Mooney Resurrects the Fine Paste of the “War on Science”

I do my best not to begrudge people trying to make a living.  So I understand – or at least try to – people who go back to what they’re known for time and time again.  It’s a lot harder when the stock in trade is something I loathe, and I can’t well avoid it.

Case in point – the worthless “War on Science” meme crafted, overinflated, burst and ground into a fine gluey paste by Chris Mooney.  He declared the war over – sort of – last year, but since he hasn’t done much else that’s attracted popular attention, he declared a new war in advance of some major article/post/written product he’s working on.  As far as I can tell, he’s calling it a new war either because he remembers he called the other one over, wasn’t paying attention when the problems over the leaked emails (and their contents) emerged (he considered it not a big deal, at least at first), or has figured he has extracted as much as he can out of his first book and needs something new with a similar label to keep his name out there.  For someone who co-wrote a decent piece on framing (subscription required), it’s a little unsettling to see how bad he is at it.

NOAA Starts Climate Service; Highlights Congressional Lethargy

Last June the House Science and Technology Committee approved H.R. 2407, the National Climate Service Act of 2009.  As is customary with many of this Committee’s bills, it did not go much farther, at least on its own.  The language was incorporated into the Waxman-Markey energy legislation passed by the House, but that bill has not been considered by the Senate.

Well, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is going ahead with a climate service.  Given that this agency lacks an organic act, this action is more of the rule rather than the exception (disclaimer – I worked for the agency about 10 years ago, in the satellite division).  The National Climate Service would be an office wihtin NOAA on par with the other line offices – National Weather Service, National Ocean Service, National Marine Fisheries Service, National Environmental Satellite Data Information Service, Oceanic and Atmospheric Research and Program Planning and Information.  While some accounts characterize this action as a proposal, it reads more like a rollout of the service over time.  A transitional director – Thomas Karl of NOAA’s Climatic Data Center – has been announced, and other senior staff appointments will happen over the next few months.  While there will no doubt be detractors, the testimonials gathered by NOAA include support from EPA or NOAA appointees of the Nixon (who created NOAA), Reagan and both Bush Administrations.

Also new as of yesterday is the agency’s climate portal, http://www.climate.gov.  It contains a variety of climate data and other resources.

Perhaps the development of this service indicates that the U.S. will participate in the Convention on Global Climate Services proposed last fall by the World Meteorological Association.

Tech Tracks Plow Progress; Pointless Without Power

While I’ve been fortunate enough to not lose power in the recent series of snow dumps in the Washington, D.C. area, the plows have not frequented my neighborhood.  If I were living in the District, and had my same decent internet connection, I could follow the District’s snow treatment activity thanks to a Google Maps mashup (Hillicon Valley, H/T the Google Public Policy Twitter feed).

The DC Snow Map will note where the salt and the plows have been in a specified timespan.  Like anything relying on Google Maps, you can combine the regular map with satellite data.  The satellite data, of course, will show clear streets, as it’s not real-time, or even same day, photos in most cases.  Unfortunately you can track only from Sunday through today.  I have no idea if the window will expand as the days progress (more snow is expected starting tomorrow afternoon), or simply cover the last two days of data.  I like it, and hope other local governments can follow suit.

Science and Technology Guests on Late Night, Week of February 8

The Winter Olympics start on Friday, which means that the NBC shows will leave the air for a while (and two of them – The Jay Leno Show and The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien – for good).  There will no doubt be some segments on the technology behind various winter sports and the venues where they are played.  But I can’t predict when and where with the reliability of these late night listings.

Aside from a couple of TV doctors and animal experts, the pickings this week are slim.  Someone I missed the last couple of weeks has been Claire Danes, who is promoting an HBO film, Temple Grandin.  The film is about the person of the same name, who developed a new technique for a more humane (to the extent that might be possible) means of slaughtering livestock.  She is also autistic, and I suspect the film will focus much more on that challenge than her innovations in animal science.  Ms. Danes was on with Craig Ferguson last week (that episode is not yet on the CBS website), and will visit with Stephen Colbert on Wednesday.

James Cameron’s Best Writing in Years – in The Washington Post?

While not as deathly dull as his nearest contemporary, George Lucas, James Cameron is not known for his wordsmithing.  It was for that reason, and not for any apparent incongruity of author to subject, that I was surprised to read his op-ed in Friday’s Washington Post in support of the redirection of NASA’s efforts that the President has placed in his Fiscal Year 2011 budget.

Besides Cameron’s service on the NASA Advisory Council, there’s another reason why he’d be supportive of the shift towards greater reliance on commercial services for launches to low-Earth orbit.  He’s a bit of a do-it-yourself kind of guy.  He didn’t rely on others to develop the technology needed for the advances seen in Avatar, he led the way (with able collaborators) in making many of the new technologies used in the film.  He’s happy to see NASA take more of a role in innovation for space exploration, and it might have something to do with his own path as an innovator.  Now if he could just let other people write his scripts…

Can There Be Too Many In-Car Gadgets?

Wired’s Autopia asks the question, in connection with concerns expressed by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood in an article in the Detroit News.  The Secretary is on what he calls a ‘rampage’ against distracted driving.  While laws about hands-free or no cell phones while driving have been around (and spreading) for a while, distracted driving is still a problem causing accidents and fatalities to the tune of 6,000 deaths and half a million injuries in 2009.

Putting aside the cell phone issue, newer cars also have a number of in-dash or on board technology features that could contribute to the problem.  For instance, I recently drove a rental Prius, and I can easily see it’s touch screen display of the power train and the miles per gallon/electrical regeneration stats distracting people.  But there’s no clear approach to addressing the problem.  Regulation is not the sole option, and whether or not there’s an enforcement question for distracted driving laws or not, there are other options.

One of them is design.  Certain features can be disabled when the car is in motion, and others can be converted to heads-up displays or moved to places where the driver doesn’t have to move their vision much to gather information.  There’s also the possibility of voice commands providing information, much like a GPS device, but for other functions.  Hopefully auto designers are keeping these possibilities in mind, as it seems unlikely that the trend in design will be toward fewer gadgets.

Assortment of FY 2011 Science and Technology Budget Nuggets

Neither a representative nor comprehensive sample follows:

First, the FYI publication of the American Institute of Physics is running a series of budget breakdowns by department.  They do this for the President’s request and usually for the Senate and House budget bills as well.  Of course, they focus on physical science research, so some agencies aren’t covered.

Jocelyn Kaiser at ScienceInsider looks at the National Institutes of Health budget to see whether or not new Director Francis Collins is steering the NIH towards more big science and away from individual grants.  The biomedical analysts she talked to do not have a unified answer to that question.  She avoids what I think is a more meaningful question – does the NIH need to diversify its funding mechanisms to better accomplish its desired public policy objectives?

The breakdowns presented at the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) briefing on Monday have been moved to the R&D Budgets section of the revamped OSTP website.

Google notes the presence of cloud computing in the budget documents as a means of saving expenses on government IT.  I’d have no problem with movement of government data to a cloud, provided the cloud was well-defined, sufficiently secure and personal information was kept private.  Cloud providers will need to make the case that their systems would fit the bill, and I have my doubts.

Energy Secretary Hits the Game Show Circuit

…or at least one of the lesser known stops on the circuit.

In today’s edition of Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! – the NPR news quiz show – Secretary of Energy Steven Chu appears on the show’s “Not My Job” segment.  The gimmick is for the guest to answer three questions about something completely different from their regular job.  In Secretary Chu’s case, it was a trio of questions about the Harlem Globetrotters perpetual punching bag, the Washington Generals.  You’ll need to listen to the show (audio available here after 2 pm Eastern today) to find out how he did.

However, the quiz is usually preceded by an interview with the show’s host (Peter Sagal) and the week’s panel (in this case Mo Rocca, Julia Sweeney and Adam Felber).  Secretary Chu managed to be funny without saying anything likely to get him in trouble with the media or the Republicans – not the easiest of feats.  The host also gets his licks in on the perpetual disconnect between politics and science.

Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me runs on NPR affiliates around the country most weekends, and you may still have a chance to catch it on your local NPR station.  Secretary Chu’s segment starts at roughly 28 minutes into the show.

Department of Justice Still Not Happy With Google Books

February 18 is the date for the next judicial proceeding in the settlement over the Google Book Project, which is a massive undertaking to digitize millions of books and other written products  The settlement is to a class action lawsuit lodged against Google by several parties, including the Authors Guild, alleging copyright infringement.  A first cut at a settlement agreement did not satisfy everyone, including the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission.  Google was asked to go back to the drawing board and submit a revised settlement.

In a statement released yesterday, the Department of Justice noted that despite “substantial progress” in the proposed settlement, they still have antitrust and copyright concerns.  You can read the full statement of interest filed with the court, as well as the statement outlining their concerns with the original agreement.  In addition, the DOJ maintains that the agreement still has a basic flaw, that

“it is an attempt to use the class action mechanism to implement forward-looking business arrangements that go far beyond the dispute before the court in this litigation.”

Microsoft Partners with NSF in the Research Hosting Business

The New York Times carries the announcement from Microsoft that it will now provide a free cloud computing service to researchers.  This is essentially the same kind of service as that provided by Amazon, IBM and other companies – hosting research data.  The wrinkle is the agreement with the National Science Foundation (NSF).  Unlike the Amazon service, the Microsoft cloud will be open to researchers identified by the NSF, and provide a series of applications geared toward the needs of those researchers.

It is not at all clear to me from the New York Times article, or the press releases of either Microsoft or the NSF if the service is truly free (that neither general NSF funds or grant monies will be used to pay for it) or not.  I have no idea what volume of use is anticipated, so the costs may be negligible, or considered an effective expense in running a testbed for applications that may have commercial viability elsewhere.  It could also be considered a plain old investment – with the running of this project developing useful general knowledge for Microsoft and/or plenty of goodwill with researchers that can benefit the company in other ways.

I’m all for this kind of research support, but the question of Microsoft’s motivation seems underreported to me.  Why are they getting involved now, arguably the last major player in the cloud hosting space, and what’s in it for them?