May 2011 Archives

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Basically, [the paper] doesn't present ANY convincing evidence that arsenic has been incorporated into DNA (or any other biological molecule)

For those of us who have been tracking #arseniclife since last Thanksgiving, however, today comes as an anticlimax. There's not much in the letters to Science that we haven't read before. In the past, scientists might have kept their thoughts to themselves, waiting for journals to decide when and how they could debate the merits of a study. But this time, they started talking right away, airing their criticisms on the Internet. In fact, the true significance of the aliens-that-weren't will be how it helped change the way scientists do science. (emphasis added)

Minds expanded. 5 days. 50 events. Infinite ideas.

• Science on screen
• Science storytellers
• Improvising science (featuring Alan Alda)
• Telling science stories in print and on the web

Senior officials at Edinburgh University believe it is unfair to expect undergraduates to resort to pens and paper during critical assessments when most of their coursework is done using a keyboard. (source)

[T]he university said safeguards would have to be built into the system to prevent cheating, such as software that prevents access to other networks during exams.

Cover via Amazon

The proposal (SB 2120) requires Florida public schools to adopt digital-only textbooks by the 2015-16 school year, and spend at least 50 percent of their textbook budget on digital materials by that time. (source)

I reported last week on a new study indicating that e-textbooks, despite some real advantages, aren't very good at supporting the variety of "learning styles" that students actually employ in their studies, particularly when compared to printed editions. That research won't be the last word on the subject, but it does show that we're still a long way from understanding exactly what's gained and lost when you shift from printed books to digital ones.

CreatureCast - Strangler Fig from Casey Dunn on Vimeo.

Baba Brinkman - the award-winning Canadian-born performer - is to launch a campaign, supported by the UK's largest charity the Wellcome Trust, to aide the teaching of evolution in schools - using his acclaimed show The Rap Guide to Evolution and a resource-packed website to assist.

The first step in the campaign is the launch of The Rap Guide to Evolution website later this month (www.rapguidetoevolution.co.uk) which will host a series of 12 specially produced music videos based on the show, as well as supporting materials that will assist teachers in utilising the videos in their work.

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US gasoline consumption peaked in 2006 and was about 8 per cent below the peak in 2010. Consumption per person has fallen more than 10 per cent.

Covering disciplines as diverse as ornithology, entomology, ecology, paleontology, anthropology, botany, and animal behavior, Field Notes on Science and Nature allows readers to peer over the shoulders and into the notebooks of a dozen eminent field workers, to study firsthand their observational methods, materials, and fleeting impressions.

• George B. Schaller
• Bernd Heinrich
• Kenn Kaufman
• Roger Kitching
• Anna K. Behrensmeyer
• Karen L. Kramer
• Jonathan Kingdon
• Jenny Keller
• James L. Reveal
• Piotr Naskrecki
• John D. Perrine and James L. Patton
• Erick Greene

Whereas in the United States and around the world, more than 1,000 species are officially designated as at risk of extinction and thousands more also face a heightened risk of extinction;

Whereas the actual and potential benefits that may be derived from many species have not yet been fully discovered and would be permanently lost if not for conservation efforts;

Whereas recovery efforts for species such as the whooping crane, Kirtland's warbler, the peregrine falcon, the gray wolf, the gray whale, the grizzly bear, and others have resulted in great improvements in the viability of such species;

Whereas saving a species requires a combination of sound research, careful coordination, and intensive management of conservation efforts, along with increased public awareness and education;

Whereas 2/3 of endangered or threatened species reside on private lands;

Whereas voluntary cooperative conservation programs have proven to be critical to habitat restoration and species recovery; and

Whereas education and increasing public awareness are the first steps in effectively informing the public about endangered species and species restoration efforts: Now, therefore, be it

  Resolved, That the Senate--

     (1) designates May 21, 2010, as `Endangered Species Day';

     (2) encourages schools to spend at least 30 minutes on Endangered Species Day teaching and informing students about--

       (A) threats to endangered species around the world; and

       (B) efforts to restore endangered species, including the essential role of private landowners and private stewardship in the protection and recovery of species;

     (3) encourages organizations, businesses, private landowners, and agencies with a shared interest in conserving endangered species to collaborate in developing educational information for use in schools; and

     (4) encourages the people of the United States--

       (A) to become educated about, and aware of, threats to species, success stories in species recovery, and opportunities to promote species conservation worldwide; and

       (B) to observe the day with appropriate ceremonies and activities.

One way to deal with a problem is to pretend it doesn't exist. This approach has the virtue of relieving you from having to come up with a solution, spend money or make tough choices. The downside, of course, is that leaky faucets and other problems rarely solve themselves and, in fact, usually get worse if ignored.

Such is the case with climate change, a threat that too many members of Congress, most of them Republicans, have decided to manage by denying the science. That head-in-the-sand approach avoids messy discussions of higher energy prices, but it just got harder to justify.

Taken together, these developments ought to leave the deniers in the same position as the "birthers," who continue to challenge President Obama's American citizenship -- a vocal minority that refuses to accept overwhelming evidence.

• Most Americans (57%) say colleges fail to provide good value for the money, and even more (75%) say it is too expensive for most Americans.
• Both those who have a college degree and those who don't think that college graduates are making $20,000 more per year because of the degree.
• Nearly half of the public (47%) thinks the purpose of a college education is to provide work-related skills and knowledge. Fewer (39%) say the purpose is to help students grow personally and intellectually. The rest say both are important.
• 74% of college graduates say that their college education helped them to grow intellectually, 69% say it helped them grow and mature as a person, and 55% say it was very useful in helping them prepare for a job or career.
• A substantial minority of college presidents (38%) say that the U.S. higher education system is headed in the wrong direction.
• Fewer than 1 in 5 now believe that the U.S. system of higher education is the best in the world now, and fewer than 1 in 10 (7%) think it will be best in the world a decade from now.
• "Presidents are evenly divided about the main role colleges play in students' lives: Half say it is to help them mature and grow intellectually, while 48% say it is to provide skills, knowledge and training to help them succeed in the working world. Most heads of four-year colleges and universities emphasize the former; most heads of two-year and for-profit schools emphasize the latter."
• "Only a quarter (24%) of presidents say that, if given a choice, they would prefer that most faculty at their institution be tenured. About seven-in-ten say they would prefer that faculty be employed on annual or long term contracts."

The divide within the Republican base is stark on this issue: fully 66% of Main Street Republicans say alternative energy development should be the focus of America's energy policy, while just 26% would focus on expanding oil, coal and natural gas exploration. In this view, Main Street Republicans agree with the predominantly Democratic groups.

[T]here would be a hard wage freeze for two years for all unionized employees. It would include all forms of payments, including wages, longevity pay, increments and lump sums. Newly hired state employees would no longer be eligible for longevity pay, which are twice-yearly payments on top of their normal pay. (source)

Throughout his career, Walter made substantial contributions to the theory underlying molecular evolutionary change. In the 1960s and 1970s, he developed computer algorithms to infer evolutionary relationships among organisms based on molecular data (protein and DNA sequences), as demonstrated in his classic studies on evolutionary divergence in cytochrome c. His seminal work on molecular homology and estimation of ancestral protein sequences greatly facilitated analytical procedures for describing evolutionary change. He pioneered methods to generate branching diagrams or "phylogenetic trees" to reflect the relationships among species based upon similarities and differences in their physical and/or genetic characteristics. Fitch's work had a major impact on not only biologists but also mathematicians and computer scientists. More recently, he published important contributions to understanding the molecular evolution of influenza virus and HIV.

Walter was the cofounder of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution and its journal Molecular Biology and Evolution. He was the society's first president and editor-in-chief of the journal for 10 years. The "Walter M. Fitch Award" given by the society to the most deserving young scientists is a continuing reminder of his legacy.

I do observe that education and medical care are the two large sectors in which the private market did not have a strong presence a century ago and are also the two large sectors where market competition does not seem to produce lower prices. And I feel that there must be some connection. 

"High costs of reproduction rights have traditionally limited the ability of scholars, especially ones early in their careers, to publish richly illustrated books and articles in the history of art, architecture, and material and visual culture," according to Mariet Westermann, vice president of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. "Yale's new policy provides an important model to follow." (source)

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Some interesting news from the world of e-reading apps in the land of iOS: BeamItDown is shuttering its iFlow Reader app on May 31, saying "Apple has decided that it wants all of the e-book business in iOS for itself and it has has made mid-game rule changes that make it impossible for anyone but Apple to sell e-books at a profit on iOS." (source)

Lecturers must publish, and not just anywhere. The journals that are accepted as good places in which to be seen know this very well, and they abuse the market. They are far too expensive, and as a result really only libraries can afford them. And as library budgets get cut everywhere, they too are now having to be choosy.

In fact, whether we are talking about books or journals, academic publishers present us with really major problems. There are not many of them, and they are not customer-focused. It is time to leave all that behind us. The academy should develop and manage online journals where academics can place their work and where this will be appropriately peer-reviewed. It is time to break away from a publishing sector that has some of the most restrictive practices of the modern business world. It is time to open up publishing opportunities for academics and to make it easy for others to access what has been published.

[P]rivately funded science used for public or regulatory purposes should be subject to the same transparency requirements as publicly funded science, and industry requests to protect data, under claims of confidential business interests, should be granted only when public health and safety are demonstrably not at stake.

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Global average warming is not the only kind of climate change that is dangerous, and long-lived greenhouse gases are not the only cause of dangerous climate change. Target setters need to take into account all the factors that threaten to tip elements of Earth's climate system into a different state, causing events such as irreversible loss of major ice sheets, reorganizations of oceanic or atmospheric circulation patterns and abrupt shifts in critical ecosystems.