R.I.P. Stephen Schneider

Lane Professor for Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies at Stanford University and long an active faculty member in the Department of Biology, Schneider apparently suffered a heart attack on an airplane en route to London from Stockholm. Schneider's obituary appeared in today's Washington Post but his death is not yet mentioned on his Stanford University webpage. Schneider was an early member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and was actively working on the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) at the time of his death.

Hat tip to Democracy Now! for alerting me to the news. A eulogy written by Ben Santer has been posted at Real Climate.

World Cultural Preservation

My former professor, Richard Kurin, has been the Under Secretary for History, Art, and Culture" at the Smithsonian Institution for over 25 years now. An interview with Dr. Kurin posted on the U.S. State Department's propaganda organ America.gov has been making the round among progressive news outlets like Scoop and cultural resources blogs like Saving Antiquities.

I am amazed that Kurin has not only survived but flourished as organizer and recruiter of international acts for the Smithsonian Folklife Festival as well as many of the Silk Road Project events and exhibits at museums in our nation's capitol. The profile advertising his appearance at the Canadian Museum Association conference in St. Johns, Newfoundland, Kurin describes many of his most recent accomplishments:

(Kurin)... has worked with cultural figures ranging from Pete Seeger, Yo-Yo Ma, Mickey Hart, and Bernice Johnson Reagon to the Aga Khan and the Dalai Lama. He helped draft an international treaty on safeguarding the world’s living cultural heritage. He has produced major events for the Smithsonian’s 150th anniversary, the opening of the World War II Memorial, the opening of the National Museum of the American Indian, and programs for numerous presidential inaugurals, including that of President Obama.

I highly recommend the interview with Kurin posted at America.gov.

ClimateGate debunked by UK Parliament

Climate scientist Phil Jones of the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom has been completely exonerated of any misconduct in the "ClimateGate" scandal based upon emails stolen from the university's email server. According to results of an inquiry released today by the Science and Technology Committee of the UK Parliament, Dr. Jones' research methods were “in line with common practice in the climate science community." Statistical and mathematical analyses performed by his Climate Research Unit have been repeated and the conclusions have been verified by independent scientific experts.

The DeSmog Blog has a thoughtful summary of this final chapter in the long and messy "ClimateGate" scandal. Comments are just starting to show up at the brief entry on RealClimate.

My entries in this blog about ClimateGate began on November 23rd, 2009. Follow up posts were written on November 24th, November 28th, November 30th, December 4th, and December 5th. ClimateGate was clearly well timed to undermine plans for the Copenhagen Climate Summit as well as Climate Change legislation here in the United States.

Who are the Climate Skeptics?

Back on December 16 of 2009, Jim Lippard posted a lengthy investigation of the denialist infrastructure in terms of citations, credentials, and organizational affiliation. I came across his blog by accident while reading Juan Cole today.

Holdren remarks to U.S. House Select Committee

Dr. John Holdren, Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, gives his opening statement during the Select Committee Hearing, "The State of Climate Science" held on December 2, 2009. Holdren emphasizes that relative role of natural and anthropogenic forcing is being addressed within the scientific community and will not benefit from political or governmental intervention.

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Climategate: George Monbiot on Real News

A secretive scientific culture permeates climate research, according to Monbiot. Is this unique to climate science? Do most scientists belong to a democratic and "open" society as Monbiot claims, following Karl Popper?

CRU Email Hack and "Climategate"

There has been a great deal of chatter in blogs on both politics and climate science regarding emails and scientific data stolen from a university computer serving the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia. The stolen material can be found in many places on the internet at this point, and relatively few scientists have managed to find time to read them or address the issues involved. The most balanced and thoughtful discussions can be found in the posts by Gavin Schmidt at Real Climate.

My only comment at this point is that all scientists need to be concerned about our privacy and confidentiality privileges both as citizens and professional researchers. It is particularly offensive to hear a sitting United States Senator promoting this sort of thievery and promising to hold a Senate hearing in which the stolen material will be aired and relied upon to trample upon the rights of university professors and government scientists here in the United States.

Earthquake on South Island, NZ

An earthquake occurred at 9:22 PM (9:22 AM GMT) on the evening of Wednesday, July 16th in the Fiordland region of southern New Zealand. At this writing , the earthquake's moment magnitude is reported as 7.6 by the USGS but as 7.8 by the New Zealand's Institute of Nuclear and Geological Sciences. Fiordland is near the southern tip of South Island, where the Australian Plate moves to the northeast at a rate of 35-45 mm/yr relative to the Pacific plate. The yellow area in the above "beach ball" pattern shows the predominantly eastward component of the current thrust within the northeastward plate movement.

The tremor lasted at least a minute and was felt as a rolling motion across New Zealand's South Island, according to the BBC. New Zealand issued a tsunami warning for a string of its coastal towns and cities, but later cancelled it. A tsunami was detected in the Tasman Sea, heading towards the southeast coast of Australia. About an hour after a tsunami warning was issued, Australian officials downgraded it to a "small boat alert" and there was little or no evidence for coastal flooding as a result of the quake.

Schistosome gene sequence decoded

Schistosomes are parasitic flatworms responsible for diseases variously referred to as schistosomiasis or bilharzia. These diseases occur throughout the tropics, particularly in areas adjacent to still or slow-moving water. The life cycle of the schistosome parasites includes a stint of residence inside a freshwater snail. The initial symptoms of schistosomiasis include fever, fatigue, rashes, and eye infections, but the disease can progress to cause internal bleeding, organ failure, and eventually death. I developed schistosomiasis myself as an eight year old boy, after my family returned to the United States from Nigeria.

Dr. Matt Berriman, of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, is quoted by the BBC saying that gene sequencing "provides a foundation for understanding aspects of the parasite's complex biology as well as a vehicle to immediately identify new targets for drug treatment." According to fellow researcher Dr Najib El-Sayed, of the University of Maryland, "the genome sequence has given us, for the first time, a comprehensive view of the engines that drive the parasite, the strategies that allow it to survive in us, its human host.

I know that treatments for schistosomiasis had already progressed far beyond what I was subjected to as a child. It is exciting to hear of these new potential treatments, and the genetics of these organisms may also yield clues about how to manage tropical environments to more effectively control the parasite.

Geoscientists arrested in Brazil

Three graduate students from the United States were arrested while conducting fieldwork in the Pantanal region of western Brazil. Two Brazilian students were arrested at the same time, and the entire team had studied and trained at the University of Arizona under Andy Cohen. I am still reading up on this myself, but there is a petition up for us all to sign at the Arizona Geology blog. I came across the news originally in a post by Chuck at Lounge of the Lab Lemming, one of the ten (10) blogs which I just selected to award an "Excellent Blog" award to.

P.S. An earlier post on the Arizona Geology blog indicated that the students were released but are going to have to stand trial in Brazil. According to an article in USA Today authored by Andrea Stone, the students could be stuck in Brazil for months.

NOAA reports reefs are threatened

The U.S. Coral Reef Task Force has prepared a summary assessment of the state of coral reefs in United States waters for the 11th International Coral Reef Symposium being held this week in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Results for 15 federally administered shallow-water reef preserves in the Pacific and Caribbean were shared with Dan Vergano of USA Today. Among the findings:

• Caribbean reefs were blasted in 2005 by hurricanes, disease and bleaching that killed 90% of all corals in some locations.
• Seafood species numbers are in poor condition at both Caribbean and Pacific reefs.

The report is not yet posted on the NOAA website, although it is being promised sometime in the near future. The term "threatened" seems loaded, since both elkhorn and staghorn coral will quite possibly go extinct if coastal waters continue to be depleted of oxygen and charged with bacteria by sewage and other products of human activity. There is also the issue of how global climate change may affect both the temperature and circulation of tropical waters where reef-building corals still survive. NOAA is but one of many federal scientific institutions whose forays into climate research have been curtailed and censored by the current administration.

SRS Shell Game

The Savannah River Site (SRS) is an aging nuclear facility on the South Carolina side of the Savannah River opposite Augusta, Georgia. Since 1989, the SRS has been managed by a quasi-public corporation called the "Washington Savannah River Corporation." By most accounts, the management has been effective and has maintained good public relations with local residents and even with most citizen environmentalists. When the contract for SRS management was put up for competitive bid, however, a new shell company called "Savannah River Nuclear Solutions" made a lower bid.

Savannah River Nuclear Solutions was scheduled to take over management of the SRS this week. The change between shell companies has been put on hold, however, by a legal "protest" filed on behalf of the Washington Savannah River Corporation. In addition to the news story filed by Mary Ellen Cheatham of Georgia Public Broadcasting, a bulletin about the delay is posted on the Savannah River Nuclear Solutions webpage. Fine print under the company header also indicates that Savannah River Nuclear Solutions is a "Fluor Daniel Corporation." I am certain that I will be posting more on this story as it develops.

Chancellor Erroll Davis and P-Card Fraud

The current chancellor of the University System of Georgia, Erroll Davis, came to his current position from a successful career as a business executive. The former CEO of Alliant Corporation, Davis is the first non-academic and also the first African American to hold the chancellor's job as a permanent position.

In light of Chancellor Davis's corporate background and his recent emphasis on streamlining university administration and our service to students, it is ironic that the fraudulent use of state procurement cards ("P-Cards") should have come to light under his watch. Testifying before a subcommittee of the Georgia House of Representatives headed by Representative John Heard (R - Lawrenceville), Chancellor Davis implied that P-Card fraud is somehow related to the focus of universities on academics at the expense of customer service. I find this comment very self-serving on his part. Those of us who are focused on academics may not be skilled in personnel management, but we are not the ones committing this fraud.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and reporter Andrea Jones are to be commended in any case for staying on top of this story and providing an online blog forum for it to be discussed by Georgia citizens. I am surprised that more students are not taking an interest, as it is really their money that was stolen as much as "the taxpayers."

Valdosta State University

I received word a little after noon today that I have a one-year temporary teaching position at Valdosta State University. Located on I-75 in Valdosta, a city of over 40,000 people, the university serves the southernmost parts of the state of Georgia. The university's profile in the Chronicle of Higher Education highlights its "168 acre campus serving an area stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Alabama state line, containing 31% of the land area of the state." Valdosta State is actually outgrowing its urban campus, with an enrollment of 10,888 in the fall of 2006, including 1399 graduate students. This represents a substantial increase from the enrollment of 9,300 reported in the Chronicle profile. Forty-eight states and 50 countries were represented in the student body, and small class sizes are mentioned as a priority.

Although I will be carrying a heavy teaching load at relatively low pay, the department has promised to open a tenure-track position for 2008-2009 and give my application priority as long as I manage to publish and obtain external funding. Those things are indeed happening for me, so look for some of that news here in coming weeks as well. I will have to move down to Valdosta from Athens between now and August 1st.

Closing of SREL?

On Tuesday, July 17th, new hearings were begun in congress about why the Department of Energy (DOE) has made a decision to withdraw funding for the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory (SREL). A previous blog entry here and an earlier entry on Reed Cartwright's blog, De Rerum Natura, explored the petty politics at DOE and the University of Georgia which are threatening this world-reknowned scientific laboratory.

Tuesday's hearing of the Investigations and Oversight Subcommittee and the Energy and Environment Subcommittee of the House Committee on Science and Technology were cut short because a key DOE official, Clay Sell, had a scheduling conflict. Two scientists, Ward Whicker of Colorado State University and Jerald Schnoor of the University of Iowa, testified to the research accomplished by SREL scientists working at the Savannah River Site. A passionate speech in support of SREL was also delivered by Congressman John Barrow (D-GA), who is not a member of this committee. Congressmen Brad Miller (D-NC) chaired the hearings and was particularly impressive for his handling of minority procedural objections by James Sensenbrenner (R - WI). Congressman Nick Lampson (D-TX) has also carried water on this issue and made pointed remarks about the obstruction of congressional inquiry by both DOE and Republican politicians. The entire hearing is being streamed as a video on the committee's webpage.

In addition to statements and questioning of DOE officials, the forthcoming hearing in August will feature the testimony of former SREL director Paul Bertsch. Dr. Bertsch resigned in June as director of SREL, and there are rumors that both the DOE and university president Michael Adams were behind his resignation. The laboratory remains open with reduced funding, committed to the completion of research by graduate students caught in the middle of degree programs.

Hoe Het Moet

A recent spot on Channel 4 in Ireland mentioned that the Dutch are well known for their tolerance and liberal views about sex. More than a few eyebrows will be raised in Ireland and elsewhere, however, by a Dutch website that launched this week. Hoe Het Moet ("How to do it"), a site produced by the educational organization Rutgers Nisso Groep, was featured this morning on Deutsche Welle. The website’s creator, Lydia Koopmans, informed Deutsche Welle's Helen Seeney that their aim is to educate young people about sex. In an interview with Helen Seeney, Ineke van der Vlugt of Rutgers Nisso spoke very directly about why she thought the website was worthwhile.

R.I.P. Don Herbert ("Mr. Wizard")

Don Herbert ("Mr. Wizard") died on Tuesday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 89.

While convalescing at home in May with the multiple myeloma which killed him, Mr Wizard gave one final interview to Wired News. Here are some of my favorite parts of the interview:

WN: What was the highlight of your career?

Herbert: One of the many highlights was realizing the tremendous effect the Watch Mr. Wizard show had on the mass national audience. After all, we did not tape in front of an audience and the early years were live, kinescope, shows. We didn't get instant feedback.

WN: What advice would you give to the makers of science television programming?

Herbert: Science is about the real world around us and it's filled with fascinating wonders...

Wired News: What advice would you give to the next generation of science educators?

Herbert: To keep a hands-on approach to teaching science and always keep the student involved.

Speaking of science educators, the state of Georgia today announced an action plan to increase the numbers of both students pursuing an education in science, technology, engineering and mathematics and teachers prepared to teach courses in these fields in the public schools. In 2006, the 19 teacher-preparation institutions in the University System of Georgia (USG) produced a total of three high-school physics teachers. University System officials are not satisfied with this low number in view of the rapid economic development in the state and projected needs for scientists, engineers, and doctors.

Democracy and the Science Budget - No appropriations bills for the current fiscal year other than those for the Depart- ment of Defense and Department of Homeland Security were passed before congress adjourned for the winter holidays. This means that all other federal spending is essentially "frozen" at 2006 levels. Both the American Physical Society and the American Institute of Physics have been particularly concerned about what this will mean for basic science and laboratory research in the coming year.

The background story is one which many scientists were aware of long before Christmas, and scientists and scientific institutions are not entirely blameless for the current fiscal crisis. Back in late September, Richard Jones of the AIP reported that "flat funding" of science for fiscal year 2007 was one of three possible outcomes of the ongoing congressional debates.

The first (outcome), and that which House and Senate appropriators prefer, is for each of the remaining bills to be passed as a stand-alone bill in what they call "an open and orderly manner." This will take considerable floor time, something which might be in short supply, given that there is a desire to complete these bills this year by the current Congress. The second, more likely option, will be for two or more of the bills to be combined into an "omnibus" funding bill. An omnibus is assembled by a limited number of individuals, and comes to the floor largely without the opportunity for change. This bill would take much less time to pass, and has the distinct advantage of being a vehicle for controversial provisions that could slow passage of an individual funding bill. The third option, which is far more unlikely, is continuing the present level of funding for an entire year, until October 1, 2007. ¹

The Senate leadership, and Bill Frist in particular, opted for the "omnibus" approach. They were clearly intending to reward important Republican campaign donors, among whom are many leading scientists and scientific institutions. With the defeat of the Republicans, the omnibus came crashing down in the middle of December. This was also reported on by Jones of the AIP², and the current story by William J. Broad of the New York Times³ appears to reflect a new lobbying effort by scientists directed now at the Democrats who are in charge of the process. If you are concerned, as I am, you can contact your congressman or Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) and Rep. David Obey (D-WI), Chairmen of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees.

¹Jones, Richard M., 2006, "Congress Delays Final Action on Science Funding Bills," FYI 116. College Park, Md.: American Institute of Physics.
²Jones, Richard M., 2006, "Slipping Away: FY 2007 Budget Increases for DOE Office of Science, NSF, NIST," FYI 141. College Park, Md.: American Institute of Physics.
³Broad, William J., 2007, "Congressional Budget Delay Stymies Scientific Research," New York Times, January 7.

A hat-tip to Jacquelyn Gill of theclimateblog for the lead to the New York Times story.