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http://www.sciencenews.org/view/dispatches
Column Entries
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Planetary science is in the midst of a revolution. As recently as the early 1990s, “the planets” consisted of just nine famous objects in our solar system that every school kid learned to recognize by name and appearance. But then, advances in astronomical technology unleashed an explosion of new planetary discoveries on two fronts. One of these fronts involved a bewildering variety of planets discovered around other stars. In rapid succession, we learned about extrasolar pulsar planets, hot Jupiters, superEarths and more. And there is now a widespread scientific consensus that the 300...Published: Friday, November 21st, 2008Found in: Atom & Cosmos -
Gerd Gigerenzer is director of the Center for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin. He is also director of the Harding Center for Risk Literacy in Berlin. He studies how people can make effective decisions given limited time and information. Gigerenzer also explores ways to improve statistical understanding and communication. He has trained U.S. federal judges and physicians in several countries on how to understand risk and uncertainty. Behavioral sciences writer Bruce Bower asked Gigerenzer about statistical illiteracy ...Published: Friday, November 7th, 2008 -
We have a well-honed ability for branding the undesirable attributes of “others.” This natural human tendency has evolved and persists for a reason: The definition of an outcast group helps society to delineate its “normal” boundaries. But this inclination can also breed counterproductive stigmas that are rooted in ignorance and that too often translate into staggering individual, social and economic costs. This makes the need to understand and confront these types of stigmas much more than a purely academic goal. Sociologists like Gerhard Falk are quick to distinguish ...Published: Friday, October 24th, 2008Found in: Behavior, Biology, Body & Brain, Psychology and Science & Society -
Home / Columns / Comment / October 25th, 2008; Vol.174 #9 / Comment : U.S. must invest in technologies to avoid energy crisisSteven Chu, director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a Nobel laureate in physics, has advocated for energy thrift. During a September visit to Washington, D.C., he spoke with senior editor Janet Raloff about how he believes the United States can tackle what he sees as a looming energy crisis. You’ve said the United States needs to launch an energy research program that’s comparable to the Apollo mission. What did you mean? That we need big investments and that our country needs to act quickly. In that respect, the programs would be similar. But the Apollo mission was essent... (p. 32)Published: October 25th, 2008; Vol.174 #9 -
Home / Columns / Comment / Comment : ‘National Greatness’ versus real national greatness by Frank WilczekIn 1993, the U.S. Congress cut off funds for the Superconducting Super Collider, or SSC. After years of planning, two years of major construction and $2 billion spent, the most enduring achievement of the stillborn project was a tunnel from nothing to nowhere near Waxahachie, Texas. The SSC would have enabled us to explore nature in more extreme conditions — higher concentrations of energy — than ever before. It would have yielded fundamental new insights into the origin of the universe and the nature of matter, space and time. Thousands of scientists devoted big parts...Published: Friday, September 26th, 2008 -
Home / Columns / Comment / Comment : Corporate campaigns manufacture scientific doubt by David MichaelsIn Doubt Is Their Product, published in April, epidemiologist David Michaels describes the growing corporate practice of “manufacturing” scientific uncertainty to thwart regulation of products that appear to pose risks. Michaels encountered the practice firsthand with beryllium, a metal used at U.S. nuclear weapons facilities, while he was the Energy Department’s Assistant Secretary for Environment, Safety and Health. Now head of George Washington University’s Project on Scientific Knowledge and Public Policy, or SKAPP, Michaels spoke with senior editor Janet Raloff about t...Published: Friday, September 12th, 2008
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Home / Columns / Comment / Comment : Protecting the Internet from the criminal element, by Eugene SpaffordEugene Spafford is executive director of Purdue University’s Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security, one of the world’s leading centers for information security. His research focuses on issues related to securing computers, networks and their data against criminal activities and failures. He has testified before various congressional committees, advised agencies within the executive branch and worked with the U.S. military and the FBI. Here, freelance science writer Susan Gaidos questions Spafford about computer security issues. You’v...Published: Friday, August 29th, 2008 -
Libraries and other archives of physical culture have been struggling for decades to preserve diverse media — from paper to eight-track tape recordings — for future generations. Scientists are falling behind the curve in protecting digital data, threatening the ability to mine new findings from existing data or validate research analyses. Johns Hopkins University cosmologist Alex Szalay and Jim Gray of Microsoft, who was lost at sea in 2007, spent much of the past decade discussing challenges posed by data files that will soon approach the petabyte (1015 — or quadrillion — ...Published: Monday, August 18th, 2008Found in: Astronomy, Computers, Science & Society and Technology
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On July 21, at the Euroscience Open Forum in Barcelona, members of the European astronomy community participated in a discussion about why their space program has failed to engage public interest in a manner comparable to programs in the United States. Organized by Dirk Lorenzen, a physicist turned journalist for German public radio, the session was titled “Reaching for the Stars: Research in Heaven, Communication in Hell.” Lorenzen, a longtime reporter on space science and technology, began by pointing out that the public, both in Europe and elsewhere, knows little of the w...Published: Monday, August 4th, 2008
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Excerpted comments from a panel discussion at the World Science Summit that addressed the topic of the role of science in foreign affairs. Among the participants were the esteemed scientists Harold Varmus, David Baltimore and Nina Fedoroff.Published: Friday, July 18th, 2008Found in: Science & Society
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In the July 19 Comment, Dudley Herschbach, winner of the 1986 Nobel Prize in chemistry, discusses how to infuse scientific ideas into humanities education with an aim of increasing overall scientific literacy. Herschbach is Frank B. Baird, Jr. Professor of Science at Harvard University and is chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Society for Science & the Public.Published: Friday, July 4th, 2008Found in: Science & Society -
Nobel laureate Thomas R. Cech discusses the conclusions of ARISE, a new report that emphasizes the need for grant support for early-career scientific researchers and basic science research that may have no immediate tangible benefit. Cech is chair of the ARISE report panel and president of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.Published: Friday, June 20th, 2008 -
Comment from David Applegate, chair of the National Science and Technology Council's Subcommittee on Disaster Reduction and senior science adviser for earthquake and geologic hazards at the U.S.Geological Survey.Published: Friday, June 6th, 2008 -
Comment by Steven Hyman, provost of Harvard UniversityPublished: Saturday, May 24th, 2008
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SN Editor in Chief Tom Siegfried remembers the late physicist John Wheeler, who coined the term "black hole" in 1967, with excerpts from conversations the two had engaged in over the past two decades.Published: Monday, May 12th, 2008Found in: Atom & Cosmos and Physics
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