Eideard

A Dutch psychologist has admitted making up data and faking research over many years in studies which were then published in peer-reviewed scientific journals.

Diederik Stapel, a psychologist working at Tilburg University in the Netherlands, said he had “failed as a scientist” and was ashamed of what he had done, but had been driven to falsifying research by constant pressure to perform. The respected journal Science, which published some of Diederik Stapel’s work earlier this year, issued an “expression of concern” editorial in which it said it now had serious concerns about the validity of Stapel’s findings.

NSS. Part of the point of peer review is questioning in material and scientific analysis – not just accepting results as rote. Certainly in many other vocations that is the case.

Stapel was suspended from his position at Tilburg University in the Netherlands in September when an investigation was launched by the university into his work.

“The official report … indicates that the extent of the fraud by Stapel is substantial,” Science’s editor-in-chief Bruce Alberts wrote in the journal’s online edition Science Express…

The process of peer review, in which other scientists are asked to critique and analyze a paper before it is accepted for publication in a journal, is designed to minimize the risk that false data will get through, but it is not infallible.

As I said above, regardless of how a paper is vetted beforehand, a critical part of the process is investigation after the fact. Cripes, there are discussions in archaeology, paleontology, astronomy which have been in progress for decades.

Officials in Rick Perry’s home state of Texas have set off a scientists’ revolt after purging mentions of climate change and sea-level rise from what was supposed to be a landmark environmental report. The scientists said they were disowning the report on the state of Galveston Bay because of political interference and censorship from Perry appointees at the state’s environmental agency.

By academic standards, the protest amounts to the beginnings of a rebellion: every single scientist associated with the 200-page report has demanded their names be struck from the document. “None of us can be party to scientific censorship so we would all have our names removed,” said Jim Lester, a co-author of the report and vice-president of the Houston Advanced Research Centre…

However, Perry, in his run for the Republican nomination, has elevated denial of science, from climate change to evolution, to an art form. He opposes any regulation of industry, and has repeatedly challenged the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Texas is the only state to refuse to sign on to the federal government’s new regulations on greenhouse gas emissions. “I like to tell people we live in a state of denial in the state of Texas,” said John Anderson, an oceanography at Rice University, and author of the chapter targeted by the government censors…

Officials even deleted a reference to the sea level at Galveston Bay rising five times faster than the long-term average – 3mm a year compared to .5mm a year – which Anderson noted was a scientific fact. “They just simply went through and summarily struck out any reference to climate change, any reference to sea level rise, any reference to human influence – it was edited or eliminated,” said Anderson. “That’s not scientific review that’s just straight forward censorship.”

The barbarian cohort of politicians catering to every whim of the Oil Patch Boys is nothing new to anyone who lives within 600 miles of the Permian Basin. That they are marching towards full control of the Republican Party in concert with the flat-earthers of the Tea Party isn’t a surprise either.

The foolishness of born-again libertarians is compounded not only by ignorance and a fear of educated folk – censorship once again comes into play as thoroughly as xenophobia and bigotry.

Founders of the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, circa 1975

It was described by evangelical pastor Jerry Falwell as “obscene trash.”

High schools and public libraries banned it, while teenagers — male and female — hid it under their beds like a dirty magazine. Women across the country passed it to their friends, their sisters, their neighbors. They read chapters about rape in closets with flashlights. They gaped in dorm rooms at the photos of childbirth.

The landmark women’s health handbook was filled with sometimes graphic information about the most intimate aspects of women’s lives. It was revolutionary in its candid discussions — and depictions — of the specifics of sex, birth control, childbirth, lesbianism and other formerly taboo topics.

In 1971, the first “Our Bodies, Ourselves” book sold 250,000 copies. Today, it is available in 25 languages and has sold more than 4 million copies. It’s hard to believe it all began in Boston with just 12 women.

They met during a women’s liberation conference in 1969. At the time, fewer than 10% of doctors were women, and topics like sexuality, pregnancy and abortion were rarely discussed. But a long conversation after a workshop on women and their bodies prompted this small group to launch the beginning of the women’s health care movement…

The next year, their work came to fruition: a 193-page booklet printed on newsprint titled “Women and Their Bodies” that sold for just 75 cents.

RTFA – the interview with Judy Norsigian , executive director of the ongoing, constantly updated publication. Think about giving a copy to young women you know – or read it yourself if you haven’t yet.

This is a book that still opens doors to thought and accomplishment for women stuck into the corners of a society that hasn’t yet progressed very well beyond superstition and ignorance.

Is this a Rick Perry or Michelle Bachmann voter?

Nearly all of the Republican presidential candidates would put the brakes on President Obama’s efforts to broaden federal spending on embryonic stem cell research, a move many scientists feel would jeopardize the future of a promising but controversial field that has been whipsawed by political shifts over the past decade.

The prospect of an about-face in White House policy alarms researchers, who in 2009 hailed Obama’s executive order to lift Bush-era restrictions on taxpayer support for this type of work as the end of the scientific Dark Ages. Last month, a federal judge dismissed a legal challenge to government funding for the experimentation.

Human embryonic stem cells have the ability to become any tissue in the body and might eventually lead to treatments for intractable diseases such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and diabetes.

But antiabortion GOP candidates equate the emerging science with abortion because human embryos must be destroyed to extract the stem cells. And like President George W. Bush, who in 2001 barred the National Institutes of Health from supporting most embryonic stem cell research, they vow to restrict future funding for it…

Bush’s compromise drew sharp criticism from some conservatives, who chastised him for allowing any federal support of the research. Now most of the Republican candidates have refused to be pinned down as to just how far they will go in their opposition.

Wary of alienating social conservatives who have become increasingly important to winning in 2012, their campaigns responded to a Globe survey of their positions with vague statements and dodged questions about whether they would endorse Bush’s position of allowing funding for research on a limited number of existing stem cell lines to continue.

Fact is, the Republican Party and their Kool Aid Party brownshirts aren’t even up to the 19th Century Age of Reason when it comes to understanding modern science, the benefits of science. The lives of ordinary human beings, the economic life of businesses grounded in advancing technology, medicine, healthcare, and knowledge in general – grow and thrive in a world where every scientific step forward has both a social and an economic component.

Nothing counts more to the ideologues of the Right than getting elected or reelected and if that means promising to end studies in evolution, geography, astrophysics, genetics and biology – so be it! If the destruction of government requires the end of science as we know it, they have no problem with that!

The first human antibody that can knock out all influenza A viruses has been shown effective in lab mice, an exciting step forward in the hunt for a universal vaccine.

The broadly neutralizing antibody, called FI6, could help vaccinate people against the flu without scientists struggling to piece together a new cocktail each season to match the often-changing strains.

Antonio Lanzavecchia, lead author of the study published this week in the US journal Science, described the finding as “significant,” but noted it may be five years before it can be made into a widely available treatment.

“The antibody works not only by neutralizing the virus, which we knew, but also by recruiting killer cells to the virus-infected cells,” Lanzavecchia, director of Switzerland’s Institute for Research in Biomedicine, told AFP in a phone interview.

“This suggests that once tested in a human system, the antibodies should work even better.”

The antibody was found in plasma cells from a human donor. When given to mice heavily dosed with flu viruses, it was able to knock out the illness, offering hope for use as a remedy in people who get infected with the flu…

“We are convinced that this is a very rare specificity but it is a very potent antibody,” said Lanzavecchia…

The next steps are to try to develop the antibodies into a treatment for flu-infected people, while scientists use the findings to work toward developing a vaccine that could coax the body into producing such antibodies.

Bravo!

Anti-vaccination silliness fills all those categories.

NASA has launched an iPad application for those interested in Earth science.

Dubbed the NASA Visualization Explorer, the application delivers real-satellite data, including movies and stills, of Earth, that enable users to learn a bit more about the “natural world.” Short stories accompany the videos and stills to explain what users are seeing and why it’s important.

“The app will explore stories of climate change, Earth’s dynamic systems, plant life on land and in the oceans–all of the small and large stories captured in data by NASA satellites and then visualized,” Michael Starobin, a senior producer at the Goddard Space Flight Center, said in a statement.

“Science should be accessible to everyone, and visualization reveals the meaning and value of the often intangible, but essential, data delivered by NASA’s research efforts,” Starobin continued. “Data visualization makes information immediately visual and understandable when it otherwise might go unnoticed.”

In addition to visualizations, the app also comes with six editorial features related to Earth science. According to NASA, two new editorials will be added each week. The organization also said it might include stories about the sun and solar system at some point.

The free NASA Visualization Explorer is available now in Apple’s App Store.

1965

Lee Kuan Yew, the architect of modern Singapore, said on Saturday he was leaving the cabinet, the first time he will not be part of the government of the wealthy city state since independence in 1965.

Lee and Goh Chok Tong, who succeeded him as prime minister in 1990, announced in a joint statement that they were opting out of government since last week’s general election signaled the emergence of a new generation. Both men were returned to parliament in the poll.

“We have made our contributions to the development of Singapore,” the two said. “The time has come for a younger generation to carry Singapore forward in a more difficult and complex situation.

“After a watershed general election, we have decided to leave the cabinet and have a completely younger team of ministers to connect to and engage with this young generation in shaping the future of our Singapore…”

The long-ruling People’s Action Party (PAP), co-founded by Lee Kuan Yew, won the May 7 election with 81 of 87 seats, but took only about 60 percent of the popular vote, its lowest ever since independence.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, Lee Kuan Yew’s son, said after the election there had been a distinct shift in the political landscape.

“Many (Singaporeans) wish for the government to adopt a different style and approach,” he said at a news conference last week. “Many desire to see more opposition voices in parliament to check the PAP government.”

This election was remarkable for the stridency of anti-government rhetoric both at opposition rallies and on the Internet.

The PAP-led government has transformed Singapore from a third world backwater to a first world financial center, but critics say decisions are not taken in an inclusive manner, and dissent is muzzled.

That’s putting it gently.

It appears that the shifting dialectic of democracy is on the upsurge, once again, and taking a leading role in the future of Singapore. Welcomed, of course, by those who fought at all levels – and there were many – to get to this day without destroying the dynamic growth of the city-state’s economy and standard of living.

When Jacob Barnett first learned about the Schrödinger equation for quantum mechanics, he could hardly contain himself. For three straight days, his little brain buzzed with mathematical functions.

From within his 12-year-old, mildly autistic mind, there gradually flowed long strings of pluses, minuses, funky letters and upside-down triangles — a tapestry of complicated symbols that few can understand.

He grabbed his pencil and filled every sheet of paper before grabbing a marker and filling up a dry erase board that hangs in his bedroom. With a single-minded obsession, he kept on, eventually marking up every window in the home…

Entirely normal for Jacob, a child prodigy who used to crunch his cereal while calculating the volume of the cereal box in his head…

Elementary school couldn’t keep Jacob interested. And courses at IUPUI have only served to awaken a sleeping giant.

Just a few weeks shy of his 13th birthday, Jake, as he’s often called, is starting to move beyond the level of what his professors can teach.

In fact, his work is so strong and his ideas so original that he’s being courted by a top-notch East Coast research center. IUPUI is interested in him moving from the classroom into a funded researcher’s position.

“We have told him that after this semester . . . enough of the book work. You are here to do some science,” said IUPUI physics Professor John Ross, who vows to help find some grant funding to support Jake and his work…

This is not what Jake’s parents expected from a child whose first few years were spent in silence.

“Oh my gosh, when he was 2, my fear was that he would never be in our world at all,” said Kristine Barnett, 36, Jake’s mother.

“He would not talk to anyone. He would not even look at us.”

RTFA. A delight. Not just for the tale of young Jacob; but, how his parents adapted and learned, experimented with freeing his latent abilities – sometimes regardless of the directions suggested by professional help more inclined to find the right box to put him into.

Great family story from all sides. And a young person I look forward to seeing in a larger picture someday.

Thanks, Mr. Fusion

If he was entering a Republican Party conference he’d be carrying bible action figures
Daylife/Getty Images used by permission

The Department of Education responded to a letter of concern from the British Centre for Science Education (BCSE), which is worried by applications from Christian groups to run free schools. It fears that schools might be exploited by groups seeking to promote a literal interpretation of the Bible at the expense of science classes.

However, the Department of Education confirmed that Mr Gove is “crystal clear that teaching creationism is at odds with scientific fact”…

The BCSE expressed in writing its “extreme concern” about groups such as Christian School Trust who have made up to five applications to run free schools…

The Everyday Champions Church, in Newark, Nottinghamshire, submitted its proposal for a 652-place school in January. It claims that the parents of more than 660 children have signed up to attend the school.

The Church’s leader Gareth Morgan told the BBC: “Creationism will be embodied as a belief at Everyday Champions Academy, but will not be taught in the sciences. Similarly, evolution will be taught as a theory. We believe children should have a broad knowledge of all theories in order that they can make informed choice.”

In July last year Mr Gove acknowledged there were concerns about “inappropriate faith groups using this legislation to push their own agenda.” He told MPs on the cross-party Commons education committee that his department was working to ensure there were no “extremist groups taking over schools”.

A clear distinction between conservative politicians in the UK and US. The former resemble what traditional American conservatism used to embody – including disdain for populist pandering to religious nutters. That used to be left up to the Democrats in the United States.

Apparently when Nixon instituted the Southern Strategy to acquire the racist and bigot vote in America, they inherted the nutballs along with the whole package.

A survey of scientists studying stem cells suggests that the absence of clear federal regulations governing the use of embryonic stem cells and uncertainty over funding for stem cell research…

According to the survey, published…in the journal Cell Stem Cell, nearly half of the scientists questioned who study embryonic stem cells or are considering using the cells said that the climate of uncertainty has had a substantial impact on their research. Many said they had delayed the start of new projects or were considering moving away from the field altogether. While many experts in the field had predicted these negative outcomes, the survey is one of the first efforts to systematically assess the effects of U.S. policy regarding stem-cell research…

Embryonic stem cells are considered one of the most promising tools for regenerative medicine, especially as a source of replacement tissue, thanks to their ability to replicate themselves and to grow into any cell type in the human body. But the topic has been fraught with controversy because deriving new lines of embryonic stem cells requires the destruction of human embryos.

Stem-cell researchers experienced a brief bout of optimism two years ago when President Obama signed an executive order ending a restrictive policy enacted in 2001 by President Bush. That policy had blocked federal funds from being used to study most human embryonic stem cells and led to a patchwork of state regulations governing funding for the field. Current federal policy permits federal funding for research using existing cells but not the derivation of new cells.

The optimism came to an unexpected end last August when a federal judge issued an injunction blocking federal funding for any research involving embryonic stem cells, pending the result of a lawsuit claiming such funding to be illegal. As a result, research and grant reviews at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the nation’s largest biomedical funding agency, came to a halt, and scientists who had federal funds were left wondering what to do. The Obama administration successfully appealed the injunction in September, but ongoing uncertainty over the timing and outcome of the lawsuit means that confusion remains.

The absurdity of a nation with a self-professed history of freedoms having to waste funds and years fiddling in court with 19th Century moralizers is more than frustrating. It looks like researchers who picked up and left the country with the advent of the Bush Taliban controlling the Republican Party may have made the safe choice.

Though mainstream religions kept an easy truce between church and state for decades, the assumption of a mantle of infallibility among the fearful who have crawled into the bosom of fundamentalist demagogues – has constructed a wall of fire and brimstone between essential civil service and the ranks of scientists, educators and scholars. The latter didn’t set out to spend their career explaining the Age of Reason all over again to ignorant opportunist politicians every four to eight years.