Archive for August, 2008
Science and tech commentary from around the web: climate change health impacts, the bioethics of voting technology, evolution teaching tools, the wind in NYC, the Clean Air Interstate Rule, scivee.tv, and Green Chemistry in CA.
Three recent studies propel regenerative medicine forward, but don’t yet move it to the clinic. There is still no better venue for studying cell processes than embryonic stem cells.
Want to clean up the patent mess? Start by admitting government can’t know everything. Then put the public on the task.
Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture proposed a rule that cattle too sick to stand should not be turned into hamburgers. The move raises the opportunity to consider broader issues regarding federal food safety structures, which have been under scrutiny since this summer’s outbreak of
salmonella St. Paul, which was eventually traced to imported serrano peppers.
Harvard researchers report in the online version of Nature that they have developed a method to directly convert tissue cells in a living mouse from one type into another. The development will certainly spark the latest round of discussions over ethical questions involved in stem cell research, but despite the potential for work that builds on this discovery and iPS investigations, human embryonic stem cell research will likely still be an important component of the field for some time to come.
Americans are confident in the leaders of the scientific community. But are they interested in those leaders’ policy recommendations?
Bell Labs, birthplace of technological breakthroughs like the transistor, the laser, and communications satellites, may have arrived at the end of its storied history. Industry support of basic research has been on the wan for years, but federal policies can bolster public and private R&D.
Stem cell based research and products are carefully managed at the federal, state, and university level. Efforts to change or strengthen these rules must demonstrate that even more regulation is actually necessary.
Corporations typically underestimate their carbon footprints by an average of 75 percent, according to a new study from Carnegie Mellon researchers. One of the major blind spots is in calculating the total greenhouse gas emissions from myriad supply chain inputs, as opposed to the direct emissions involved in primary operations.
Yesterday, the CDC announced that more cases of measles have been reported in the Unites States thus far this year than in any year since 1996. Public health research demonstrates the immense benefits of vaccination, and armed with the best information, public health experts, doctors, and parents can help drive measles rates where they belong: down to zero.
There are lots of righteous rationales for being against doping, but only one stands up to real scrutiny: the rules say it is not allowed.
Congress recently authorized the creation of the National Center for Research in Advanced Information and Digital Technologies, a nonprofit organization that will support research, development, and adoption of digital learning technologies. Unfortunately, Congress neglected to provide sufficient funding for the center.
The anti-science forces in Missouri don’t know when to call it quits. This week a state judge decided to hear a lawsuit from the Missouri Roundtable for Life that seeks to block $21 million of state funds from going to the state’s Life Sciences Research Board. The suit may tackle the definitions of reproductive and therapeutic cloning.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit decided on Tuesday in
Sierra Club v. EPA to throw out a rule that prevented states from implementing their own pollution-limiting permits.
Is the U.S. really producing fewer and fewer scientists—and is the answer to simply crank out more?
This week on the EPA’s Greenversations blog: “Why do you use a gasoline, electric, battery-operated, or push lawn mower?” It’s an apt question, as personal decisions about lawn grooming implements are connected to matters of climate and energy.
The rapid increase in the number of people in the United States who are living a very long time stems in part from the steady development of life-extending medical developments. But the pace of advances is in fact so rapid that we are barely able to consider the ethical dimensions of come life-extending procedures and the social responsibilities that come with caring for an older population.
A new report from the Communication Workers of America provides more data on a problem we already knew about: the past seven years have been bad for broadband policy.
A new report from the National Research Council argues that the military should harness the power of neuroscience to amplify the cognitive prowess of U.S. personnel and make foreign soldiers, um, less smarter.
Recent reports indicate that Europeans seem to be moving towards acceptance of genetically modified foods, as long as they are properly labeled. Conflict surrounds discussions on GM crops, but there are many facets of the debate over these seeds.
Federal legislation that would enhance the Environmental Protection Agency’s role in protecting our most valuable resource advances to the Senate.
The Bush Administration has proposed new rules that allow federal agencies to assess on their own threats to endangered species, side-stepping scientific review of environmental impacts for regulatory decisions. Here’s what some experts have been saying in the mainstream media and blogosphere over the past few days about the proposed rule change.
The FBI’s case against Bruce Ivins summons mythical fears of science as a perilous ethical endeavor—and that’s a threat to the image of scientists everywhere.
Bugs pack an amazing set of capabilities into a very small package. Understanding and mimicking those abilities can allow researchers to shrink the size of autonomous robots to proportions like those of household pests.
The line between legal and illegal performance enhancement is unclear, and our ability to detect illegal enhancement is even shakier.
The President and Congress can’t craft sound energy policy when the EIA mis-predicts oil prices by a factor of two.
A quick look at the issues making the rounds on the science blogs this week.
Unproven and experimental fertility treatments, combined with an ill-conceived presidential policy on stem cells, have created an industry that needs corralling.
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen Johnson announced today that the agency will deny the request of Texas Governor Rick Perry for a waiver that would reduce government ethanol production requirements.
The National Center for Atmospheric Research has shut down a program that helps developing nations predict and prepare for natural disasters such as droughts, floods, and cyclones, Andrew Revkin reports in
The New York Times. The program, called the Center for Capacity Building, was created in 2004.
It isn’t a scientist shortage or a poor public education system. It’s the lack of decent-paying, tenured job opportunities for young graduate and postgraduate research scientists.
While everybody is talking about energy these days, they’re not necessarily talking about the scientific opportunity so much as the business one. The moment is right for researchers to take up—with a sense of unshaking mission and purpose—the grand cause of a generation.
The opening of the Beijing Olympics this Friday has provided another occasion for much public reflection on the ethics of sports doping. It is not hard to imagine that betting pools will be created not only on the number of medals won in this Olympiad, but also on the number of medals withdrawn due to doping rules violations.
The processes of decision making in science policy requires public engagement, participation, and broad-based deliberations. Multicriteria Mapping is a way to ensure the reasoning behind choices made are transparent and well understood.
The recent federal investigation of Dr. Bruce Ivins, the Army bioterrorism researcher suspected of facilitating the 2001 anthrax attacks, is drawing media attention to dual-use research and could provide an opportune moment for biotech researchers to take another look at the rules that govern work with deadly pathogens.
College-age readers may be interested to know that the Center for American Progress is accepting applications to its internship program, which includes Science Progress. Other readers may know students interested in the program.
This week’s Policy Forum in
Science addresses the “structural disequilibria” in biomedical research that has resulted from the recent funding history of the National Institutes of Health. Addressing these problems would create a more hospitable career path for young researchers and yeild more medical advances.
Like an unstable canoe that tips without warning, sudden climate changes can bring dramatic and unpredictable ecosystem transformations. If an abrupt change hit, would it doom our best efforts to save the planet?
With a concerted push by policymakers on research, development and deployment of solar technologies, solar renewable energy could dot our landscape.
