science

Embattled climate chief supported India gives its full support to embattled climate change chief Rajendra Pachauri, under attack over recent scientific errors.
Post Date:02/05/2010 04:41:40
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NSF Teams with Microsoft to Move Scientific Research into the Cloud Microsoft and the National Science Foundation (NSF) on Thursday announced plans to offer researchers and research groups selected through the agency's merit review process free access to computer servers . Microsoft will host the computing infrastructure at its data centers, giving the researchers access to storage, computational and networking resources via the Internet for a period of three years. [More]
Post Date:02/04/2010 17:15:00
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Prehistoric patterns: A dinosaur gets color from head to feathery tail Last week, researchers announced that they had been able to place, for the first time, original colors on a dinosaur --painting in striking stripes on Sinosauropteryx 's tail based on new evidence of pigment particles. Today, another team reports that they have decoded the colors of a different dino from head to tail. [More]
Post Date:02/04/2010 16:15:00
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Open-source science takes on neglected disease By Declan ButlerA chemist--and social entrepreneur--in Australia is launching an open-source research project to develop a more potent form of a front-line drug against the debilitating neglected tropical disease schistosomiasis.Matthew Todd of the University of Sydney hopes to persuade research chemists across the world to share laboratory time and expertise in a collaborative effort to find a cheap and efficient synthesis of the drug praziquantel. [More]
Post Date:02/04/2010 15:52:00
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Wolverine No Match for Climate Change Forget polar bears or penguins. The charismatic megafauna suffering most from climate change may well be the wolverine--a vicious predator known for its uncanny strength and tenacity. Making it the perfect inspiration for the X-Men superhero.   The actual wolverine's super powers extend mostly to a tolerance for Arctic chill and supersized feet to permit quicker movement on snow. Those big feet might be hurting the largest member of the weasel family as snowpack declines across much of North America.   [More]
Post Date:02/04/2010 15:00:08
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Athlete alert: Is genetic juicing set to replace steroids? When Olympic medals and multi-million-dollar contracts are at stake, athletes and coaches have been known to resort to drastic measures to strike gold. But as the steroid era evolves amidst increased testing and public hectoring, what other performance booster will enter the ring? [More]
Post Date:02/04/2010 14:58:00
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With a little help, water can freeze as it heats up The Celsius scale is an elegant, simple system of measurement: water freezes at 0 degrees Celsius and boils at 100 degrees C. (The actual definition of the scale is a bit more complex, involving the so-called triple point of water, but that's the general idea.) But chefs at high altitudes know that the simplicity of Celsius doesn't always hold--the higher your kitchen, the lower the boiling point of water. Similarly, water's freezing point is negotiable, with " supercooled " water able to remain liquid down to around –40 degrees , and even colder at extreme pressures. Supercooling can occur if water is so pure and is kept in such uncontaminated conditions that the molecules have nothing to interact with and crystallize around. [More]
Post Date:02/04/2010 12:01:00
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Sperm cells' swimming secrets revealed The predictable swimming sperm featured in health class videos are rather uncharacteristic portraits of the life of these sex cells. [More]
Post Date:02/04/2010 11:20:00
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Will U.S. Government Crackdown on "Greenwashing"? The Federal Trade Commission is expected to crack down on " greenwashing " when it updates its environmental marketing guidelines for the first time since 1998.The agency's Guides for the Use of Environmental Marketing Claims , or Green Guides, define terms such as "recyclable" and "biodegradable" and explain how businesses should back up environmental assertions. Though FTC cannot force businesses to adopt greener practices, Section 5 of the FTC Act authorizes the agency to intervene when businesses are misrepresenting their practices to clients -- in other words, turning greenwashing into fraud. [More]
Post Date:02/04/2010 08:20:00
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Undersea volcano explosion filmed Coast guard officers in Japan film a massive explosion of water in the sea off their lookout post, the surface evidence of what's believed to be an undersea volcanic eruption.
Post Date:02/04/2010 07:32:00
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Saltier, hotter, more acidic, and less diverse? Observing the future ocean A
Post Date:02/04/2010 01:47:27
oceanacidification.wordpress.com

Leaked Climate Change emails Scientist ?Hid? Data Flaws By Fred Pearce Phil Jones, the beleaguered British climate scientist at the centre of the leaked emails controversy, is facing fresh claims that he sought to hide problems in key temperature data on which some of his work was based. A Guardian investigation of thousands of emails and documents apparently hacked from the University of East Anglia’s climatic research unit has found evidence that a series of measurements from Chinese weather stations were seriously flawed and that documents relating to them could not be produced. Jones and a collaborator have been accused by a climate change sceptic and researcher of scientific fraud for attempting to suppress data that could cast doubt on a key 1990 study on the effect of cities on warming ? a hotly contested issue. Today the Guardian reveals how Jones withheld the information requested under freedom of information laws. Subsequently a senior colleague told him he feared that Jones’s collaborator, Wei-
Post Date:02/03/2010 09:46:58
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Saying "no" to John Bradley At a January 11 meeting of the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee, state Rep. Paula Piereson wryly asked one of the witnesses, arson expert Craig Beyler, whether anyone had tried to prevent him from testifying. Beyler declined to point any fingers, but as it turned out it was Williamson County DA and Forensic Science Commission Chairman John Bradley who tried to convince Beyler not to attend the hearing. Reports Gary Scharrer at the Houston Chron's Texas Politics blog:In a Jan. 26 letter, Beyler told [Chairman Pete] Gallego: "Mr. Bradley.... asked me not to appear before your committee. He was apparently concerned about your motives in inviting me and was very concerned that you wished to do the Commission harm." "I was not at all convinced by his concerns and decided to come to Austin. As it turns out, his fears were wholly without merit. I very much appreciated that the committee members did not ask questions about the pending TFSC work," Beyler wrote in the letter to Gallego.Br
Post Date:02/03/2010 08:05:00
gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com

Peer review problems: just in the Nature of things A
Post Date:02/03/2010 07:21:20
thepumphandle.wordpress.com

Henrietta Lacks' 'Immortal' Cells image credit Henrietta Lacks was a black tobacco farmer from southern Virginia who got cervical cancer when she was 30.She was the unwitting donor of cells from her cancerous tumor, which were cultured by George Otto Gey at John Hopkins to create an immortal cell line for medical research. This is now known as the HeLa cell line. No one knows why, but her cells never died.(via Neatorama) The Presurfer
Post Date:02/02/2010 23:46:00
presurfer.blogspot.com

State Funded Research Is Not "Independent" Research There is a very interesting article up on Sp!ked about public health research that everyone interested in the connection between scientific research and public policy should go and read: A bleary-eyed attitude to alcohol research[T]here is the claim, explicit in the [British Medical Journal] Lobby Watch article, that researchers funded by the UK government are objective in the debate over alcohol advertising policy because they are ?independent?, whereas researchers funded by the alcohol industry are not. Second, there is the claim that it is ?established? that alcohol advertising ?encourages young people to drink alcohol sooner and in greater quantities?.The effect of these two claims is to suggest to the public and policymakers that, first, the debate over the effects of alcohol advertising is over and, second, only those people funded by the alcohol industry question this reality.Is this true? The idea that people whose research is funded by the taxpayer are independent, and therefo
Post Date:02/02/2010 12:50:00
iconicmidwest.blogspot.com

Director of IPCC Knew Glacier Claim Was False Before Announcing Grants The story behind the IPCC director’s involvement in winning huge grants to study the impacts of a debunked claim about glaciers melting in the Himalayas had another layer added today when the Times Online (U.K.) reported that he knew about the bogus claim before announcing his latest award to study it. Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the U.N. IPCC, knew about the lack of credibility of the claim that glaciers in the Himalayas would melt by 2035, which was included in the 2007 IPCC report, as far back as prior to the Copenhagen climate conference in December 2009. But according to Pachauri, he didn’t find out about the problematic claim, for which the IPCC was forced to apologize last week, until early January 2010. Pachauri said he didn’t recognize the error until “about ten days” before his recent conversation with the Times on January 22nd. On January 15th, however, approximately three days after the time when Pachauri claimed to have found out about
Post Date:02/02/2010 10:23:03
www.globalclimatescam.com

Bradley violated Open Meetings Act at forensic hearing A Houston Chronicle column by Rick Casey ("The revolt of the scientists," Jan. 31) details behind the scenes wrangling at the Forensic Science Commission meeting on Friday, in which Chairman John Bradley first ejected, then reluctantly allowed in, a documentary camera crew tracking the Willingham case. Here's a tasty excerpt:Friday started badly for John Bradley, the Williamson County district attorney selected last fall by Gov. Rick Perry to ride herd over the troublesome scientists on the Texas Forensic Science Commission. His first official act of the morning was to violate the state's open meetings law. Then his day got worse. ...Bradley unilaterally wrote the agenda for Friday's meeting to focus on new policies and procedures, omitting the Willingham report. He also unilaterally chose Harlingen (which is as close to Mexico City as to Fort Worth, where three of the nine uncompensated and busy commission members live), making wrong my snide prediction that he would hold the me
Post Date:02/01/2010 06:39:00
gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com

Hectoring approach works for John Bradley at Forensic Science Commission, for now If I were a Forensic Science Commissioner who'd gone to Harlingen for yesterday's meeting, I'd be pretty darn grumpy at my chairman today for:Usurping power from commissioners: Bradley refused to put "action items" on the agenda that were designated in the minutes from the last meeting.Hijacking the meeting agenda: The chairman arrived in Harlingen with a detailed set of "rules" that were never authorized by the commission and insisted they focus on them exclusively.Concealing key activities from commissioners: Most FSC members were never told the chair was drafting rules nor did they authorize him to do so. They were first informed of the rules' existence and given a draft the day before the meeting.Wasting commissioners' time: After spending all day on "rules," the chairman revealed at the end of the meeting that the commission had no rulemaking authority, announcing that these were only voluntary "guidelines" representing an informal agreement that is "not even enforceable on oursel
Post Date:01/30/2010 07:09:00
gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com

MMR - WHY THIS SCARE STORY IS TREATED DIFFERENTLY No opportunity has been lost to attack & now strike off Dr Wakefield whose findings of a link between the MMR vaccine & autism have led to a number of middle class people, probably including Tony Blair, stopping their children getting the government vaccination.I don't know personally whether there is any case but Professor Brignal of Numberwatch seriously doubts it.The author of the scare, one Dr Wakefield, blew his credibility at the outset in publishing by press conference a result based on just twelve cases. The subsequent contributions seem to combine the post hoc fallacy with ad hoc theorising. Unfortunately for the population at large, his opponents, the UK government, have also blown their credibility with their inept handling of such disasters as BSE, CJD and Foot and Mouth. The chattering classes are the ones who are opting out of the vaccination programme and, as a result, the first outbreaks of measles have occurred in widespread locations. What these people tend to forget
Post Date:01/30/2010 04:29:00
a-place-to-stand.blogspot.com