Ahhh, Journalists

Our local newspaper just wrote a story about the new supercomputer our university recently put online.  The computer is great, but the story shows some need for science education.

“Star consumes 79, 000 watts of electricity per hour, the equivalent of 790, 100-watt light bulbs.”

Can anyone tell me what the hell that means?!?!  Read the otherwise good story here.

Physics Today asks the Candidates

The lighter reading side of the American Institute of Physics is Physics Today. They have recently asked presidential candidates about 6 issues:

Science Education

Teaching Evolution

Nuclear Weapons

Science Investment

Energy Policy

Climate Change

You can see the responses here.

Stanford Collider to Close Early, Cut 225 Staff

This is one of those stories that makes me glad that I’m not in high energy physics. Due to budget cuts in the DoE, a decision had to be made; close the SLAC or close Fermilab’s Tevatron. SLAC got the boot so the Tevatron could have a chance to find the Higgs boson before CERN opens the LHC. Ugh. You can read the article in Nature here.As a grad student, the most horrifying thing about all this is 225 people with unique, useful and specific skills suddenly looking for work. These are folks who are at the hight of their field. It’s only 225 people, but it is a sign of how the US is (at best) exporting scientific talent, particularly in high energy physics.

NSF Finds Americans Are Falling Behind in Science and Tech

Since the National Science Foundation published “Rising Above the Gathering Storm” in 2006, their scathing and horror inspiring indictment of American science education and a warning about the dominance of American science and technology, some new developments have come to light. The New York Times has posted a summary (link here) of a rather depressing new study from the NSF (link here). The study finds the US dominance in science and technology is waning. Particularly important is how dependent the US is on foreign born scientists. Once the economies and educational institutions of India and China are sufficiently developed, there will be little need for scientists and engineers to immigrate from those countries. This may not be far off either.

Also noteworthy is that how ignorant must Americans are about science. My favorite NYT quote of all time comes form this story and is the following.

Many Americans remain ignorant about much of science, the board said. Many are unable to answer correctly when asked whether Earth moves around the Sun (it does).

Something about that “(it does)” part gets me in stitches. Apparently readers of the Times need reassurance about whether the Sun or Earth is more massive.

Perhaps most horrifying is how Americans compare against citizens of other developed nations with regard to both evolution and the big bang, two areas where average Americans are “noticeably more ignorant” than their foreign counterparts.

Universal Nanohazard Symbol

Just how do you create a graphic describing a danger too small to see? These guys seem to have a load of ideas. Some are great, some are hilarious.

from Boingboing

Don’t Teach in a State Ever Governed by a Bush

While we have heard about problems with religion popping into science curriculum in Texas, the problem has now moved to Florida. While the state itself has passed legislation stating that evolution is a fundamental concept in biology, local governments have not been so enlightened.

The Taylor County School Board has passed a resolution attacking Florida’s Sunshine State Standards for Science. This doesn’t yet go as far as the Dover school board did in Pennsylvania, but still shows a fantastic misunderstanding of science and biology in particular in America’s school boards.

Most humorous to me is how the resolution seems to be most concerned with how evolution is a theory about “the creation of the universe.” Not to be picky, but the creation of the universe isn’t in the domain of biology at all, but physics. Indeed, evolution says nothing at all about the creation of the universe itself nor about how life actually got to Earth, only how it has changed. If the resolution stated that evolution does not tell us how mitochondria first appeared on the Earth, that would be one thing, but this resolution is predictably ignorant of such subtlety.

You can read more about the issue as well as see the resolution here.

Anti-Matter Claymation Video

In case you were wondering, this is just one of the things your US 2008 budget didn’t buy.

thanks to Seed Magazine

H. Clinton on Assault on Science

To second that last post, check out this video from August 2007.

Dismal Outlook for Science in 2008

While this did come out in December, I’m just now getting around to writing about it. I’ve talked a lot about keeping the US competitive in science and engineering lately, and indeed the US congress seemed to understand that was important as well. The America COMPETES Act signed in by the president in August was meant to address that very issue.

By the time it came to actually allocate money for 2008 it seems as though everyone forgot about this act. The first budget proposed in November had vast cuts from the plan set out only 3 months earlier. The budget approved on December 19th, was even worse.

You can read all about it in this story published in Nature and this article in Science.

Just to whet your appetite, here is a quote from the Nature article. Michael Lubell, spokesmen for the American Physical Society

“This is probably the worst budget for science that anyone can remember. … It absolutelly devastates and probably wipes out American high-energy physics.”

Gads!

New Attack on Science Befuddling and Smells of Patchouli (video)

Just to keep folks from thinking that I mean to beat up on evangelicals about attacks on science policy and evolution, I ask you to behold the craziest thing I’ve seen in weeks. The video is 10 minutes long, but well worth the time to see how many words this guy can stream together as new age/horror film video lures your eyes into a fractal induced fit. Any explanation of anything that requires footage from the film “Contact”, fractals, the free masons, Egypt, pure metals, the “spirit molecule”, numerology, and bubbling sand will get me to at least watch in horror (or laughter) for as long as this thing takes.

The narrator almost sounds like he is trying to be a new age O.D.B., not rapping as much as just connecting words in the way only a crack-head can.

In all seriousness, these people vote. Really. They get to decide what our kids learn in school. Well, at least they vote until they all drink the wrong kool-aid.