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What's New | 2 Feb 2007 21:28

What's New Friday February 2, 2007

WHAT'S NEW   Robert L. Park   Friday, 2 Feb 07    Washington, DC

1. THE LIMITS OF GROWTH: IT'S TIME TO REVISIT THE 1972 CLASSIC. 
The somber warnings of Dennis Meadows and his colleagues at MIT,
35 years ago, were spot on.  Depletion of Earth's resources and
destruction of the environment, Meadows warned, will lead to
disaster unless nations of the world adopt policies of austerity
and population control.  Technological optimists were horrified
by this negative thinking.  Their alternative was "The High
Frontier," a 1976 book by Gerard K. O'Neill of Princeton, calling
for building "islands in space" to offload excess population. 
Reality is the ISS.  It houses 3 Earthlings at a cost of $100B.  

2. PARIS: THE IPCC REPORT ISSUED TODAY IS ALREADY OUT OF DATE. 
Even as 600 climate scientists were meeting this week to update
the IPCC report on climate, the Zurich-based World Glacier
Monitoring Service reported that the rate of mountain glacier
melt is accelerating.  The IPCC report, however, does not
incorporate data published after 2005.  The IPCC report puts the
probability at 90% that human activity is responsible for the
observed warming, up from 66% in 2001.  It's higher.  The report
refrains from recommending what actions governments should take.

3. WASHINGTON: THE ADMINISTRATION SUPPRESSES CLIMATE FINDINGS. 
On Tuesday, the House Oversight Committee, Chaired by Henry
Waxman (D-CA), looked into accusations that the administration
interfered in federal climate research.  Bipartisan criticism of
the White House stance on climate was prompted by a survey
conducted by the Union of Concerned Scientists, together with the
Government Accountability Project, which turned up hundreds of
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What's New | 9 Feb 2007 22:29

What's New Friday February 9, 2007

WHAT'S NEW   Robert L. Park   Friday, 9 Feb 07   Washington, DC

1. SKIPPING AHEAD: BUSH SENDS CONGRESS HIS 2008 BUDGET REQUEST. 
Congress, however, is still trying to put together a 2007 budget.
The 2008 request isn't great news for every field of research,
but in physics, NSF, NIST and the DOE Office of Science did well. 
In the absence of a 2007 budget, agencies are still spending at
2006 levels.  However, a resolution adopted by the House does
call for 2007 increases at NSF, NIST, and the DOE Office of
Science.  The Senate will presumably take up the House resolution
soon.  In any case, a 2008 budget won't pass Congress before
October.  Meanwhile, the Iraq War and the climate are both
heating up, and the Democrats committed themselves to balancing
the budget.  This is not very promising for science funding.

2. SPACE STATION: LATEST ACCOMPLISHMENTS IN SPACE EXPLORATION. 
The "space-exploration" component of the request, got one of the
largest increases.  "Exploration" has come to mean "exploration
by astronauts," so we decided to let you know how "exploration"
is going.  The only space being explored right now is the orbit
of the ISS, about 400 km above Earth.  It was a big week on the
ISS: The cooling system was overhauled.  In the process, two
records in space walking were set.  NASA announced that station
commander Michael Lopez-Alegria now holds the U.S. record, 61 hrs
and 22 min, while astronaut Sunita Williams set the women's
record at 22 hrs and 27 min.  Way to go guys!  The Mars Rovers,
Spirit and Opportunity, of course, set records every day, but
they don't count because they aren't people.  On the positive
side, robots never require psychological counseling.
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What's New | 16 Feb 2007 22:45

What's New Friday February 16, 2007

WHAT'S NEW   Robert L. Park   Friday, 16 Feb 07   Washington, DC  

1. UNCONSCIOUS: PRINCETON ENGINEERING ANOMALIES RESEARCH (PEAR). 
The closing of the PEAR laboratory at Princeton, after 28 years
of non-accomplishment, may be a sign of declining interest in the
paranormal, or it may just be an anomaly.  Either way, Princeton
University endured the embarrassment without compromising on the
principle of tenure, which protects the right to hold minority
views.  Science is conditional.  If someone comes up with better
measurements or a better analysis, the textbooks are rewritten. 
The problem is that in the paranormal world, nothing ever gets
better.  In recent years, PEAR became the focus of the Global
Consciousness Project, involving a hundred or so researchers at
dozens of sites around the world, looking at the output of random
number generators (RNGs).  Exciting huh?  They report "deviations
from randomness" before major disasters, such as 9/11 and the
"Christmas tsunami" in the Indian Ocean.  They believe this is
evidence of global consciousness.  Or maybe RNGs are causing
disasters http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN05/wn021805.html ?

2. INCONSISTENT: HOW TO GET THE BRONTOSAURUS ONBOARD NOAH'S ARK.  
"Scientist of faith" is an oxymoron.  The University of Rhode
Island recently accepted the dissertation of a doctoral candidate
in paleontology, Marcus Ross, who just happens to also be a
young-Earth creationist.  His thesis is on mosasaurs, that lived
65 million years before Ross believes Earth was created.  How
does Ross deal with this?  He says he uses different paradigms. 
Most scientists who regard themselves as religious, and there are
many, interpret the scriptures metaphorically.  Even so, they
often partition their lives, treating faith as a virtue on one
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What's New | 23 Feb 2007 22:30

What's New Friday February 23, 2007

WHAT'S NEW   Robert L. Park   Friday, 23 Feb 07   Washington, DC

1. OF PANDERING AND PEOPLE: WHO WILL CAPTURE THE CREATIONISTS? 
Even as these words are being turned into electrons, Senator John
McCain is in Seattle delivering the keynote luncheon speech to
the Discovery Institute.  Eighteen months ago, just as the Dover
School Board trial involving "intelligent design" was about to
start, McCain came out in favor of teaching "all points of view,"
http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN05/wn090205.html .  We have no
idea what he is saying now, but it doesn't really matter; McCain
is a master at the art of changing positions between breakfast
and lunch.  Apparently, however, he has decided, for the moment,
to challenge Sam Brownback for the support of creationists. 

2. POWER OF PRAYER: AUTHOR OF COLUMBIA STUDY COMMITS PLAGIARISM. 
More than five years ago WN called attention to a paper in the
Journal of Reproductive Medicine in which researchers at Columbia
claimed prayers doubled the success of in-vitro fertilization
http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN01/wn100501.html .  If total
strangers on their knees halfway around the world could suspend
the laws of nature, it would be the end of science.  WN suggested
we pray the study is wrong.  Behold!  Our prayers were answered:
The lead author took his name off the paper and resigned as chair
of gynecology; another author landed in prison on an unrelated
fraud conviction.  The editor of JRM still refused to retract the
article.  This week, the remaining author, a businessman who owns
fertility clinics in Los Angeles and Seoul, was charged by the
editor of Fertility and Sterility with plagiarizing the work of a
student in Korea on a different paper.  The avenging angel was
Bruce Flamm, M.D., UC Irvine, who has hounded the authors,
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What's New | 2 Mar 2007 23:41

What's New Friday March 2, 2007

WHAT'S NEW   Robert L. Park   Friday, 2 Mar 07   Washington, DC

1. FIRST AMENDMENT: HIGH COURT TAKES ON FAITH-BASED INITIATIVES. 
Early in his presidency, George W. Bush issued an executive order
creating a White House Office of Faith-Based Initiatives that
gives billions of dollars to religious groups of its choosing
without oversight.  No politician dares to challenge it, but a
group of atheists who pay taxes sued in federal court, arguing
that it violated the "establishment clause" of the 1st Amendment. 
An appeals court ruled that the case can go forward.  However,
the White House director short circuited the process by asking
the Supreme Court, stacked with conservatives, to weigh in.  The
issue is whether taxpayers have standing under the establishment
clause to challenge the way the executive branch uses money
appropriated by Congress.  The Court heard oral arguments this
week and is expected to rule before adjourning for the summer.  

2. NASA EXPLORATION: THE ROBOTIC MISSIONS ARE GOING JUST FINE. 
The speedy New Horizons probe has gotten a boost from Jupiter on
its way to Pluto.  As it left Jupiter yesterday, the Long Range
Reconnaissance Imager on board New Horizons took a spectacular
picture of the plume from the Tvashtar volcano on Io.  The plume
was discovered by Hubble just two weeks ago.

3. THE OTHER NASA: RETHINKING THE VALUE OF HUMAN SPACE FLIGHT.
The arrest of astronaut Lisa Nowak on charges of planning to
kidnap and murder a romantic rival raised questions about plans
for dealing with instability in space.  The Associated Press
obtained NASA's written procedure.  It calls for binding wrists
and ankles with duct tape, tying down with bungee cords and
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