North Coast Online

Science Marches On

This is a fascinating development.

Research reported this week by three different groups shows that normal skin cells can be reprogrammed to an embryonic state in mice^{1,    2,    3}. The race is now on to apply the surprisingly straightforward procedure to human cells.

If researchers succeed, it will make it relatively easy to produce cells that seem indistinguishable from embryonic stem cells, and that are genetically matched to individual patients.

If this holds true, would there be any reason to continue the socially-divisive funding of research on cells derived from human embryos?   Would Eliot Spitzer abandon his project to spend billions of New York taxpayers' money on embryonic stem cell research?  And if not, for what reason?

Ugh, Me Need Meat

The New York Times gives the floor to a vegan who actually admits it's not all that it's cracked up to be.

An adult who was well-nourished in utero and in infancy may choose to get by on a vegan diet, but babies are built from protein, calcium, cholesterol and fish oil. Children fed only plants will not get the precious things they need to live and grow.

Wow, common sense!

Sooner Or Later

You've probably heard the old aphorism that if you put enough monkeys on typewriters and gave them enough time they'd be able to write Shakespeare.  Well, it might interest you to know that there are people  creating computer models to simulate just that.

I Might Just Keep One Handy In A Jar

It's conventional (if sexist) wisdom that women hate spiders and men are rather attracted to the fuzzy little creatures.  And now, we may have discovered why.

In Other News: Fat People Eat Too Much

Gosh.  To think that they had to study this.

Chimps hold clues to roots of domestic violence

Violent male chimps have provided new insights into the cause of wife beating, holding up a kind of mirror to help scientists understand the roots of domestic violence

Male chimpanzees can be highly aggressive toward female group members, even using branches as clubs to beat them. Research carried out over many years in the Kibale National Park in Uganda now links this to female promiscuity and suggests that there would be more attacks on women if human society was as promiscuous as ape society.

However, another conclusion of today’s study is that because men play a role in bringing up children, unlike male apes, they are aggressive towards women who they suspect of cheating on them, since they may end up having to raise another man’s child.

I can't help but wonder how many bananas some poor taxpayer somewhere had to cough up to learn of these startling revelations.  Men are jealous, who knew?

Science Myths

The Most Popular Myths In Science

The most surprising to me?

Water drains backwards in the Southern Hemisphere due to the Earth's rotation

Not only is the Earth's rotation too weak to affect the direction of water flowing in a drain, tests you can easily perform in a few washrooms will show that water whirlpools both ways depending on the sink's structure, not the hemisphere.

I'll believe it when the Weather Channel climate-change babe tells me it's true.

I Did Not Know That

Today's (well, probably this year's) helpful household tip.  It appears that putting them in the dishwasher doesn't cut it.

University of Florida engineering researchers have found that microwaving kitchen sponges and plastic scrubbers — known to be common carriers of the bacteria and viruses that cause food-borne illnesses – sterilizes them rapidly and effectively.

That means that the estimated 90-plus percent of Americans with microwaves in their kitchens have a powerful weapon against E. coli, salmonella and other bugs at the root of increasing incidents of potentially deadly food poisoning and other illnesses.

The research suggests microwaving them while moist for at least two minutes per sponge or four if you're really feeling dirty and want to kill the  Bacillus cereus spores.  Now if I could only figure out how to microwave the kitchen floor.

This May Explain A Lot

A new study suggests that liberals are more restless sleepers than conservatives.

Kelly Bulkeley of John F. Kennedy University in California tells The Ottawa Citizen that liberals are more restless sleepers and have a higher number of bizarre, surreal dreams. Bulkeley also found that liberals showed slightly higher levels of nightmares. He says conservatives' dreams were on average more mundane and focused on realistic people, situations and settings.

Bulkeley says some of his colleagues think his findings reinforce a stereotype of conservatives as repressed and uptight, but he says his research also shows “there may be a lot of hidden distress in the liberal mind."

Hidden?

Overselling Climate Change?

How much has the world's average temperature risen over the last century?

Most people reckon between two and three degrees. They are not even close. The real figure, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is 0.6C [1.08F].

It's not surprising most people get it wrong. We are bombarded by stories warning us that global warming is out of control. The most extreme warn us we will be living in a tropical Britain where malaria is rife and Norfolk has disappeared altogether.

Dr Hans Von Storch, a leading German climate scientist and fervent believer in global warming, is convinced the effect of climate change is being exaggerated.

Even ardent believers in climate change are becoming worried that the media's over-the-top alamism risks numbing people to the true (but less spectacular) risks. You can listen to a very interesting BBC radio documentary on the topic here. 

 

The Silencing Of Science

That's the title of Anne Applebaum's latest column which describes the effect of politics on scientific research. 

The story begins with the publication of an article - "Potential Environmental Impact of a Hydrogen Economy on the Stratosphere" - in the June 2003 issue of the journal Science. The five authors, all affiliated at the time with the prestigious California Institute of Technology, explored the potential long-term impact of hydrogen fuel cells on the Earth's atmosphere.

Three State of the Unions ago, hydrogen fuel cells were the thing that was going to save Americans from their oil addiction and stop the auto emissions that help cause global warming. Nowadays switch grass and biomass are the hot alternative fuels, but back in 2003, the president won applause for proposing "$1.2 billion in research funding so that America can lead the world in developing clean, hydrogen-powered automobiles."

Unfortunately for the authors, their research didn't exactly mesh with the hype. According to their model, tiny leaks from hydrogen cells could cause serious environmental damage. But they made no suggestion of inevitability: One of the study's authors, John Eiler of Caltech, pointed out that foreknowledge of potential environmental problems could "help guide investments in technologies to favor designs that minimize leakage."

NASA, which had helped pay for the research, prepared a news release and news conference on the paper. Abruptly, both were canceled by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. An official there told me this was because the office wanted to give Energy Department scientists a chance to respond to the study before it was publicized: "Our role is to facilitate interagency cooperation."

Coincidentally or not, it also happens that Spencer Abraham, then the energy secretary, was preparing to depart for Brussels, Belgium, where he was to tell Europeans that U.S. hydrogen research proved the Bush administration cared about the environment.

All of that part of the story is confirmed. The rest - the story of how none of the scientists ever got government grants for further research on this subject - is complicated by rumor and hearsay. Eiler was turned down for a grant on grounds that he thought were "peculiar" - that the department was not, in fact, interested in proposals on the subject. Today he gets his only money for related research from the private sector.

If the allegations are true, and  I do tend to trust Applebaum, then the solution should be clear.  Government should get out of  funding scientific research.  Anything the government touches must become politicized, so let's just avoid it.   Many will see this story as evidence of the Bush administration's subversion of science but I'm pretty sure I could do a ten-minute Google search and find evidence of the Clinton administration expecting and encouraging results that favored them and their agenda.

It's mostly, I believe, those on the left who insist on government dollars to fund scientific research -- although many (too many) on the right are willing to spend our money when they're in power.  The left still wants to believe that private enterprise will ignore what's truly important for that which is simply profitable.  But the two goals are the same. 

If research in a given area really has a chance of groundbreaking discoveries, then many, many people will pay to take advantage of them.  But to entrust that sort of study to scientists dependent on political handouts almost certainly ensures that the politicians in charge will want favorable (and not necessarily sensible) results.  The whole scheme may be palatable when your people are in power, but when mine are -- you may not be so happy.