February 2011 Archives

Earlier this month I mentioned that students from the Botanical Society of America helped to organize an open letter to policymakers on the importance of education and research programs in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Yesterday, Rachel Meyer -- a graduate student representative to the BSA Board -- was interviewed by Science Cabaret on Air. Click on the "play" button below to hear the whole thing.



Here's the blurb about the broadcast from the website:

Rachel Meyer and fellow graduate students from the Botanical Society of America (BSA) could not sit idly by when the GOP-sponsored YouCut program recently targeted projects funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the chief sponsor of non-medical scientific research at universities. She recounts the student action team's rapid response, rallying thousands of fellow students and voicing their concerns directly to Congress. Rachel describes her personal experiences with NSF funding to host Holly Menninger, and explains why YouCut's Congressional sponsors should be very interested in her research on the domestication of the eggplant. Learn more information about the students' open letter to Congress on science funding here.

Related articles

• US public asked to play judge and jury for science funding (newscientist.com)

There are many wonderful things about living in the "quiet corner" of Connecticut. Access to public transportation is not one of them. Things are different, though, in the hometown of UConn South¹

More commuters walk or bike to work in New Haven, Connecticut, than in anywhere else in New England. One of the first planned cities in the country, New Haven has a walkable downtown dominated by the Yale University campus. Regional bus and rail providers enjoy high ridership, have sought to green their own operations, and have cooperated to move the entire New Haven metropolitan region in a more sustainable direction. (source)

As a result, the Natural Resources Defense Council's Smarter Cities project recognize New Haven one of four medium-sized cities on its 2001 list of Smarter Cities for Transportation.

Is there a person alive who doesn't have a soft spot for orchids? If there is, there won't be after see this short video showing a few of the spectacular orchids at the Wayqecha Biological Preserve in Peru.

Yesterday in Nairobi the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) released a new report, Towards a Green Economy: Pathways to Sustainable Development and Poverty Eradication. It concludes that investing two percent of global GDP "can kick-start a transitition towards a low-carbon, resource efficient Green Economy" (from the press release announcing the report). These are the key conclusions of the report:

• Greening the economy not only generates growth, and in particular gains in natural capital, but it also produces a higher growth in GDP and GDP per capita.
• A green economy values and invests in natural capital.
• A green economy can contribute to poverty alleviation.
• In a transition to a green economy, new jobs will be created, which over time exceed the losses in "brown economy" jobs.
• Prioritizing government investment and spending in areas that stimulate the greening of economic sectors is on the critical path.
• The scale of financing required for a green economy transition is substantial, but an order of magnitude smaller than annual global investment.
• The move towards a green economy is happening on a scale and at a speed never seen before.
• It is expected to generate as much growth and employment - or more - compared to the current business as usual scenario, and it outperforms economic projections in the medium and long term, while yielding significantly more environmental and social benefits.

For more information you can download the Synthesis for Policymakers (PDF) or read the full report online.

Related articles

• UN publishes green economy vision (bbc.co.uk)
• Green economy needs 2% of every nation's income, says UN (guardian.co.uk)

From the Natural Sciences Collection Alliance:

February 18, 2011

Contact Congress Now About Museum Funding

The United States House of Representatives is considering a Continuing Resolution that would fund the Federal government through the end of the current fiscal year. As many as 500 amendments may be considered on the House floor.

It appears that Representative Robert Goodlatte (R-VA) will offer an amendment (#471) which would place a "Limitation on Funds for Non-Federal Museums." If adopted, none of the funds appropriated, or otherwise made available, by the Continuing Resolution could be used to fund non-Federal museums. This amendment would apply to all agency funding for FY 2011. This amendment could significantly hinder research across the nation.

Please contact your Representative immediately to urge him/her to oppose the Goodlatte Amendment #471. Please consider calling your member of Congress at 202-225-3121. Letters may also be sent via the AIBS Legislative Action Center at http://capwiz.com/aibs/issues/alert/?alertid=29348541.

Additional information about the value of science collections is available on the NSC Alliance website at http://nscalliance.org/?page_id=10.

Information about members of Congress is available at www.house.gov or at http://capwiz.com/aibs/home/.

Almost 4 years ago the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change told us that climate change is "very likely" to increase the frequency of heat waves and heavy precipitation.¹ The same may be true for hurricanes.² It's now common after extreme weather events to hear some people suggest that those events were caused by global warming. Careful scientists, however, point out that weather is extremely variable. It always has been. It always will be. Climate change refers to a change in the average conditions, so attributing any one event to climate change will always be fraught with difficulty.

Indeed, here's what the authors of a paper published in today's Nature have to say about attributing increased flooding to climate change:

Recent widespread UK floods--such as in spring 1998, autumn 2000, winter 2003 and summer 2007--have prompted debate as to whether these particular events are attributable to anthropogenic climate change^{6, 7, 13, 14, 15}. This is an ill-posed question, given uncertainty in the antecedent conditions; many untraceable factors, anthropogenic or natural, may have contributed to any individual event^{13, 16}. Indeed, observed UK fluvial-flood and high-flow trends for recent decades suggest no clear evidence for any change above that of natural variability^{17, 18}, mirroring the mixed picture in observed precipitation changes^{19, 20}.

Translating that to English: Asking whether recent floods in the UK are the result of climate change is asking a question that can't be answered. Too many variables influence particular weather events in complicated ways to make any answer plausible.

Does that mean the IPCC was wrong? Not at all. In fact, both the paper just quoted and another one in the same issue suggest that "global warming resulting from anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases may have compounded the effects of such fluctuations", as Richard Allan writes in an accompanying commentary on the articles. And how can we be so sure that extreme weather is more likely when we can't attribute any single event to global warming? Read on.

Purdue was planning to build a coal-fired boiler to supply steam and power to its campus.

The [Purdue University] Board [of Trustees] halted plans to install a new coal-fired boiler and instead will ask the Indiana Department of Environmental Management to alter the university's operating permit to allow installation of a natural gas boiler. (source)

I'm delighted to see Purdue giving up coal. I'm particularly pleased to see that the reason is that coal is more expensive. Burning natural gas will still produce carbon dioxide, but it will produce much less. I was also delighted to see that in a separate decision the Board will lease land for a commercial wind energy project. The wind energy project will produce about 100 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 25,000 homes for a year.

Related articles

• Plans for 150 coal plants scrapped: Sierra Club (reuters.com)
• Breaking: Purdue University Cancels Coal Project Thanks To Student Pressure (desmogblog.com)

There's a good chance you won't be seeing any postings here for a few days. I'm off to Washington, DC (well, Maryland actually) to serve on a review panel for the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program. I won't return until late Sunday night,¹ and then I'll be in another meeting all day on Monday. Don't be surprised if you don't hear from me again until late next week.

Preparing college students for the future has been much in the news lately. President Obama called on us to celebrate science fair winners, not just Super Bowl winners. Richard Arum and Josipa Roska present disturbing evidence that U.S. college students are Academically Adrift.¹ Specifically,

• 45 percent of students "did not demonstrate any significant improvement in learning" during the first two years of college.
• 36 percent of students "did not demonstrate any significant improvement in learning" over four years of college.
• Those students who do show improvements tend to show only modest improvements. Students improved on average only 0.18 standard deviations over the first two years of college and 0.47 over four years. What this means is that a student who entered college in the 50th percentile of students in his or her cohort would move up to the 68th percentile four years later -- but that's the 68th percentile of a new group of freshmen who haven't experienced any college learning.
• (From the Inside Higher Ed report on Academically Adrift)

In the same vein, I'm the co-author of a paper that just appeared in BioScience (subscription required).

Perceptions of Strengths and Deficiencies: Disconnects between Graduate Students and Prospective Employers

The US Botanical Capacity Assessment Project (BCAP) was initiated as a first step to gauge the nation's collective ability to meet the environmental challenges of the 21st century. The project, in which the authors of this article are involved, specifically aimed to identify multisector contributions to and gaps in botanical capacity in order to develop growth opportunities to address research and management problems. One of the primary gaps revealed by the BCAP surveys was that the skills graduate students identified as their greatest strengths closely matched the areas future employers (government and private sectors) identified as needing greatest improvement. Although our survey focused on only one discipline (botany), we suspect that the results are applicable throughout the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines. We suggest that it is critical for university faculty and administrators to team with professionals from government, nonprofit, and for-profit organizations to identify critical and desired knowledge and skill sets and implement the necessary curriculum changes to provide graduates with the tools they need.

If we were to survey academic employers of our students, I suspect most of them would be pretty satisfied, but we don't seem to be doing a good job of preparing science students for non-academic careers.

For more information about other findings of the Botanical Capacity Assessment Project, visit the BCAP website, where you can download the full report, a brief summary, and a summary of recommendations.

Related articles

• "Academically Adrift": Are American college kids falling behind? (salon.com)
• 'Academically Adrift' Argues College Students Have Plenty of Time to Work (dailyfinance.com)
• Singal: US college students learn nothing? (boston.com)
• College Test Leaves Questions Unanswered (online.wsj.com)
• The Choice: How Much Do College Students Learn, and Study? (thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com)
• Are Undergrads Learning Much in College? (usnews.com)

If you've heard of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), you're probably aware that they fund the research of some of the most prominent molecular biologists in the country. You may also be aware that they fund a lot of very innovative work in science education. Now they're getting into something new. Last Friday HHMI announced a $60 milliion initiative aimed at bringing high quality, exciting documentary features on science to TV.

"Film is the most powerful medium for bringing ideas, knowledge, and stories to life and communicating them to any audience," says Carroll, who was speaking at the ["Summit on Science, Entertainment, and Education"] sponsored by the Science & Entertainment Exchange of the National Academy of Sciences. "HHMI can harness that power by producing high-quality, compelling documentary films on scientific topics." (source)

I look forward to seeing the documentaries HHMI sponsors through this initiative, and I hope they reach a very broad audience.

We need to teach our kids that it's not just the winner of the Super Bowl who deserves to be celebrated, but the winner of the science fair. (Remarks by the President in State of Union Address, 25 January 2011)

I don't know whether Google knew that President Obama was going to include that line in his State of the Union address, but they've teamed up with CERN, Lego, National Geographic, and Scientific American for an online science fair. The competition is open to students aged 13-18, either working alone or with 1-2 of their friends. Entries are due by 4 April 2011. More information on entering is available at the Google Science Fair site.

The entries will first be judged by a panel of teachers. In early May, 60 global semifinalists will be announced, and their projects will be put online for a "People's Choice Award". Fifteen finalists will be selected by the judges from among the 60 semifinalists and flown to Google for a final round of judging on 11 July 2011. The grand prize winner will receive a 10-day National Geographic Expeditions trip to the Galapagos Islands with one parent or guardian and a $50,000 scholarship.

Related articles

• Hey Brainiac Kids, You Can Win $50,000 In Google's Global Science Fair [Video] (gizmodo.com)
• The Google Science Fair is Now Open! (freetech4teachers.com)
• Paging Young Einsteins: Google Launches Science Fair (socialtimes.com)
• Google Science Fair (neatorama.com)
• Google Launches A Worldwide Science Fair For Teens (searchengineland.com)
• Google Science Fair, The First Global Online Science Competition (laughingsquid.com)

I first encountered Yann Arthus-Bernard's photography in a Helsinki street exhibition. The images are mesmerizing. If you haven't seen them, leave this site immediately, and visit http://www.yannarthusbertrand.org/v2/home_us.htm --  NOW!

Now that you've seen some of his still photographs, imagine what a movie would look like.

For that head over to YouTube and feast your eyes on the whole thing. I have to confess to having watched only a few of the short videos, not the full movie (1:33:18), but what I've seen is truly extraordinary. Here's a little more information about the movie, taken from the YouTube site.

We are living in exceptional times. Scientists tell us that we have 10 years to change the way we live, avert the depletion of natural resources and the catastrophic evolution of the Earth's climate.

The stakes are high for us and our children. Everyone should take part in the effort, and HOME has been conceived to take a message of mobilization out to every human being.

For this purpose, HOME needs to be free. A patron, the PPR Group, made this possible. EuropaCorp, the distributor, also pledged not to make any profit because Home is a non-profit film.

HOME has been made for you : share it! And act for the planet.

Yann Arthus-Bertrand

The official website for the movie is http://www.homethemovie.org/

Related articles

• Movie Review | 'Home': Our Planet's Destruction in Yummy Colors (movies.nytimes.com)
• The Earth From On High: A Review of HOME (ecocentricblog.org)

As future scientists and educators, we, the undersigned students, encourage Congress and the President to make sustained investments in the nation's scientific research, education, and training programs. The extramural, competitive, peer-reviewed grant programs administered by federal agencies are critical to our nation's scientific enterprise and future.

That's the opening paragraph of an Open letter to policymakers from science students. The students urge policymakers to continue federal support for science research and education. If you're a student, please head over and sign on. There's a simple form to fill out and a button to press, and you'll be part of the effort.

We lost Les Mehrhoff in late December. Those of us who were fortunate to have worked with him, know that he was extraordinary and irreplaceable. What I am only now coming to understand is how much people outside of New England thought the same thing. I just discovered this morning that the National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII) posted an appreciation of Les on its blog a month ago. Here's the image that greeted me on the front page at NBII Home. If you knew Les or want to know more about his work, read the blog entry at NBII. It provides an introduction to some of his recent work, and links to online resources.

Those of us in the northeast have been getting a lot of snow. There's about 4 feet of snow on my deck right now -- and this is southern New England. There's been a lot of talk in the news lately about just how big this latest storm is. Here's a screen shot from AccuWeather I took yesterday.


That looks pretty impressive, doesn't it? A storm that extends from western Kentucky through Maine and into New Brunswick. Well, I agree. That does look pretty impressive until you see this, an image of what the cyclone currently hitting Australia would look like if it were imposed on a map of the US.


Now that's a big storm -- Cyclone Yasi.

Related articles

• Australia Cyclone: 'Yasi' Is Strongest Storm to Ever Hit the Continent (blippitt.com)
• Australians flee as 'catastrophic' Cyclone Yasi approaches (guardian.co.uk)
• 'Worst ever' monster cyclone hits Australia (theprovince.com)
• Snow storm to bury Midwest, New England - Washington Post (news.google.com)
• Northeast braces for wintry blast, colder temperatures (reuters.com)
• This Is the Apocalyptic Storm Hitting the US Right Now [Weather] (gizmodo.com)

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, the environmental journalist Joseph A. Davis wasn't too impressed with the guidelines for scientific integrity that the White House released in late December. A few days ago, the Department of the Interior released its guidelines, and they look pretty good. Here's a little of what the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS) had to say about the guidelines in a press release yesterday:

"The DOI policy released today is impressive and thorough. This policy goes a long way toward providing a model for other agencies and non-governmental organizations" said American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS) President Dr. James P. Collins. "I commend Secretary Salazar and everyone at Interior who worked on developing the department's position in these important areas. It is an impressive accomplishment to develop a policy that meets the needs of departmental scientists and is compatible with the DOI's diverse mission areas," Collins said.

The DOI scientific and scholarly integrity policy includes a number of provisions AIBS and other scientific organizations recommended in response to a draft policy issued for comment last year.

"The department has considered and incorporated recommendations made by external scientific organizations," said Dr. Robert Gropp, AIBS Director of Public Policy. "It is great to see that Interior has taken the White House directives on scientific integrity seriously. We are pleased to see that the policy now applies to all employees, including political appointees and public affairs officials. This policy should help to foster public trust in departmental decisions and officials."

A colleague recently sent me a link to the video below. On its home site, it's described as "A short, unscientific story about evolution and its consequences." The scientist in me has to warn you that the story is almost unrelated to evolution,¹so don't watch it to learn anything. But do watch it. It's fascinating.

BIG BANG BIG BOOM - the new wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.