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Robert Park | 2 Mar 2013 16:15
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What's New Robert L. Park 1 March 2013

WHAT’S NEW    Robert L. Park   Friday, 1 Mar 2013   Washington, DC

1. BRAIN ACTIVITY: COMING UP IN THE FY 2014 BUDGET REQUEST.
Although sequestration goes into effect today I can’t seem to remember 
why.  In his 2013 State of the Union address last month President Obama 
cited brain research on Alzheimer's disease as an example of government 
investment in the best ideas.  This month, Congress gets the presidents 
budget request "Every dollar we invested in mapping the human genome," 
President Obama pointed out, "returned $140 to our economy."  A week later 
on the front page of the New York Times, John Markoff described the Brain 
Activity Map Project as a greater challenge than the Human Genome Project.  
Still, it would be a remarkably bold proposal in the midst of an epic 
partisan dispute over the sequestration fiasco.

2. VITAL STATISTICS: THE IMPORTANCE OF HEALTH METRICS.
A recent Nature editorial (Nature 494, 281, 2013) characterized the failure 
of much of the world to continuously gather data on births and causes of 
death as a "scandal."  According to the Nature editorial, the World Health 
Organization (WHO) dissolved the Health Metrics Network (HMN), created with 
$50 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to correct the 
problems.  It should have been the International Agency for Research on 
Cancer (IARC) that the WHO dissolved. The IARC incorrectly labeled cell 
phone radiation as "possibly carcinogenic," which it clearly cannot be, as 
pointed out in J Natl Cancer Inst (2001) 93 (3): 166-167.   

3. INSPIRATION MARS: WHATEVER TURNS YOU ON.
	
Dennis Tito, who became the first private space tourist when he paid the 
Russians $20m for a ticket to the International Space Station (ISS) in 
2001, created Inspiration Mars to send a "couple" on a flyby of Mars if he
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Robert Park | 16 Feb 2013 04:28
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What's New Robert L. Park 15 February 2013

WHAT’S NEW    Robert L. Park   Friday, 15 Feb 2013   Washington, DC

1.  CLASS WARFARE: OBAMA'S STATE-OF-THE-UNION ADDRESS.
"It is our unfinished task," the president said, "to restore the basic 
bargain that built this country, the idea that if you work hard and meet 
your responsibilities you can get ahead, no matter where you come from, no 
matter what you look like or who you love."  Equal opportunity was Obama’s 
clear theme.  "Tonight let's declare that, in the wealthiest nation on 
Earth, no one who works full time should have to live in poverty -- and 
raise the federal minimum wage to $9 an hour." Obama and Romney agreed a 
year ago that the minimum wage should be linked to the cost of living so 
worker's income is not always left lagging behind the economy.  Even 
liberal politicians usually stop there.  However, with families to support, 
workers can't take an unpaid sabbatical to prepare for the next level.  
That option is open only to the wealthy. So Obama proposed an emphasis on 
making high-quality preschool programs available to middle-class parents. 
As Gail Collins points out in Thursday's New York Times, this goes back to 
Walter Mondale’s Comprehensive Child Development Act.  Obama proposed 
working with states to make high-quality preschool available to every child 
in America.  

2.  ASTEROID 2012 DA14: A REMINDER THAT THE UNIVERSE IS VIOLENT.
Unnoticed unless it was being watched through a telescope, a 150-foot 
asteroid hurtled by today, missing Earth by only 17,150 miles; it was the 
closest known flyby of Earth for an object of its size. In a chilling 
coincidence, a much smaller meteor exploded above Russia's Ural Mountains 
just hours before the asteroid zoomed by.

THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND.
Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the
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Robert Park | 8 Feb 2013 17:11
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What's New Robert L. Park 8 Feb 2013

WHAT’S NEW    Robert L. Park   Monday, 8 Feb 2013   Washington, DC

1. THE POLITICAL CLIMATE: GLOBAL WARMING IS NOT INEVITABLE.
"Don't look back," Satchel Paige warned, "something may be gaining on 
you."  Like maybe global warming? The 37-nation Kyoto Protocol to reduce 
greenhouse gas emissions terminated on 1 Jan 2013, having accomplished 
little or nothing in 15 years. Indeed, climate scientists find atmospheric 
carbon increasing faster than ever. If all this is true, and I believe it 
is, the vanishing of the Arctic’s summer sea-ice could mark a tipping point 
that will shift the Earth's climate into a new trajectory that could take 
millennia to reach a new equilibrium, as Clive Hamilton points out in a 
brilliant new book, Requiem for a Species.  Sadly, the issue of climate 
change was almost totally ignored in the 2012 presidential election, pushed 
aside by class warfare. Speaking of class warfare, that's not getting 
better either. 

2. PERSONHOOD: HOW MANY CELLS DOES IT TAKE TO MAKE A PERSON? 
A month ago the US Supreme Court ended an effort to shut down government 
support of human embryonic stem cell research by refusing to hear a case 
that challenged the legality of such work at NIH. Good!  Embryonic-stem-
cell research is thought by many to be the most promising approach to 
treatment of numerous human diseases, but 20 years ago anti-abortionists 
pushed a bill through Congress banning the use of federal funds for 
research on human embryos. Some religions believe the Holy Ghost bestows a 
soul on a zygote at the moment of conception, making the zygote a one-
celled person (see What’s New, 8 Nov 98). The Obama administration rejected 
this silly superstition, but it was kept alive in the courts by the appeal 
process.  Rejection of the appeal by the Supreme Court assures resumption 
of potentially life-saving stem-cell research.
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Robert Park | 16 Jan 2013 19:41
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What's New Robert L. Park 16 Jan 2013

WHAT'S NEW    Robert L. Park   Wednesday, 16 Jan 2013   Washington, DC 

1. STEM CELL: SUPREME COURT WOULD RATHER NOT TALK ABOUT IT.
Last week the court refused to keep the government out of embryonic-stem-
cell research, which is thought by many to be the most promising approach 
to the treatment of numerous human diseases. About 20 years ago, however, 
anti-abortionists pushed a bill through Congress banning the use of federal 
funds for research on human embryos.  They believed the Holy Ghost bestows 
a soul on the zygote at the moment of conception, making the zygote a 
person (see What’s New, 8 Nov 98).   The Obama administration long ago 
rejected this preposterous superstition, but it was kept alive by an appeal 
to the Supreme Court.  Rejection of the appeal assures continued funding, 
but the delay, contrived on superstitious grounds, may have cost many lives.

2. BREAKTHROUGH:  THE HIGGS WAS THE TOP BREAKTHROUGH IN 2012.
As it does each year, the journal Science picked 10 breakthroughs to mark 
the advance of science in 2012.  In the 21 Dec 2012 issue, Editor-in-Chief 
Bruce Alberts reported that the Higgs boson had been chosen as the "Top 
Science Breakthrough in 2012."  There is no immediate application for the 
Higgs particle in sight, but it represents a huge advance in our 
understanding of why the universe came out the way it did.  Science seeks 
to trace the chain of cause-and-effect relationships back to a presumed 
first-cause. The Higgs boson is causally linked to the formation of the 
material universe. The discovery was made with CERN’s Large Hadron Collider 
at an operating budget of about $1 billion per year and the efforts of 
thousands of scientists.  By comparison the war in Afghanistan has so far 
cost the US $1.2 trillion and 2000 lives with no tangible benefits?

3. KYOTO: WHY DID THE EMISSIONS PROTOCOL END IN TOTAL FAILURE?
On 1 Jan 2013 the Kyoto Protocol came to its scheduled termination. It's a
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Robert Park | 20 Dec 2012 18:06
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What's New Robert L. Park 20 Dec 2012

WHAT'S NEW    Robert L. Park    Thursday, 20 Dec 2012   Washington, DC

1. GUN RIGHTS: NOTHING IS CERTAIN EXCEPT DEATH AND TEXAS.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry told a meeting of the Tea Party that you should be 
able to carry your handgun anywhere in Texas.  Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) 
said he wishes the school principal at Newtown had kept an M4 in her 
office. At the sound of gunfire she could have grabbed the carbine and 
blown Adam Lanza’s head off. Unless, of course, Adam, who she didn't know, 
was faster, or a better marksman, or had a bigger gun. I grew up on a farm 
in South Texas, belonged to the National Rifle Association, hunted deer and 
game birds. An Eagle Scout, I taught marksmanship on the rifle range of a 
Boy Scout camp one summer. But a few years later when I came home on leave 
during the Korean War my father told me he had arranged for us to go deer 
hunting. He was hurt when I said I don't hunt anymore. And I don't go back 
to Texas anymore

2.CHILDREN: THEY STILL INSIST ON LEARNING FROM THEIR PARENTS.
Adam Lanza slaughtered 20 schoolchildren and seven adults. His first human 
target was his mother, who regularly took Adam to a shooting range.  
According to one account, she was a gun-hoarding survivalist who stockpiled 
weapons in preparation for an economic collapse. Which brings us to the 
fiscal problem.

3. THE FISCAL CLIFF: THE ELECTION FAILED TO SETTLE THE CLASS WAR.
It used to be called the Graduated Income Tax. It was based on the simple 
concept that those who benefit the most from our system should pay a larger 
share of its costs. Alas, it's not easy being rich. Expectations grow 
faster than the economy. Like the lottery, the Republican tax plan depends 
on the support of wannabes that don't understand mathematics.
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Robert Park | 3 Dec 2012 17:05
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What's New Robert L. Park 3 Dec 2012

WHAT'S NEW   Robert L. Park   Monday, 3 Dec 2012   Washington, DC

1. ORGANIC: BEYOND THE HIGH-PRICED STUFF AT THE SUPERMARKET. 
Jet Propulsion Laboratory director Charles Elachi, speaking to an 
international conference at La Sapienza University in Rome last week, 
implied that evidence of extraterrestrial life had been discovered on Mars 
by NASA's Curiosity Rover. The search for life to which we are not related 
is arguably the greatest scientific quest of our time. Although NASA and 
JPL now downplay the story, there’s room for uncertainty. "Organic" is not 
a particularly exclusive club.  There are about 4 million known organic 
compounds and new ones are found every day. There is an urgent need for 
more detail about the discovery and how it was made. But I remind you that 
November is "rutting season."  Even as male deer are fighting over access 
to females, science laboratories around the world are fighting for a share 
of the tight science budget.

THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND.
Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the
University of Maryland, but they should be.
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Robert Park | 24 Nov 2012 04:33
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What's New Robert L. Park 22 Nov 2012

WHAT'S NEW   Robert L. Park Friday, 22 Nov 2012   Washington, DC

1. THE AFFAIRE: WASHINGTON’S TOP SPIN DOCTORS ARE CONFERRING.
The relationship between four-star General David Petraeus and Paula 
Broadwell, his nubile young biographer, has moved into the crisis-
management phase, according to Scott Shane in Wednesday's New York Times.  
Paula did not seem to be an appropriate perk for the Director of the CIA.  
However, if the real purpose was to free Petraeus to promote his biography, 
the tawdry affair could be spun as a clever tactic. Including a few details 
on the affaire could make the biography a best-seller. Meanwhile, other 
general officers are said to be ordering their staff to "shred" all, 
uh, "personal" e-mails, but Washington computer-security experts tell WN 
that you can't shred e-mail.  Once it enters "the cloud," e-mail, like 
diamonds, are forever.  (Aside: Voice recognition is a wonderful tool, but 
no matter how I enunciate "Petraeus," the Dragon insists on transcribing it 
as "betray us." I read nothing into this.)

2. THE GIFTS: ROMNEY SAYS HE HAS FIGURED OUT HOW OBAMA WON. 
It was diabolically simple: Obama promised expensive "gifts" to the 47% 
that don't matter. Stuff like free contraception and coverage or 
forgiveness of student loans that an enlightened society should have been 
providing all along to help them some day matter. These are the people 
Romney wrote off at the infamous superrich fund-raiser (WN 3 Nov 12). Yet 
compared to the humongous tax breaks already given to the ultra rich, 
Obama’s gifts are embarrassingly cheap. In fact, they offer a big return on 
the investment. In its 2012 report, released just a week ago, the UN 
Population Fund concluded that effective family planning initiatives could 
save $5.7 billion worldwide. What conservatives can't bear is the thought 
that people would enjoy sex. In the recent election both Romney and Ryan 
opposed federal funding of groups such as Planned Parenthood.
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Robert Park | 3 Nov 2012 19:58
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What's New Robert L. Park 1 Nov 2012

WHAT'S NEW   Robert L. Park   Friday, 1 Nov 2012   Washington, DC

1. THE ROMNEY TAPE: AM I TOO OLD TO ENLIST IN THE CLASS WAR?
I don't think anyone has a problem figuring out where I stand on science, 
religion or politics, but a month ago I watched the now notorious "Romney 
tape.” Surreptitiously recorded at a $50,000-a-plate fundraiser for Mitt 
Romney, held in the palatial Florida residence of one of his supporters, it 
was deeply disturbing. The Mitt Romney on that tape, openly sharing his 
plans for the presidency and his contempt for the ordinary wage earner is 
unknown to the general public.  Why don't we withhold our vote?  Who would 
notice?

2. THE REPUBLICAN STRATEGY: EVERYONE AGREES IT WORKS – SO FAR.
The GOP problem in 2008 was dire; the administration of George W. Bush had 
been a disaster, squandering the record budget surplus, of Bill Clinton. 
Republicans could only invoke memories of the mythic era of Ronald Reagan. 
But Ronald Reagan used his personal charm to persuade Democratic leaders to 
work with their Republican colleagues in the interests of the nation.  
Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, however, are short on personal charm.  
Saboteurs by nature, they devised a strategy more suited to their talents: 
a thin Republican majority in the House was enough to block whatever the 
President sought to do, as long as Republican ranks are purged of those 
with cooperative tendencies.  I already miss Dick Lugar.  One of the finest 
people to ever serve in the U.S. Senate, Senator Lugar worked tirelessly 
for the dismantlement of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons around 
the world.  Alas, he lost the Republican primary for a seventh term to 
Richard Mourdock, state treasurer of Indiana.  A tea-party conservative, 
Mourdock said in a televised debate that, "I think even when it begins in 
that horrible situation of rape conception, it is something that God 
intended to happen." Although Mourdock says he meant that only the
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Robert Park | 16 Oct 2012 19:33
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What's New 16 October 2012

WHAT'S NEW   Robert L Park   Monday, 15 Oct 2012   Washington, DC

1. MALALA YOUSAFZAI: ALL SHE WANTED WAS TO GO TO SCHOOL.
The 14-year-old Pakistani girl, shot in the head point-blank and nearly 
killed by the Taliban for supporting education for girls, has been 
transported to the UK for medical treatment.  Gordon Brown, former Prime 
Minister and U.N. Special Envoy for Global Education said in a statement 
today that he is launching a worldwide petition in support of Malala and 
every child in Pakistan to receive an education. In 2003 an arm of the 
Taliban imposed strict religious law in Pakistan, as it had in neighboring 
Afghanistan. Music was banned, and girls were forbidden to go to school. 

2. DEBATING THE DEBATE: WILL THEY TALK ABOUT THE 47% THIS TIME? 
Who knows? The Debates are by now an accepted part of the Presidential 
selection process. However, the ground rules are reinvented for each 
election. So what are we looking for in a President? Everyone has their own 
list, which can include anything from the sanctity of life to eye color, 
religion and tax bracket. The big surprise in the first debate was Romney's 
shift from the extreme right program he had been outlining for almost a 
year, to a more centrist view. The willingness of a candidate to 
acknowledge he’s been on the wrong path and make profound changes may be 
laudable, but what will Romney's position be tonight?  More importantly, 
what will his position be if he is elected president? He may be planning 
another position reversal for tonight's debate – or he may just keep his 
plans secret. 

THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND.
Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the
University of Maryland, but they should be.
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Robert Park | 5 Oct 2012 19:52
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What's New Robert L. Park 5 Oct 2012

WHAT'S NEW   Robert L. Park   Friday, 5 October 2012   Washington, DC

THE REVERSAL: WILL THE REAL MITT ROMNEY PLEASE STAND UP.
Many readers objected to the political content of Wednesday's WN.  I 
confess that I was uncomfortable writing it, but the Romney Tape (WN 3 Oct 
12) dealt with policy issues that could profoundly affect science policy. 
My advice to President Obama would have been to make every effort to keep 
Wednesday's debate focused on Romney's words at the secret $50,000-per-
plate fundraiser, including his remark that 47 percent of voters are 
dependent on government and unlikely to support him in the November 6 
election. I was in shock when Obama failed to bring it up in the debate, 
but this morning at 6:34ET, there was Mitt Romney on CNN acknowledging 
that, "I was completely wrong," in spite of the fact on Thursday, one day 
earlier, he still strongly defended his 47% remark. I have no idea why he 
changed his memory this morning, although several possibilities come to 
mind. The president's reticence to point it out now looks brilliant.

THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND.
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University of Maryland, but they should be.
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Robert Park | 3 Oct 2012 20:30
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What's New Robert L. Park 3 2012

WHAT'S NEW   Robert L Park   Tuesday, 2 October 2012   Washington, DC

THE ROMNEY TAPE: AM I TOO OLD TO ENLIST IN THE CLASS WAR?
I first heard the Romney calculus many years ago in Peru.  A government 
official explained to me that: "Most of the population doesn't count; they 
pay no taxes and receive no government services." There was a revolution. I 
was not at the $50,000-a-plate fundraiser for Romney, held at the 
multimillion dollar Florida palace of one of his supporters.  "I mean, 
there won't be any houses like this if we stay on the road we're on," 
Romney told his supporters. Hmm, I think I could live with that. It's the 
person who surreptitiously taped the event and shared it with the rest of 
us that I want to know.  Nobody goes to a $50,000-a-plate affair for the 
food; it's the connections, which in Romney's case began at Cranbrook 
School in the affluent Detroit suburb of Bloomfield Hills, a traditional 
private boys preparatory school, with a $300 million endowment.

THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND.
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University of Maryland, but they should be.
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