Inside (NCLI) Coalition is working to get kids outside as part of their efforts to promote environmental education and awareness -- a fantastic idea! If you aren't familiar with the importance of getting kids outside and involved in hands-on learning experiences, check out this short video:

For more information about getting outside on the Earth Day 2010, check out their Go Outside for Earth Day tool-kit resources.

A central goal of the NCLI coalition is to ensure public school students are provided adequate environmental education so they can meet future environmental challenges with well-informed and effective solutions.  To this end, they are working to pass the No Child Left Inside Act, which you can read more about on their website -- http://www.NCLIcoalition.org/ -- and below...

Background: The No Child Left Inside Coalition is a national coalition of over 1600 business, health, youth, faith, recreational, environmental, and educational groups representing over 50 million Americans. The entire list of coalition members is available here. The Coalition was formed in 2007 to alert Congress and the public to the need for our schools to devote more resources and attention to environmental education.

Goal: The Coalition is working to support legislation sponsored by Rep. John Sarbanes of Maryland and Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island to ensure that every student achieves basic environmental literacy. The No Child Left Inside Act would amend the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (No Child Left Behind) to include environmental education for the first time. The legislation would provide new funding for environmental education, particularly to develop rigorous standards, train teachers and to develop state environmental literacy plans. It also proposes giving states that develop such environmental literacy plans access to additional funds.

BCA Drops Libel Case Against Singh!!

Update:  According to Ben Goldacre, Singh may go after the BCA to recover his legal costs. You can read more on the case and the remaining need for British libel reform in Goldacre's article in the Guardian.

The British Chiropractic Association (BCA) has dropped is libel case against science journalist Simon Sigh following the recent ruling that Singh could appeal an earlier verdict against him.  Details can be found on the BCA's website here (PDF) via the Sense About Science site here or at the Libel Reform Campaign website here.

BCA V SIMON SINGH - PRESS STATEMENT – 15th APRIL 2010

Having carefully considered its position in the light of the judgment of the Court of Appeal (1st April 2010), the British Chiropractic Association (BCA) has decided to discontinue its libel action against Simon Singh.
...
The BCA takes seriously its duty and responsibilities to members and to chiropractic patients. The BCA has considered seeking leave to take this matter to the Supreme Court and has been advised there are strong grounds for appeal against the Court of Appeal judgment. However, while it was right to bring this claim at the outset, the BCA now feels that the time is right for the matter to draw to a close.

Despite this big victory for Singh, it's only a non-loss for free speech.  Libel laws in the UK still need reform to protect free speech and promote open dialog -- and not just in the UK, but world-wide.

I would have preferred the outcome where Simon won his case on appeal, setting legal grounds for future libel cases against journalists. To learn more about libel law reform in the UK, visit the Sense About Science and The Libel Reform Campaign websites.

Michael Specter on the Dangers of Science Denial

How Science Works: "The Science Network"

What makes science work as well as it does, and why should we trust scientific theories? 

These aren't the kinds of questions most scientists worry about, but they are reasonable questions for the non-science layperson to ask.  Any science educator should have answers for these questions. For one of those answers, hop on over to David Hone's blog and check out his post The Science Network.  It's a good description of why science works, and why it's relatively safe to trust established scientific theories.  It also describes (though, not explicitly) why breaking science news should be taken with a grain of salt: it's the process of checking and re-checking that refines scientific knowledge and weeds out bogus ideas. 

Here's my condensed (ok, ok ... cherry-picked) version if you'd like a taste before clicking that link up above:

A good scientist knows what she knows and knows what he does not know. [They have] a good idea of [their] strengths and weaknesses and [their] areas of expertise and ignorance.

... crucially, I also know people who are good at the things I’m not good at and are not good at the things I am good at... Together we have breadth and depth.

...[Importantly], it allows us to cross check and revise our collective work and have confidence in what we are doing across the whole of science, even, or perhaps particularly, when we have little or no understanding of that field individually...

In this sense then, scientists are not so much a group of individuals as a cohesive whole. There are, obviously, errors made (occasionally profound ones) but this colossal network of research ideas and analysis does produce a singular, and generally very reliable, whole. I may not understand astrophysics, but I recognise and trust the methods used to generate the data, the analyses and the people behind it. So can you.

While I'm at it, this perspective on how science works also highlights the near impossibility of conspiracy among scientists, especially given that nearly all researchers love to call out others on major mistakes.  It's perhaps that impossibility that makes cartoons like this so amusing?

[Source]

Small free speech victory: Singh wins right to appeal!

For details, jump on over to this BBC article. While you're there, definitely watch the video and listen to what Singh has to say on the need to reform libel laws in the U.K.

I couldn't find a way to embed that video here, but here's a little more from him after the ruling...

To learn more about what you can do to help reform libel laws in the U.K., visit the Sense About Science and The Libel Reform Campaign websites.

---

Update:

More from the BBC...

Sam Harris on Morality, Science and Religion

Update: I've appended to this post some commentary from philosopher and (ex?)scientist Massimo Pigliucci on Harris' assertions about science and morality. Follow the link below for more from Pigliucci and a link to a response from Harris. 

It's uncommon to see overt criticisms of religion (at least Christianity) in the mainstream media, so I did a bit of a double-take when I saw this CNN video piece entitled "Philosopher: Why we should ditch religion."

That philosopher is Sam Harris and if you have a few minutes to spare, you should check out the CNN video and his recent TED talk on science and morality (both embedded below).

Here's the video of his recent TED talk, entitled "Sam Harris: Science can answer moral questions."

Update:

The Symphony of Science

Recently, I came across a website called "The Symphony of Science" by way of their youtube page. It's a pretty interesting endeavor by producer John Boswell towards an honorable goal: to "deliver scientific knowledge and philosophy in musical form."

Their latest video, The Poetry of Reality (An Anthem for Science), features a nice mix of popular skeptics and scientists - some of whom you are sure to recognize.  Check it out!

So far, they've produced a few videos and audio tracks which are available on their website (and youtube). It's not exactly the sort of music I'd expect to hit the top of the pop charts, but it's a pretty catchy way to present some (hopefully) thought provoking ideas to a wider audience.

Feel free to browse the videos and songs then share your thoughts in the comments below.