I just came across a wise piece at Huffington Post about modern Sputnik analogies that substitute China for the Soviet Union:
The 1957 Sputnik launching kick-started American progress in education and technology, but it also deepened an enmity between the world’s two super powers. Today’s Sputnik moment epidemic can serve to redouble our efforts in the teaching of math and science (though I’d hope not at the expense of history, literature, art, music, and the classics) and in the pursuit of new sources of energy. But let it not make China our 21st-century Russia. Let us not fall into the simple mindset that we’re playing a zero-sum game, where there is a clear winner and a clear loser.
Fair enough. I support the sentiment fully.
To me, though, just as troubling as the Sputnik analogy is the Sputnik dis-analogy. When it comes to investing in education and innovation, we aren’t responding to the current competitiveness challenge in anything like the way we responded in 1957.
As we explained in Unscientific America, following the Soviet launch of Sputnik this country poured a massive investment into scientific research, science education, space exploration, and much else. And that set the U.S. on course to dominate the world in science for the next half century.
Right now, by contrast, partisanship and ideology are preventing us from doing the same when it comes to clean energy innovation. We’re holding back our domestic clean energy industry because we can’t agree to put a price on carbon–and we’re doing that because we can’t even agree that global warming is our collective fault. Meanwhile, solar heads to China, and no wonder–that nation is now investing massively more than we do in renewable energy.
To me the real question is this: Can partisanship and ideology become so powerful that they prevent the ability to respond to a Sputnik moment? Unfortunately, the evidence suggests that they can.
Nemo and I have been together for nine years. A long time–especially in parakeet years. So you can imagine my surprise when her new veterinarian Dr. M. Scott Echols immediately recognized and recorded her special super power:
Dr. Echols explained that some budgies–particularly in wild populations–fluoresce under UV light. As he describes in the video, this energetically costly characteristic may help with individual identification, social signaling, and mate selection.
I’m on three fantastic panels next weekend at ScienceOnline2011 alongside some of my favorite bloggers and authors! I’d like to address each topic initially at the “unconference” and later in more detail here on the blog. First, I’ll introduce the key ideas below and invite readers to share any thoughts, questions, or points you’d like to see addressed as the discussion grows in comments (please specify which panel if you do). Chris is coming too and sessions will be webcast. I’ll post the details about that when I have them.
1) Blog as a (book-)writing tool – Brian Switek, Sheril Kirshenbaum, Maryn McKenna and Seth Mnookin
A popular science book: using the Web from the initial idea to pitching to writing to selling your book. Why not extend this idea also to magazine/newspaper articles and other media, as well? Make it about using blogs as a springboard for other forms of science writing and engagement rather than just books alone – blogs as labs to grow as a writer, etc.
2) Blogging on the Career Path: Opportunities emerging out of the blogosphere – Sheril Kirshenbaum, Janet D. Stemwedel, Greg Gbur and John Hawks
Many academic scientists are on the tenure track — a career path that poses both challenges and opportunities for blogging and other forms of science outreach.
How do you turn your online presence into opportunities for your research and publication record?
How do you convince your colleagues that your blog/website is worth the time and effort?
How do you quantify your online work for administrators?
3) Perils of blogging as a woman under a real name – Sheril Kirshenbaum, Anne Jefferson, Joanne Manaster, Maryn McKenna and Kathryn Clancy
Being a woman scienceblogger has its own set of challenges, writing under your real name a few more. Readers may want you to be beautiful, to be their mommy, to be accessible to them in a way they don’t expect of other bloggers. They also may hold your decisions and lifestyle to a different standard. “There just aren’t any good women science bloggers out there.” “She was picked just because she was a woman.” “I would cure cancer just to capture your heart.” “You are a terrible mother if your baby is in daycare and you are in the lab.” These statements exemplify the sorts of unwelcome comments that women science bloggers can face, and reflect broader issues of cultural and institutional sexism. How do we navigate those issues, and ensure our own safety, while covering the science that we love? How do we get our writing noticed when people claim we don’t exist? Panel members and attendees will tackle these issues and others as a way to move towards a solution in the issue of gender representation in science blogging.
A surprising number of people contacted me during the past week about the recent mass wildlife deaths reported all over the world and posted across the internet. Some say it’s a sign of “End Times” (although apparently Kirk Cameron disagrees) and others wonder what’s changed in the environment.
John Roach has got the full story, including an interview with conservation biologist Stuart Pimm about the real reason we should all be concerned: Although such events are relatively routine (just not typically reported), one in six bird species is threatened with extinction.
That’s a pretty big deal. In fact, it’s just the kind of crisis that should be making headlines. So if you work at a newspaper, write a blog, or choose content for other media, please consider reporting the real story here….
I just attended the president’s science adviser’s science and policy keynote here at AGU in San Francisco. So did several hundred other people.
Interestingly, some news was made–sort of. Holdren announced that with regard to the long awaited scientific integrity guidelines his office was tasked to produce in early 2009…guidelines he’s been criticized for not yet releasing….he’s almost there and they should be out this month.
To quote Holdren, producing the guidelines–to cover scientific integrity practices across agencies of the U.S. government–”has been a more challenging task than expected, it has taken much longer than it was supposed to.” Holdren continued by stating that he had hoped to announce the guidelines in his AGU talk but “didn’t quite make it–but we are very close.”
How close? Holdren’s powerpoint put up the date “12-10″ for their release–e.g., this month. I’m sure that will be a relief to many.
Besides this nugget, Holdren’s talk was basically a vast compendium of all of the things the administration is doing to promote science and its relation to policy. And it really is quite a set of accomplishments (the integrity guidelines problem notwithstanding). Listening to it all inspired me to write a longer post comparing Obama-Holdren with Bush-Marburger, so stand by for that.
For now I’ll leave you with what was arguably Holdren’s most striking quote about Obama and science: “No president has ever talked as much about science, technology, and innovation as this president has.” Or as Holdren closed his talk, the “lynchpin” to having science positively impact the country is “a committed president. And fortunately, we have one.”
This marks the first year that several readers have emailed me inquiring about gift suggestions. Not just one or two of you either… I’ve received a flurry of questions about book recommendations, toys, and gadgets. So after listing a few great things I’ve purchased or received, readers are invited to share their suggestions for fun and/or educational science gifts for the holidays…
For older science fans, I often give books. (And no, not my books–that would be weird). My dad recently received Paul Parsons’ The Science of Doctor Who. Books like this are always fun. Jennifer Ouellette’s The Physics of the Buffyverse or Lawrence Krauss’ The Physics of Star Trek are two terrific similar examples.
There are several wonderful new titles from 2010. Vanessa Woods’ Bonobo Handshake, Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, and Brian Switek’s Written in Stone are three I like very much. My favorite childrens’ books this year were the ZooBorns pair by Andrew Bleiman and Chris Eastland. Other cool reading ideas include subscriptions to awesome magazines like Discover, National Geographic, and many more.
You also can’t go wrong with fun equipment to use outside. One of my favorite gifts ever was a Meade telescope for my 21st birthday. Similarly gear from REI or Sierra Trading Post will encourage the nature lover in your life to explore the world. And of course, don’t forget donations! Two of my favorites charities are SavingSpecies.org and Lola Ya Bonobo sanctuary.
That’s a start for a holiday science-giving guide… Add your suggestions in comments!
Tim Birkhead is professor of behavioural ecology, University of Sheffield. He is reading Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum’s Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens our Future (Basic Books, 2009). “Not only America’s future, but the UK’s, and elsewhere too. This is essential reading for all science undergraduates (and teachers); superb history that puts our current predicament into perspective. This highly readable book tells you why science matters. On communicating science for example: ‘Institutional structures … fail to award successes in communication and thus create little incentive for scientists to engage in it.’”
By now you’ve likely heard about the bacterium discovered in California’s Mono Lake:
The study, published in the journal Science, demonstrates that one of the most notorious poisons on Earth can also be the very stuff of life for some creatures.
* * * *
“Life is mostly composed of the elements carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, sulfur and phosphorus,” the researchers write in Science.
These six elements make up the nucleic acids — the A, C, T and G of DNA — as well as proteins and lipids. But there is no reason in theory why other elements should not be used. It is just that science never found anything alive that used them.
* * * *
.. it does suggest that astrobiologists looking for life on other planets do not need to look only for planets with the same balance of elements as Earth has.
“Our findings are a reminder that life-as-we-know-it could be much more flexible than we generally assume or can imagine,” said Wolfe-Simon.
A wonderful new book arrived this month that I highly recommend to readers! Misha Angrist composed Here Is A Human Being: At the Dawn of Personal Genomics, not only chronicling the experience of having his genome sequenced, but also introducing many fascinating characters in this engaging narrative about the relationship between us and our DNA.
Misha is assistant professor at Duke’s Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy and I was fortunate to get to know him while working at the university. (For a sense of what Misha’s up to, check out this interview featured in the News & Observer.) As one of the first ten individuals to participate in George Church’s Personal Genome Project, his book explores the broad implications of what personal genomics means in our society while providing the firsthand account of his experience. From Amazon:
In 2007, Misha Angrist became the fourth subject in the Personal Genome Project, George Church’s ambitious plan to sequence the entire genomic catalog: every participant’s twenty thousand–plus genes and the rest of his or her 6 billion base pairs. Church hopes to better understand how genes influence our physical traits, from height and athletic ability to behavior and weight, and our medical conditions, from cancer and diabetes to obesity and male pattern baldness. Now Angrist reveals startling information about the experiment’s participants and scientists; how the experiment was, is, and will be conducted; the discoveries and potential discoveries; and the profound implications of having an unfiltered view of our hardwired selves for us and for our children.
DNA technology has already changed our health care, the food we eat, and our criminal justice system. Unlocking the secrets of our genomes opens the door not only to helping us understand why we are the way we are and potentially fixing what ails us but also to many other concerns: What exactly will happen to this information? Will it become just another marketing tool? Can it help us understand our ancestry, or will it merely reinforce old ideas of race? Can personal genomics help fix the U.S. health care system?
Here Is a Human Being explores these complicated questions while documenting Angrist’s own fascinating journey—one that tens of thousands of us will soon make.
Here Is A Human Being is will appeal to anyone interested in DNA and the future of science. The content is easy to understand for experts and laypeople alike. At times Misha takes on a serious tone while elsewhere you’ll find yourself laughing at funny anecdotes. These transitions are seamless and the narrative is thought-provoking. I really enjoyed reading this book and learned a lot along the way. You will too so pick this one up!
