The spirit of man . . .

WINTER SOLSTICE, and the cycle of life continues: we celebrate the end of one year and the beginnings of our future and the re-birth of the world around us. That future belongs to the young, and some of them are up to the task. 

Consider 19-year-old Zack Kopplin; according to io9's article by George Dvorsky, “How 19-year-old activist Zack Kopplin is making life hell for Louisiana's creationists”, Zack's leading the battle against Christian ignorance in Louisiana. Way to go, Zackster!

On a positive note . . .

INHABITAT reports that clever young people exist, with an article you should read, by Morgana Matus, "17-Year-Old Builds Algae Biofuel Lab in Her Bedroom to Win $100K Intel Science Talent Search Prize".

Sara Volz

It's officially over

Winter, that is. The Vernal Equinox has occurred.

At 0514Z, (Universal Time for those so inclined. Greenwich Mean Time for those who like to play with the Time Equation), the sun crossed the celestial equator. If you were on the west coast, it happened yesterday at 2214T (10:14 PM, if you must).

Early this year?

Not really. It's a leap year. In the next successive three years the equinox will occur on 20 March with roughly six hours added in each year.

Today, depending on where you are, you can note that the day is slightly longer than the night. You can track the sun rising due east and setting due west.

Boring? You bet. Aside from the prospect of removing winter tires, (unless you live in Port Alberni on Vancouver Island and have to travel Sutton Pass in the image above), it's pretty much the same as yesterday except that it's about 3 minutes and 35 seconds longer daylight. It's also the Persian New Year. (Shame on you for not knowing that!)

We take it all for granted. Which is pretty cool when you consider that if I had written the above in the early 17th Century and you had read it and agreed with any of it, we would have been hauled in front of the Inquisition of the Roman Catholic Church on charges that the idea that the Sun is stationary and the Earth moves around it as foolish. Worse, we would be condemned as heretics and, (if not tortured and killed), tossed in prison. Ideology trumped science ... then.

It took the better part of almost 400 years for the Roman Catholic Church to crawl down off its high-horse and admit that Galileo was right all along.

Aren't you glad that doesn't happen anymore?

Uh oh.

Perspectives . . .

IT'S NOT EASY, SOMETIMES, to be politically-correct. Being part of the vanguard of the progressives requires a certitude of righteousness that can triumph reality on occasion. It's when reality bites back, that problems arise.

John Tierney's article in the NYT, "Social Scientist Sees Bias Within" is a fascinating look at this process by which the politically-correct bludgeon those with whom they disagree.

“If a group circles around sacred values, they will evolve into a tribal-moral community,” he said. “They’ll embrace science whenever it supports their sacred values, but they’ll ditch it or distort it as soon as it threatens a sacred value.” It’s easy for social scientists to observe this process in other communities, like the fundamentalist Christians who embrace “intelligent design” while rejecting Darwinism. But academics can be selective, too, as Daniel Patrick Moynihan found in 1965 when he warned about the rise of unmarried parenthood and welfare dependency among blacks — violating the taboo against criticizing victims of racism.

“Moynihan was shunned by many of his colleagues at Harvard as racist,” Dr. Haidt said. “Open-minded inquiry into the problems of the black family was shut down for decades, precisely the decades in which it was most urgently needed. Only in the last few years have liberal sociologists begun to acknowledge that Moynihan was right all along.”

Similarly, Larry Summers, then president of Harvard, was ostracized in 2005 for wondering publicly whether the preponderance of male professors in some top math and science departments might be due partly to the larger variance in I.Q. scores among men (meaning there are more men at the very high and very low ends). “This was not a permissible hypothesis,” Dr. Haidt said. “It blamed the victims rather than the powerful. The outrage ultimately led to his resignation. We psychologists should have been outraged by the outrage. We should have defended his right to think freely.”

Instead, the taboo against discussing sex differences was reinforced, so universities and the National Science Foundation went on spending tens of millions of dollars on research and programs based on the assumption that female scientists faced discrimination and various forms of unconscious bias. But that assumption has been repeatedly contradicted, most recently in a study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by two Cornell psychologists, Stephen J. Ceci and Wendy M. Williams. After reviewing two decades of research, they report that a woman in academic science typically fares as well as, if not better than, a comparable man when it comes to being interviewed, hired, promoted, financed and published.

“Thus,” they conclude, “the ongoing focus on sex discrimination in reviewing, interviewing and hiring represents costly, misplaced effort.

The Chief Oceanographer of the US Navy...

... Disagrees with education-challenged climate deniers. This video of USN Rear Admiral David Titley has been around for a few months. Something to keep in mind as you watch it: Titley is not an environmentalist and not a politician. He is a scientist, in uniform, and his mission is to provide answers to his superiors.



So ... the US Navy is convinced ... and, I would say, a bit nervous.

And then there are the nutballs which constitute the Republican Party. And where goes the Republican Party also goes the Harper crowd. Stupid, ignorant and dangerous.

All political, all the time...

Everything is political. The Harperites know all. If science, including bona fide peer reviewed research, doesn't fit their illusion of ice cream coming from an irritating little truck spewing pollution, it doesn't make it to the page. Even though you pay for it.

Via Impolitical comes the latest in the Harper attempt to muzzle everyone and everything in government, including science carried out by research departments at universities. (Emphasis mine)

The Harper government has tightened the muzzle on federal scientists, going so far as to control when and what they can say about floods at the end of the last ice age.

Natural Resources Canada scientists were told this spring they need “pre-approval” from Minister Christian Paradis’ office to speak with national and international journalists. Their “media lines” also need ministerial approval, say documents obtained by Postmedia News through access-to-information legislation.

The documents say the “new” rules went into force in March and reveal how they apply to not only to contentious issues including the oilsands, but benign subjects such as floods that occurred 13,000 years ago.

Why? Because the Harperites live in fear that their continuing big lie will be exposed. Any fragment of actual knowledge needs to be suppressed. If it isn't parades, ponies and ice cream, it doesn't fit their public presentation. If, after the last ice age there was massive flooding, someone might relate that to the melting of the ice caps and, instead of the loss of the caps being a good thing, it might be viewed as a disaster.

Can't allow that. Harper conservatives are all about sunshine and daisies - blown right up your ass.

“It’s Orwellian,” says Andrew Weaver, a climatologist at University of Victoria. The public, he says, has a right to know what federal scientists are discovering and learning.

And you can see the problem right there. "Climatologist". To a Harper conservative that is the enemy.

The documents show the new rules being so broadly applied that one scientist was not permitted to discuss a study in a major research journal without “pre-approval” from political staff in Paradis’ office.

NRCan scientist Scott Dallimore co-authored the study, published in the journal Nature on April 1, about a colossal flood that swept across northern Canada 13,000 years ago, when massive ice dams gave way at the end of the last ice age.

The study was considered so newsworthy that two British universities issued releases to alert the international media.

It was, however, deemed so sensitive in Ottawa that Dallimore, who works at NRCan’s laboratories outside Victoria, was told he had to wait for clearance from the minister’s office.

Dallimore tried to tell the department’s communications managers the flood study was anything but politically sensitive. “This is a blue sky science paper,” he said in one email, noting: “There are no anticipated links to minerals, energy or anthropogenic climate change.”

And it didn't just stop at approval. Everything was to be stage managed.

Robson asked Dallimore to provide the reporter’s questions and “the proposed responses,” saying: “We will send it up to MO (minister’s office) for approval.” Robson said interviews about the flood study needed ministerial approval for two reasons: the inquiring reporter represented a “national news outlet” and the “subject has wide-ranging implications.”

Andrew Weaver holds nothing back. I suspect, if the Harper government lasts much longer we'll be hearing more about Dr. Weaver and it won't be pleasant.

The control and micro-management points to a high level of “science illiteracy” in the upper ranks of the federal government, he says, and “incredible disrespect” for both the researchers and the taxpayers footing the government’s multi-billion-dollar science bill.

“The sad reality is that these guys in Ottawa think federal scientists work for them,” says Weaver. “They don’t, they work for the people of Canada.

“This is science funded by Canada for the public good,” he says. “It is not science funded to produce briefing notes for ministers so they can get elected in the next federal campaign.”

Right. And Shari Graydon adds some appropriate shading to the problem. This is not just science; it's everything.

The flat earth theory was discredited quite a few centuries ago and “evidence-based practice” is all over the Internet, so it’s not like the tradition is a little-known secret. So what would it take for Canadians to insist that the decisions being made about our collective future be informed by verifiable knowledge?

Consider this as one citizen’s plea for scientists of all stripes to step onto the information highway in all its forms a little more often, to challenge governments and voters alike to demand that policies and spending be backed up by reliable and independent data.

The problem, of course, is that Harper and his hillbilly caboodle react to any challenge with a singularly unimaginative response and abuse of power. They smear the challenger publicly and then remove that person from arena.

Some of the Harper troglodytes will tell you that none of the micro-managing actually affects the day to day life of Canadians. That, however, is simply not true. Ministerial interference and political meddling has reached right into the next six hours of your life. Not even your weather forecast is safe. (More on that in the future)

Related.

Short people experience the world sooner

Robert Krulwich over at NPR delves into something intriguing: the possibility that a tall person's sensory reactions to the world are delayed because of the distance from some extremities to the brain.

In short, it may pay to be short.

Stevie, at work

STEVIE IS AT IT AGAIN. Doesn't like science, and is really going after the Quebec vote. CBC reports "Famed star observatory in Quebec loses federal support".

The Mont Mégantic Observatory — about 250 kilometres east of Montreal, in the Eastern Townships — is the largest astronomy centre of its kind in eastern North America, and a popular destination for researchers and star enthusiasts alike.

But funding cuts at the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) mean the centre is losing half its annual budget this year, leaving the observatory’s future in peril, said director Robert Lamontagne.

Apparently, the rationale is that we're doing so much elsewhere. However, the outfit is doing good science, and it's available to students, unlike Hawaii and S. America.

And we do good science. Here's another CBC report about the data results from a baloon flight from two years ago, where a deep-infra-red sensor package observed more galaxies in 11 days than had been detected in the previous decade. These are huge galaxies that formed in the very early universe. Not only that, but we did it for $49.95, relativistically, so to speak.

Do click on the picture — it's kinda cool.

Species new to science discovered in Peru

Yeah, I know. So, who cares about Peru.

But the scientist who discovered it has just had the experience of a lifetime.

This recently bathed rodent is among four unexpected species likely new to science that were found high in the Peruvian Andes, scientists with the nonprofit Conservation International announced Thursday.

Expeditions between 2005 and 2008 in Peru's Cordillera Blanca, or White Range, also uncovered two new species of beetle and a rare wetlands plant.

The newfound mouse is a member of the Akodon genus, which includes many South American field mice.

A new mammal species. So... either it sneaked into the so-called "Ark" or it evolved, or it stayed where it was the whole time.

Gary Goodyear - Flat earther

Perhaps people who reject scientific fact shouldn't hold a position of minister of state for science and technology.

Canada's science minister, the man at the centre of the controversy over federal funding cuts to researchers, won't say if he believes in evolution.

"I'm not going to answer that question. I am a Christian, and I don't think anybody asking a question about my religion is appropriate," Gary Goodyear, the federal Minister of State for Science and Technology, said in an interview with The Globe and Mail.

Un huh. Brian Alters sums up Goodyear's answer nicely.

Evolution is a scientific fact, Dr. Alters said, and the foundation of modern biology, genetics and paleontology. It is taught at universities and accepted by many of the world's major religions, he said.

"It is the same as asking the gentleman, 'Do you believe the world is flat?' and he doesn't answer on religious grounds," said Dr. Alters. "Or gravity, or plate tectonics, or that the Earth goes around the sun."

The scary part is that Harper's cabinet is full of them.

Now go read Impolitical.

Why Does Stephen Harper Hate Canadian Science So Much?

There has already been a good deal of comment on this article from the prestigious journal Nature. It underscores the fact that Canada, under the Harper regime, has moved off the world stage and is bound for the sewer.

Luckily we have science geeks and laboratory denizens who understand what is actually happening. The Gazeteer is one of them and has provided his post to us:

Why Does Stephen Harper Hate Canadian Science So Much?
TheLadderOfScience
KnowsATopAndABottomVille

In case you were wondering, there is a very tall ladder in science.

What the heckfire am I talking about?

I'm talking about the ladder of science journals - those 'magazines' that publish peer reviewed research.

Now, you hear a lot about how important the 'peer' review is to the advancement of science.

And it is, because peer review is the process by which other scientists vet a fellow science-geek's work before it gets published in such a journal.

However, like anything else, there is sloppy peer review and there is truly rigourous peer review.

And the journal with one of the most rigourous peer review processes of them all is the journal Nature.

As such, Nature consistently prints papers that are of such a high quality that they are the ones that are most often cited by other science geeks when they write follow-up papers.

And it is this follow-up 'impact factor' , which is kind of like the scientific equivalent of the Nielsen ratings, that is one of the critical measures that helps put Nature at the top of the science journal ladder.

And the top of that ladder just whacked Stephen Harper up the side of the head in an editorial published in today's issue.

One of the issues that Nature has taken Mr. Harper to task over, which is the thing that is getting all the pro-media play today, is his disregard for climate change science:

"Since prime minister Stephen Harper came to power, his government has been sceptical of the science on climate change and has backed away from Canada's Kyoto commitment. In January, it muzzled Environment Canada's scientists, ordering them to route all media enquires through Ottawa to control the agency's media message. Last week, the prime minister and members of the cabinet failed to attend a ceremony to honour the Canadian scientists who contributed to the international climate-change report that won a share of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize."

And I agree that is a very bad thing, indeed.

But the thing that makes rank and file science geeks even more worried is the following passage from Nature's editorial:

"There are deeper and more chronic problems for Canadian science. On the surface, funding for university-based research seems strong. The annual budgets for the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council tripled and doubled, respectively, between 2000 and 2005. The government has also supported new science projects through government-created corporations such as Genome Canada and the Canada Foundation for Innovation, and has recruited and retained promising young scientists through the Canada Research Chairs programme.

But Genome Canada funds only half of the cost of a research project — scientists must seek the remaining cash from elsewhere. Last year, the CIHR was able to fund only 16% of the applications it received, and cut the budgets of successful applicants by a quarter, on average."

Why is this passage so worrying?

Well, because the first paragraph of good news and good programs all happened before Mr. Harper came to power. As for the second paragraph, well this has happened since, and, essentially, it illustrates Mr. Harper's Reservoir Dogs approach to trashing independent scientific enquiry in Canada. Specifically, the CIHR (Canadian Institutes of Health Research) funds the true R&D of biomedical research in this country through a very rigorous peer review process of it's own. When Paul Martin left office the funding rates for this vital science engine, which does not easily lend itself to hype heap-assisted photo-ops, were approaching a very healthy 30%. Now, at Mr. Harper's 16%, the true innovation spigot has pretty much been shut off - especially when you consider that even the 16% that were successful also had their budgets cut considerably.

So, while I, myself a proud Canadian science geek, am quite happy to see that the top of the ladder just whacked our current prime minister on the head, I am also very concerned that if he remains in power much longer Mr. Harper will continue to do his best to throw Canadian Science off the ladder completely.

OK?

________
As a public service (in case anybody can't get deep into Nature) we are publishing the entire editorial, in full, below:

_______

Nature 451, 866 (21 February 2008) | doi:10.1038/451866a; Published online 20 February 2008

Science in retreat

Canada has been scientifically healthy. Not so its government.

Comparisons of nations' scientific outputs over the years have shown that Canada's researchers have plenty to be proud of, consistently maintaining their country's position among the world's top ten (see, for example, Nature 430, 311–316; 2004). Alas, their government's track record is dismal by comparison.

When the Canadian government announced earlier this year that it was closing the office of the national science adviser, few in the country's science community were surprised. Science has long faced an uphill battle for recognition in Canada, but the slope became steeper when the Conservative government was elected in 2006.

The decision in 2004 by the then prime minister Paul Martin to appoint a scientist for independent, non-partisan advice on science and technology was a good one — in principle. Arthur Carty, the chemist who secured the position, duly relinquished his post as president of the National Research Council Canada, which he had revitalized.

But his new office was destined to fail. The budget was abysmal and the mandate was vague at best. After winning power from the Liberals, the Conservatives moved Carty's office away from the prime minister's offices to Industry Canada. In 2007, the government formed the 18-member Science, Technology and Innovation Council (STIC). Told that the government would no longer need a science adviser, Carty offered his resignation. From March, the STIC will provide policy advice and report on Canada's science and technology performance. It can be expected to be markedly less independent: although it is stocked with first-class scientists and entrepreneurs, several government administrators also hold seats.

Concerns can only be enhanced by the government's manifest disregard for science. Since prime minister Stephen Harper came to power, his government has been sceptical of the science on climate change and has backed away from Canada's Kyoto commitment. In January, it muzzled Environment Canada's scientists, ordering them to route all media enquires through Ottawa to control the agency's media message. Last week, the prime minister and members of the cabinet failed to attend a ceremony to honour the Canadian scientists who contributed to the international climate-change report that won a share of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.

Harper sees himself as the leader of a 'global energy powerhouse' and is committing Canada to a fossil-fuel economy. More than 40 companies have a stake in mining and upgrading the bitumen from the oil sands in Alberta and churning out 1.2 million barrels a day. This activity generates three times as much greenhouse gas as conventional oil drilling. Emissions from Canada's oil and gas industry have risen by 42% since 1990.

There are deeper and more chronic problems for Canadian science. On the surface, funding for university-based research seems strong. The annual budgets for the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council tripled and doubled, respectively, between 2000 and 2005. The government has also supported new science projects through government-created corporations such as Genome Canada and the Canada Foundation for Innovation, and has recruited and retained promising young scientists through the Canada Research Chairs programme.

But Genome Canada funds only half of the cost of a research project — scientists must seek the remaining cash from elsewhere. Last year, the CIHR was able to fund only 16% of the applications it received, and cut the budgets of successful applicants by a quarter, on average. And earlier this month, the country's top scientists and university officials warned that they were short of funds to operate multimillion-dollar big-science projects such as the Canadian Light Source synchrotron.

What's to be done? Canada has made good investments in its science infrastructure and its future research leaders. The present government might be dissolved after a vote of confidence next month, which could in itself lead to a change for the better. But in any circumstances, Canada's leading scientists can be public advocates, pointing to the examples of other countries in urging the government of the day to boost their country into a position of leadership rather than reluctant follower.

.

A "new" mammal discovered

The mountains of Tanzania are proving to be a goldmine of "new" critters for zoologists and other researchers. Having already discovered never-before-seen species of birds, shrews and monkeys, this is the latest and perhaps oddest animal to make an appearance in the Udzungwa Mountains.

The bizarre-looking creature, dubbed Rhynochocyon udzungwensis, is a type of giant elephant shrew, or sengi.

The cat-sized animal, which is reported in the Journal of Zoology, looks like a cross between a miniature antelope and a small ant eater.

It has a grey face, a long, flexible snout, a bulky, amber body, a jet-black rump and it stands on spindly legs.

"This is one of the most exciting discoveries of my career," said Galen Rathbun, from the California Academy of Sciences, who helped to confirm the animal was new to science along with an international team of colleagues.

The Udzungwa Mountains have been declared one of 34 World Biodiversity Hotspots. Often called the Galapagos Islands of Africa, the Udzungwa Mountains contain tropical rainforests which stand out from the savannahs of the lower plains. Most of the life in the Udzungwa region has been isolated for millions of years.

And another one direct from the Bush playbook

As Steve V says, this is just unbelievable.

Environment Canada has "muzzled" its scientists, ordering them to refer all media queries to Ottawa where communications officers will help them respond with "approved lines."

Whatever an "approved line" is.

Environment Canada scientists, many of them world leaders in their fields, have long been encouraged to discuss their work on everything from migratory birds to melting Arctic ice with the media and public. Several of them were co-authors of the United Nations report on climate change that won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.

"It's insulting," says one senior staff member, who asked not to be named. She says researchers can no longer even discuss or confirm science facts without approval from the "highest level."

Until now, Environment Canada has been one of most open and accessible departments in the federal government, which the executive committee says is a problem that needs to be remedied.

Well, yes. Open and accessible government is on helluva problem, dontcha know. Why, if someone doesn't bring an end to it, it'll make everyone think the government of Canada is transparent and accountable.

The scientists need not worry. The fat little men in blue ties will be around directly... selling memberships in "the party".

The nazification of the civil service has begun.

Right out of the Bush playbook

If this isn't Bush/Cheney Republican then nothing is.

How much is it going to take for people to realize that this is not the Tory party of your fathers and grandfathers?

When is the media going to start asking the hard questions?

Why does it take Bob McDonald, the host of Quirks and Quarks, to tell us this, and why hasn't the screaming started? McDonald provides us with things science; he shouldn't have to report the news of the Conservative Party's latest move toward the Bush culture.

The one scientist in this country who had direct access to the Prime Minister is being dismissed. Canada’s National Science Adviser, Dr. Arthur Carty, was appointed by former Prime Minister Paul Martin to provide expert advice on the government’s role in matters of science and science policy. Now, less than four years after the position was created, the Harper government feels that it’s no longer necessary.

The National Science Adviser is a voice of reason to the government over actions it should take on issues such as climate change, genetically modified foods, managing fisheries, sustaining the environment - any time the politicians need to be educated on the basic science behind those often controversial issues. Of course, decisions are seldom made for purely scientific reasons; all too often, the interests of industry, special interest groups or a misinformed public will cloud the scientific truth. The Adviser’s job is to provide clarity and perspective.

Clarity and perspective. Right.

Now I get it. That would be in the interest of knowledge and sound decision making. Unless it translates into votes and more power, it has no meaning in Harper's crowd.

None.

The Bush drive to the Dark Ages.

I have no doubt that if Saudi, UAE, Egyptian and Lebanese (That's right. None of them were Iraqi) terrorists had not carried out attacks on the United States on 11 September, 2001, George W. Bush and the administration which followed him into office would have been unceremoniously dumped by the American electorate in 2004.

Bush is mediocrity personified and such an intellectual midget that the worst of his decisions, hidden by the calamity of mass destruction, would have been so obvious, such simple fodder for an over-indulging media, that he would have been viewed by 2003 by most voters as a relatively useless and ineffective president.

Bush was re-elected on the basis of one watershed event, for which he can be held, at least partially, culpable. He and his administration treated the warnings they were issued as something insignificant. Far from possessing the mettle of a world leader, Bush, whose job was to stand on that wall and be aware of what was going on outside it, was blissfully unaware of the world outside his little bubble. He not only had his back turned when the wall was breached; he wasn't even at his post.

Bush was a 9 to 5 operator. His style? Delegate and disappear.

Had 9/11 never happened he would have been sent packing at the next presidential election. In a nation where hard work and innovation are viewed as the concurrent paths to personal prosperity, Bush viewed the end of the 1999 election campaign and the legal challenge which would land him in the Oval Office as the acme of success. His legacy was the fact that he had actually achieved that high office. He could ride the next four years simply signing off on policy written by those who had financed his run. It would have been so easy.

Then someone blew up a chunk of his country.

Americans can be excused for the decision they made in 2004. They had no idea the kind of grotesque national administration they were handing over. They had been traumatized and having suffered that kind of trauma they were unwilling to risk the proverbial "changing horses in mid-stream".

The news media naturally focused on the major events which surrounded the Bush presidency: the aftermath of 9/11, the need to combat a particular threat and Iraq, which had more than a few people confused. What the media did not cover were the policies which were doing actual damage.

The United States was once a manufacturing leviathan. That has diminished as, in an expanding world, the shop floor moved across the Pacific. What would, under normal circumstance, have replaced that manufacturing prowess was academic and scientific innovation. In the absence of durable goods for export, the United States was well positioned to advance its leadership as a scientific powerhouse.

Until George W Bush, intellectual pygmy, killed that too.

Chris Mooney lays out the wreckage Bush has wrought upon science and its integration in political decision making.

Over the past seven years, Mr Bush has shown a disturbing unwillingness to change his mind or admit to errors of fact or judgment. So we are probably safe in assuming he will not significantly alter course on the leading science policy topics of the day - embryonic stem cell research and global warming.

In each case, Mr Bush made a policy decision back in 2001 based upon false, incomplete, or misleading information and has since fought a rearguard action to prevent either acknowledging these deceptions or their obvious implication - that the 2001 policies should be reversed.

By way of example:

Take embryonic stem cell research. Mr Bush claimed in 2001 that he would allow significant federally funded research to go forward on "more than 60" genetically diverse available lines. Only a third as many actually existed and there were various problems with them, including a marked lack of said genetic diversity. This meant that Mr Bush's policy didn't even make sense on its own terms. Supposedly a "compromise," it proved little more than a sham and were it not for 9/11 and the dramatic shift in US priorities that understandably followed, this fact would have been widely exposed far sooner.

And that is the point. Bush got away with pursuing his Christian conservative agenda because the media was completely and utterly distracted. Given the choice of actually researching and analyzing critical decisions on the advancement of science or reporting on the advance of the the 3rd Infantry Division into Baghdad, well, we all know how that went. Science isn't sexy, but live coverage of bombs, bullets and dusty boots is pure entertainment. And good entertainment brings in something even more important - advertising dollars. For the pursuit of that dollar and for leaving coverage of the mess Bush has created in US involvement in biomedical science to the scientific journals, they, the collective popular media, can be held responsible for not questioning why the US has lost its edge in the scientific world.

For example, it seems scarcely disputable that the advancement of embryonic stem cell science has been delayed and hampered. We can't point to specific cures for specific diseases that we lack because of Mr Bush - it's not that simple. But a reasonable assumption is that Mr Bush has set back US biomedical research considerably and allowed other enterprising nations to surge into the void.

There was a point when the US, as a means to make globalization work in its favour, was willing to accept the loss of manufacturing dominance in the world by replacing it with scientific supremacy.

Thanks to Bush, and seven years of vacuous leadership, the US has been stripped of that too.

H/T reader Cat

It's seems Canadians are lighter on their feet.

NASA and the German Aerospace Centre have been conducting an Earth observation survey known as the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE). They have discovered something interesting. From New Scientist:

If it seems Canadians weigh less than their American neighbours, they do – but not for the reasons you might think. A large swath of Canada actually boasts lower gravity than its surroundings.

Researchers have puzzled for years over whether this was due to the crust there rebounding slowly after the end of the last ice age or a deeper issue involving convection in the Earth's mantle – or some combination of the two.

Now, ultra-precise measurements taken over four years by a pair of satellites known as GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) reveal that each effect is equally responsible for Canada's low gravity. The work could shed light on how continents form and evolve over time.

GRACE, a joint mission of NASA and the German Aerospace Center, was launched into space in 2002. The two spacecraft fly 500 kilometres above the Earth, 220 kilometres apart. Using a microwave ranging system, the two spacecraft can measure distance differences between them as tiny as a micron.

That allows them to measure tiny changes in the distribution of mass – and hence gravity – on the Earth. For example, if the leading spacecraft were to encounter an area with more gravity, it would be pulled ever-so-slightly closer to Earth than the trailing spacecraft, and that distance can be measured.

It's an interesting read. You can also check out the mission sites. The German DLR site; The University of Texas at Austin, and The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

Click on image to enlarge.

Odds and Sods

I've been peering through the internet tubes (in a valiant attempt to stop myself from throwing my computer out the window...tax season, working 6 days a week and my damn hard drive decides to die a slow and tortuous death! Gonna pull out all the stops and get myself a skookum new CPU - 2.8 ghz dual core processor, 160 G hard drive, couple of gigs of RAM.) I thought I better get this posting up before I dive too deeply into the booze.

BBC on YouTube

The BBC has struck a deal with YouTube which will allow its content to be shown on the popular video-sharing Web site owned by Google.

The companies let the cat out of the bag at an international press conference this Friday lunchtime, announcing the creation of three BBC branded "channels" on YouTube. Starting immediately, fans of the British broadcaster around the world will able to enjoy clips of their favorite comedies, nature documentaries and news programs.

Like all of the clips on YouTube the BBC content will be in short-form. So it won't be possible to view an entire comedy episode, just a clip or a sketch from that show.

Bush and Cheney need to take a nap!

Lack of sleep can affect people’s moral judgement, a new study shows. The findings could have implications for people in positions of responsibility, whose decisions often have life or death consequences, such as overworked medical professionals and sleep-deprived soldiers.

William Killgore and colleagues at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Silver Spring, Maryland, US, set up an experiment with 26 healthy adults, all of whom were active-duty military personnel.

The participants were presented with a variety of hypothetical dilemmas, first when well rested and later, after staying awake for 53 hours. Situations included complex moral quandaries such as having to choosing whether or not to let one person die in order to save the lives of several others. Less weighty dilemmas without a moral component were also included, such as "is it OK to substitute ingredients in a chocolate brownies recipe?"

While participants did not become less “moral” when sleep deprived, they did require two seconds

longer on average to answer complex moral questions, Killgore says. However, questions without a moral component did not take longer to answer after participants were kept awake.

Mrs. Mills and the Tissue Brigade

from the irrepressible Mrs. Mills of the Sunday Times

Question:

Can you please confirm as to whether it is necessary to exclaim, "Pardon me" after sneezing?

What NOT to say:

There are all kinds of things one might say, though three to avoid are: “Sorry, did that go in your eye?”, “Wipe it off with this”, and “Ooh, I think I’ve wet myself.”

Question:

Why do women’s knickers get larger as they get older? When I first met my wife, they were the size of a handkerchief, now they reach up to her armpits.

The painful truth:

Actually, the size of a woman's knickers is nothing to do with her age and everything to do with her husband's desirability.

A long overdue Spaced out Sunday

From one of my favourite sites NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day Archive:

Ten thousand years ago, before the dawn of recorded human history, a new light must suddenly have appeared in the night sky and faded after a few weeks. Today we know this light was an exploding start and record the colorful expanding cloud as the Veil Nebula Pictured above is the west end of the Veil Nebula known technically as NGC 6960 but less formally as the Witch’s Broom Nebula. The rampaging gas gains its colors by impacting and exciting existing nearby gas.

And Last but not Least

For all that is (revenue and expense) holy and (Canada Income Tax Act) sacred....send me booze! (rum works - Dave has so thoroughly corrupted me in that department, I'm beyond redemption)

The armed chimpanzee

Can you hear the fundies screaming? If you can't, you will soon. A double whammy has just been published in Current Biology. Jill Pruetz and Paco Bertolani have been studying Savannah chimpanzees in Fongoli, Senegal. What they discovered was more than a little significant. The Fongoli chimps hunt with weapons. The summary (emphasis mine)

Although tool use is known to occur in species ranging from naked mole rats [1] to owls [2], chimpanzees are the most accomplished tool users [3, 4, 5]. The modification and use of tools during hunting, however, is still considered to be a uniquely human trait among primates. Here, we report the first account of habitual tool use during vertebrate hunting by nonhumans. At the Fongoli site in Senegal, we observed ten different chimpanzees use tools to hunt prosimian prey in 22 bouts. This includes immature chimpanzees and females, members of age-sex classes not normally characterized by extensive hunting behavior. Chimpanzees made 26 different tools, and we were able to recover and analyze 12 of these. Tool construction entailed up to five steps, including trimming the tool tip to a point. Tools were used in the manner of a spear, rather than a probe or rousing tool. This new information on chimpanzee tool use has important implications for the evolution of tool use and construction for hunting in the earliest hominids, especially given our observations that females and immature chimpanzees exhibited this behavior more frequently than adult males.

Evolution. The dirtiest word in the fundie vocabulary. But there is something even more significant.

When Pruetz and Bertolani were making their observations they discovered something even more amazing. While all the chimps hunted as a group, it was the females who selected the branch of a tree, trimmed it, sharpened it into a spear and then employed it as a weapon. The scientists have a reason for that. The females, being smaller and less powerful than the males, have employed a technical device to allow them to compete equally with the hunting males. In short, because the females do not possess the physical strength of male chimps, they use their brains to a greater degree than the males.

Pruetz noted that male chimps never used the spears. She believes the males use their greater strength and size to grab food and kill prey more easily, so the females must come up with other methods.

The researchers are suggesting that the behaviour of the Fongoli chimps may reflect tool and weapon development by early humans. And that would suggest that women were the inventors and employers of the first hunting weapons.

This all indicates that this four year old concept may have a lot more merit. Since humans and chimps share 99.4 percent of the same DNA, perhaps it's time we showed them a little more respect. After all, in a few million years, if we don't blow the place up, chimps could be going into space without the help of humans.

Although, I'm sure there are some who would disagree. Let the screaming begin.

Neanderthals getting a bit of homo sapien

An interesting bit of information:

A 35,000-year-old skull found in a cave in Romania includes features of both modern humans and Neanderthals, possibly suggesting that the two may have interbred thousands of years ago, according to a published report.

Neanderthals were replaced by early modern humans. Researchers have long debated whether the two groups mixed together, though most doubt it.

The last evidence for Neanderthals dates from at least 24,000 years ago.

The skull has both older and modern characteristics. It is discussed in a paper by Erik Trinkaus, of Washington University, St. Louis.

The report appears in today's issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Cool. And the abstract is here. It's a detailed study of, you know, a piece of real evidence.

Of course there are those who would have you believe that there is no way this could be possible. After all, the earth is only 6000 years old. Here's the proof. It's a cobbling together of fables, some grade 4 arithmetic and is a study based on superstition which says a man lived for 930 years. We know that despite the fact that not one shred of physical evidence exists to support that theory.

You know, I believe Neanderthals may have passed on some of their genes.