Blogs / Reality Base

Newsweek reports that the children displaced by Hurricane Katrina who spent the longest amount of time in government-provided temporary housing—a.k.a. FEMA’s toxic trailers—are “the sickest I have ever seen in the U.S.,” according to Irwin Redlener, Children’s Health Fund president and a professor at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.

The ailments, according to a study of 261 post-Katrina kids, range from mental health disorders to anemia, and are astonishingly widespread: Forty-one percent of the children are anemic—twice the rate found in minors in New York City homeless shelters—and 42 percent have respiratory infections and other problems likely linked to the excessive formaldehyde in the trailers.

As we’ve discussed on Discoblog, formaldehyde is a probable carcinogen as well as an allergen, and is used in many products, including the wood used to build these disaster homes. The formaldehyde gas levels in FEMA’s trailers were so toxic that Katrina victims began complaining of illnesses, including breathing difficulties, bloody noses, and even gas-linked deaths, almost immediately after they moved into them.

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When the fed is spending $7.4 trillion to clean up the wreckage, you know someone’s gotta take the blame. So who should shoulder it? Scientific American thinks at least some of the fault belongs with the physics and math whizzes who built the risk models that dug our grave.

In a byline-free editorial, the magazine traces our woes back to a 2004 meeting in which the SEC agreed to lift a rule specifying debt limits and capital reserves “needed for a rainy day.” This move provided the requisite billions that banks pumped into mortgage-backed securities and derivatives. And who created the structures for these impossibly complex schemes that caused the mass bank implosion? Wall Street’s band of “lapsed physicists and mathematical virtuosos,” also known as “quants,” who “both invented these oblique securities and created software models that supposedly measured the risk a firm would incur by holding them in its portfolio.”

Given that hindsight is 20-20, we now realize that all these models are really only accurate for a limited period of time, at a very narrow confidence level—meaning that whenever those conditions aren’t fantasy-scenario optimal, the actual risk can be enough to incite a global meltdown. Good to know!

So should we be tarring and feathering the brains who built the beam we used to hang ourselves? It’s hardly that simple, a fact that Sci Am acknowledges while still laying on the heavy guilt:

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• Just when you thought it was safe to put the abortion debate to rest: Bush tries to sneak in additional “protections” for hospital employees who don’t wish to perform the procedure.

• Practicing physicians aren’t the only ones on the take from drug companies; now it’s radio hosts as well.

• A new survey finds bad news for China’s soil—and its food supply.

• All that technology love can work both ways: Verizon employees are caught peeking at Obama’s private cell phone records.

• Could HIV prevention come in the form of a pill?

• And are “climate-smart chickens” worthy of their name?

• And finally, one of the best, and most honest, run-downs of what’s really happening with women in science.

How does President-Elect Obama love technology? Let us count the ways. Among the features the incoming administration is adding to its much-anticipated technology ramp-up is a video version of the weekly Democratic address. From now on, the president-elect will record the address on video, then his staff will upload it to none other than YouTube, as well as Obama’s Web site (for the first video, go here).

And fear not, technophiles—there’s more. From the Washington Post:

In addition to regularly videotaping the radio address, officials at the transition office say the Obama White House will also conduct online Q&As and video interviews. The goal, officials say, is to put a face on government. In the following weeks, for example, senior members of the transition team, various policy experts and choices for the Cabinet, among others, will record videos for Change.gov.

Of course, not all of this techno-political bonanza is 100 percent original: The current administration’s Web site “offers RSS feeds, podcasts and videos of press briefings,” while the “site’s Ask the White House page has featured regular online chats dating back to 2003.” Granted, it’s pretty safe to assume online video clips of Bush didn’t garner quite the same enthusiasm.

Related:
RB: Obama Blogs? President-Elect Launches Web Site, Embraces Internet
RB: Politicians v. Technology: Obama, McCain Battle the Internet
RB: Obama Changes His View (Or, at Least, His Web Site) On Technology

• Transition! Transition! (Insert music here). So here’s the question of the day: Will Obama create a National Energy Council?

• Just in time for winter: A complete history of the flu through the ages.

• The military fought the whales… and won.

• What, “Global Warming Poobah” was already taken? Gore offered (but turned down) job as White House “Climate Czar.”

• We can’t decide if this is heartening (drivers are being safe!) or mortally depressing: California air pollution kills more people per year than car crashes.

• A soldier-blogger gets his moment in the spotlight—though the real question is, what does he think of Trooptube?

After running the most technology-dominated presidential campaign in history, it’s only logical that Obama would keep the trend going into his new administration. And by all accounts, he has every intention of doing so: The Washington Post reports that the president-elect and his transition team are gearing up (pun fully intended) to “create the first truly ‘wired’ presidency.”

So far the major cyber-moves include consolidating the list of over 10 million supporter e-mail addresses gathered during the campaign, planning the transition of Obama’s 95-person “new media” campaign staff into an expanded White House operation, and biggest and flashiest of all, the launch of the president-to-be’s official Web site, change.gov. It’s self-billed as “your source for the latest news, events and announcements so that you can follow the setting up of the Obama administration,” and so far it contains a forum to share your election day stories, a newsfeed, and lo and behold, a blog! Take that, anti-blogites—if it’s good enough for Obama, it’s good enough for us.

So is this the era of the blogger-president? Can we expect Web cams in the Oval Office and Twitters from cabinet meetings?

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• A new administration, a new direction, and maybe—just maybe—a clean divorce between science and political ideology.

• And of course, the debate has already started: Who will Obama pick to head up the EPA?

• Meanwhile, we’re zooming straight into a “health care perfect storm.”

• Which makes it all the more admirable (or crazy, or excessively symbolic) that Wisconsin Democratic Rep. Steve Kagan has elected to go without health insurance as a gesture of solidarity towards his uninsured constituents. Stay healthy, Steve!

• China demands international action on climate change—let’s just hope they practice what they preach.

• And not to judge or anything, but videos like this one certainly don’t inspire confidence.

• The “net energy” debate gets serious. Is the whole thing a load of bull? We’ll leave it to the experts to decide.

Yesterday we noted that dear old (and still around) President Bush was working overtime to pass environmental regulations—many of which would harm, not help, said environment—before he’s shown the proverbial boot. But to be fair, not every rule he’s looking to enact is bad: The Washington Post reports that one in particular may even be crucial in conserving some our most vital underwater ecosystems. The plan is to restrict or ban fishing and mineral exploitation in two huge areas of the Pacific.

No surprise, his attempts to do some good are being met with resistance, to the point where the scope of the original plan, which included the preservation of four potential “marine monuments” has already been whittled down. And leading the anti-conservation charge is none other than friend-to-corporations-everywhere Dick Cheney, who argues that the restrictions will hurt the economies of nearby regions like the Northern Mariana Islands.

The ocean areas in question, called “treasure troves” of biodiversity, are described by the Post as follows:

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You’d think that recent news about autism—i.e., the increasing amount of definitive evidence proving it’s not linked to vaccines—would be vindication for Paul Offit, the prominent pro-vaccination advocate and medical director of the Vaccine Education Center at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. As you might recall, Offit sounded off earlier this year on the Hannah Poling case, offering an opinion that led to all sorts of name-calling and borderline hysteria.

Now, it appears, the hysteria has made a sharp right into psychosis. ABC News reports that Offit has been receiving death threats (as in, more than one) from anti-vaxers. On a recent “Today Show” appearance, Offit revealed that “the threats [he] received included a ‘phone call from an unidentified man who mentioned specific and private details’ about Offit’s family.”

And he’s not the only one: Flu vaccine advocate Gregory Poland, director of the Mayo Vaccine Research Group at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, describes the following:

“Among the most egregious things — I got a letter once railing against my involvement in vaccines and hoping that something serious would happen to me and hoping that something serious would happen to one of my children,” he said. “I had people come to the door of my home and harass my wife and kids, so I no longer have my address listed in the phone book.”

And at one point, Poland said, someone broke into his lab and attempted to hack into his computers. As a result, Poland’s lab is now locked down for security purposes.

Granted, leaders of anti-vax groups respond that they’ve also been the victims of harassment, with taunts like “baby-killer” hurled their way.

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Nothing puts a damper on an historic world-mobilizing event like a steaming heap of pollution. As 80Beats reports, the nation’s current and least favorite—no, really, we’re not just saying that—president is using his last days in office to enact a virtual bonanza of legislation aimed at letting industries like coal-mining and commercial fishing wreak (even more) havoc on the environment.

Via the the Natural Resources Defense Council, here’s a description of one of the proposed rules, which exempts factory farms from requiring permits that limit water pollution:

Creates a loophole allowing facility operators to avoid permits by claiming they won’t have a discharge.

Adopts a scheme that allows facilities to avoid certain environmental enforcement. For instance, if an operator certifies that the facility won’t have a discharge, environmental authorities will ignore enforcement action, even if the facility discharges to the nation’s waters.

Rejects improvements in technology that would reduce harmful bacteria and other pathogens contained in animal waste, missing an opportunity to prevent water pollution and threats to public health.

Well, guess he figures he’ll drink only bottled water after leaving the White House. (Good luck with that one.)

Chances are you’re not reading this, because you’re standing in some epic line at a polling place. Or maybe you’ve brought your iPhone, and you’re surfing the Web to pass the timed. Either way, the polls are jammed, lines are interminable across the country, and election officials, politicos, pundits, and just about everyone else are bracing themselves for the technological messes that are sure to ensue.

The good news, according to a recent report from Election Data Services, is that the number of ballots cast on electronic voting machines will drop today for the first time since DREs wormed their way into our lives. In the 2008 election, 32.6 percent of all ballots will be recorded on an electronic voting machine, compared to 37.6 percent in 2006.

Of course, 2006 wasn’t a presidential election year, particularly one with expected “record-shattering” turnouts. By comparison, 22 percent and 29.2 percent of votes were cast electronically in 2000 and 2004, respectively.

Then there’s the little matter of key swing states, including Ohio, Indiana, and Nevada—all of which are relying heavily on electronic voting machines.

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So, yeah, there’s this election tomorrow, in case you hadn’t heard. And if you need any more incentive to head to the polls, here it is: A study out of Scotland’s University of Edinburgh found that people with higher IQs voted more often, regardless of their occupation. The data came from a U.K. study begun in 1970 that has tracked the recent voting habits of about 17,200 people born that year.

They found that for every 15 IQ points above a score of 100, a participant was “38 percent more likely than average to have voted in the United Kingdom’s 2001 election.” In addition, “[p]eople who took part in a political meeting or rally in the last year, those who took part in a public demonstration, those who signed a petition, and those who were fairly or very interested in politics had higher mean intelligence test scores at age 10.”

But did IQ make any difference in which way people voted? Any mention of this question in the past has usually been enough to incite a frothing frenzy. Here’s how ABC News summarized the latest findings:

“Childhood intelligence is associated with…support for political ideologies that are based on ecological sustainability and social liberalism,” conclude the Intelligence study authors. For example, voters were 32 percent more likely to vote for the UK’s more left-wing Liberal party over the Conservative party for every 15 IQ points they scored above average as children. They were more likely to be tree-huggers too, voting more often for environment-oriented parties.

So the smarter you are, the more you like trees—we report, you decide.

Related:
RB: Election 2008: Everything You Need to Know to Avoid Being Disenfranchised
RB: Voting in America: Let the Pre-Game Mess Begin!
RB: Voting in America, Redux: You Can’t Vote Here, But You Can Vote in Space

• Get in touch with your inner polar bear—and kick some climate change a$$.

• Attention: Cruddy voting machines = cruddy news for voters.

• The Economist smacks down pretty much the entire science journalism establishment. Don’t worry, we won’t mention how you weren’t exactly first in line to predict the financial crisis.

• We love voter databases (even if they don’t love us). Unfortunately, Ohio’s might not even make it through a single fraud check. Ask us how shocked we are.

• Man v. the Internet: Did the Web hinder (or help) the financial crisis?

• Obama’s groundbreaking Web campaign: “Controlled chaos” (that looks like it’ll work).

• And if you’re looking for last minute Halloween costume ideas, look no further.

With less than a week before showtime, the polls are already jam packed. But the real stars of the eleventh hour are the undecided voters, who still (incredibly, miraculously) haven’t made up their minds. And apparently they’re more numerous than one might think, with one in seven voters saying they might go either way, according to a recent poll.

But are these vacillating voters really still deciding? Or could their minds have already formulated a choice, without their even realizing it? University of Virginia psychologist Brian Nosek suspects the latter is true, and has partnered with colleagues at Harvard and the University of Washington to test whether humans form mental associations that differ from what their conscious recognizes.

To do this, the researchers used the Implicit Association Test, which has been up and running for a decade now and has logged around 7 million responses. Since the 2008 presidential race began, the team has tested more than 25,000 voters on their implicit preferences concerning the two candidates. Of that group, around 4,000 (15 percent) declared themselves undecided. But the test results for a significant number of these so-called undecideds showed a clear implicit preference for Obama or McCain. Here’s how the team summarized their results:

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One week left ’til Election Day 2008, and voter turnout is expected to obliterate records. Of course, whether those record numbers of voters turn into record numbers of counted votes remains to be seen. In addition to the smorgasbord of disasters that could befall your vote before it gets tallied, the first hurdle will be voter registration, creating a gatekeeper you’ll have to pass just to get in the door.

Chances are, your voter registration information has been entered into a computer database run by your state. And chances also are that it’s been entered wrong—no, seriously, it has. As a result of all this error and confusion, just about everyone is worried that legions of voters could be turned away at the polls. Even the Association for Computing Machinery is getting in the act, stating the following in press release:

Experts from ACM’s U.S. Public Policy Committee (USACM) will be monitoring and analyzing the reliability of registration records and voting equipment around the nation as Election Day approaches.

ACM’s report on VRDs [voter registration databases] includes 99 high-level recommendations to help states establish best practices for computerized statewide electronic databases…For example, the ACM report recommends that when driver registration databases are used for eligibility checks, they should apply only to screening voters, not to automatically enrolling or de-enrolling them.

Yes, great idea! Call us when it’s implemented in 2012.

Of course, in the irony of all ironies, NASA is making sure that any Americans currently in orbit are able to vote from space, courtesy of a secure electronic ballot uplinked by the Johnson Space Center. This year, two men aboard the International Space Station plan to cast their ballots from 220 miles above the Earth. Let’s just hope they’ve been reading the news.

Related:
RB: Voting in America: Let the Pre-Game Mess Begin!
RB: Lose Your House, Lose Your Vote, Lose Your Self-Esteem
RB: Advocacy Group May Have Registered Phony “Voters.” But Does It Matter?
RB: Be Very Afraid: Online Voting Systems Fail Even for Political Bloggers