Missed Science and Technology Content – Steve Spangler

I missed an appearance in this week’s science and technology guests post.  Sure, it was on a daytime program, but since I’ve noted the fellow before, I shouldn’t miss him this time around.

Steve Spangler was on the Ellen show on Wednesday, February 27.  His company develops and circulates science experiments for classroom, science fair and home use.  Ellen appears to be his national program of choice, having appeared on it 13 times since 2007.  While his focus is education, Spangler has no problem going big.  You can watch many of his experiments and demonstrations on his three YouTube channels.  Here’s an example:

Professor Glover Has Some Company

European Commission President José Manuel Barroso has created a Science and Technology Advisory Council (H/T ScienceInsider).    Its members were appointed by President Barroso in consultation with his Chief Scientific Adviser, Professor Anne Glover.  According to ScienceInsider, Glover will chair the council.

There are 15 scientists, all but one from Europe, in the Council, which will report directly to the President.  It’s characterized as an independent and informal advisory body, suggesting it will function in a way similar to the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) in the United States.  But that’s highly speculative prior to any meeting outcomes (the Council did meet in Brussels earlier today).  The intention for the group is:

“to provide advice directly to the President on how to create the proper environment for innovation by shaping a European society that embraces science, technology and engineering. In particular, the Council will advise on the opportunities and risks stemming from scientific and technological progress. It will also advise on how to communicate these in order to foster an informed societal debate and ensure that Europe does not “miss the boat” and remains a global leader in cutting-edge technologies.”

A list of the Advisory Council members is at the end of this Commission press release.  While I don’t know the background of all the members (aside from their respective countries), there is one Nobel laureate and one Fields Medal recipient among them.

RCUK Updates Research Conduct Guidance

Today the Research Councils of the U.K. (RCUK) released an update to its Policy and Guidance for Good Research Conduct (H/T Steven Hill).  It replaces the 2009 version.  The goals of the policy are:

• Sets standards of good research practice, with associated guidelines
• Specifies and describes unacceptable research conduct
• Provides guidelines for reporting and investigating allegations of research misconduct
• Clarifies the respective responsibilities of the Research Councils and Research Organisations in fostering and safeguarding the highest possible standards of research conduct

The document is intended for the research institutions that receive funding from any council in RCUK.

A quick comparison between the 2009 and 2013 editions suggests there have been some refinements.  The sanctions for research misconduct that were ‘forthcoming’ in the 2009 edition are spelled out in the 2013 edition.  Proper research conduct includes peer review practices in the 2013 edition.  Overall, it seems fair to say that the 2009 edition was more focused on establishing a good system for ensuring proper research conduct, and the 2013 edition is more concerned with providing more detail on what it means to have good research conduct.

Science and Technology Guests on Late Night, Week of February 25

(I’m trying out a new blog layout.  Please don’t let the new colors and shapes distract you.)

This week marks the end of February sweeps for American television programming.  This suggests that repeats are on the horizon.  But we still have a few days of new content from which to mine science and technology content.

This week one of the usual suspects come strong.  The Colbert Report starts with tonight’s (Monday’s) guest – Simon Garfield.  He has a new book out on man’s relationship with maps.  On Tuesday theoretical physicist Michio Kaku stops by to talk with Stephen.  Wednesday night Paola Antonelli visits to discuss the design of objects, tools and devices and how they affect our interactions with them.

In other appearances, two of the actors playing scientists on The Big Bang Theory are on the chat shows.  Johnny Galecki walks over to the Conan studio on Wednesday’s show.  Jim Parsons visits Jimmy Kimmel on Thursday.  On the same Kimmel program, California Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom will appear.  He’s likely to at least mention his new book, which focuses on using new technology to improve citizen interaction (or at least expand the opportunities for it) with government.

If The Pied Piper And St. Patrick Ever Worked Together

A collaboration of the fellow who got the rats out of Hamlin and the fellow credited with driving the snakes out of Ireland might resemble what the U.S. government is going to do in Guam.  (OK, both of these examples are legends, but bear with me.)

There are nearly no native birds on Guam, a small island territory.  Much of this can be traced to the brown tree snake population, which arrived on the small island with planes following World War II.  In the six decades since, they have dined on the local birds and grown in numbers to approximately 2 million.  The scenario could unfold in other Pacific islands, so the Department of Agriculture is looking to try something dramatic.

They will parachute dead mice over the island.  The mice will carry acetaminophen, the active ingredient in many painkillers, which is toxic to the snakes.  The parachutes are necessary to get the mice into the trees, where the snakes reside.  The drop is expected to take place in April or May.  Given the bizarre visuals that I can imagine from such an enterprise, I wouldn’t be surprised if this isn’t publicized.

(And yes, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is not pleased.)

As it happens, animal paratroopers are not quite as rare as you might expect.  There is a story of cats being dropped into Borneo in the 1950s following an increase in the local rat population (H/T Seattle Post-Intelligencer).  It was an effort involving the World Health Organization and the Royal Air Force of Singapore.  However, there are conflicting details of why the cats were dropped.  Regardless of the specifics, it was another instance of dramatic responses to long-term destabilization of the local ecosystem.

Since The Open Access Bill Probably Won’t Get Passed

Signifying that the executive branch review of open access policies is rapidly approaching a middle, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) released a memo for agency and department heads on “Increasing Access to the Results of Federally Funded Research.”  This is the biggest step in a process that dates back at least three years, when the Obama Administration put forth a public comment period on the matter.  This was followed by two requests for comment and an open access report.  The petition submitted to We the People, which passed the response threshold (then set at 25,000 signatures) in early June, finally got its response yesterday – not quite nine months later.

For a Friday afternoon release, the action has gotten more attention than one might expect, with Washington Post articles up hours prior to today’s paper hitting the streets. Jack Andraka, the 2012 Intel Science Fair first place winner quoted in the piece, was part of the Administration’s State of STEM presentation last week, and will likely be part of the open access conversation moving forward.

Independent researchers like Andraka will benefit from the proposed policies, which reflect the open access legislation that has rattled around Congress since at least 2007.  The memo focuses on agencies and departments with annual research and development budgets in excess of $100 million.  The results of research (and the associated metadata) funded with federal dollars must be made available free of charge within twelve months of publication.  This is consistent with the current timeframe for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Public Access Policy, but a longer period than what is proposed in the current open access legislation (six months).  The memo notes that agencies and stakeholders may adjust the twelve month embargo to better fit the needs of the relevant research fields.  Classified research is exempted from this policy.

While many open access advocates are happy to see executive branch action, some are disappointed.  Or perhaps they are simply frustrated.  From The Washington Post:

“It’s lame,” said Michael Eisen, a University of California, Berkeley, biologist and a vocal proponent of immediate free access to research papers. “It’s a major sellout to publishers.”

Congress Is Still Trying To Settle The Helium Problem

Yes, Congress is even having trouble passing gas…legislation.

One of the many critical element shortages facing the United States involves helium.  It’s never been clear to me how much of this shortage is balloon-elevating helium (which has many other applications) and how much is the nuclear isotope Helium-3.  I would have guessed the latter, but given the reserve discussed below, we are talking about the stuff most of us for balloons.  Helium-3 is rare as well, but there aren’t market factors at work behind that scarcity.

The U.S. has a helium reserve, and under current law, must sell its reserve down until it has recovered the cost of developing that reserve.  That threshold should be reached by the end of the current fiscal year (September 30).  At that point the law requires the country to sit on the reserve.

The House Natural Resources Committee held a hearing in mid-February (H/T ScienceInsider) on the matter, discussing a bill pretty similar to a bill the Senate considered in the previous Congress.  I expect this year’s bill to be as successful as the one the Senate considered.  In other words, expect to not have helium-filled balloons on the cheap this fall.

The Nobel Almost Looks Like Chump Change…Almost

Last month I was pretty impressed by the Tang Prizes, where researchers would receive nearly half a million dollars (U.S.) more than the Nobel prize gives, with some of that money targeted to future research.  Turns out I missed an even bigger set of prizes.

Last summer venture capitalist Yuri Milner established the Fundamental Physics Prize, which awards $3 million prizes to researchers both for past accomplishments in physics, but also to recognize promising young researchers.  Laureats are encouraged to present their research in lectures, which would be made available for the public.  In 2012 the Fundamental Physics Prize went to nine researchers, with additional recognition to Dr. Stephen Hawking and the team behind the ‘discovery’ of the Higgs Boson.  The Physics Frontiers Prize (with a $300,000 award) is focused on transformative advances in the field and was recently awarded to two researchers and one research team.  Each of them will be eligible for the 2013 Fundamental Physics Prize, which will be decided in part by the previous recipients of the prize.  The New Horizons in Physics Prize ($100,000 award) is focused on younger researchers, and was recently awarded to three researchers.

The prizes Milner established differ from the Nobel not only in dollar amounts, but in focus.  Typically Nobel laureates are older researchers (but never dead at the time the Prizes are decided), and their theoretical work has been confirmed through experimental verification.  These prizes can recognize accomplishment in fundamental or theoretical physics absent experimental verification.

But that’s all preamble.  Milner isn’t satisfied with simply awarding physics researchers.  To that end he teamed with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg (Milner owns a piece of Facebook) and Google co-founder Sergey Brin to establish the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences.  The prize amount is still $3 million, and the eleven researchers recognized yesterday will help determine future recipients.  Each of the researchers is recognized for past efforts in life sciences, with an overall goal of recognizing excellence in research aimed at extending human life and curing diseases.  There will be five prizes awarded annually going forward.  Of the eleven researchers recognized, those outside the life sciences might recognize Eric Lander, who currently serves as co-chair of the President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology.

Bleeker Revisits Comic Strip Engineering

Back in September, the National Academy of Engineering teamed with King Features Syndicate and Jonathan Mahood to devote two weeks of a comic strip to engineering education.  Mahood writes and King distributes Bleeker: the Rechargeable Dog.  Last fall the strip focused on engineering education in connection with the start of the school year.  Bleeker is a hybrid dog/iPod who is supposedly owned by Skip, but is usually focused on keeping the young lad out of trouble.

This week is Engineering Week, and to commemorate the event, Bleeker is focusing the week’s strips on solving a problem like an engineer would.  The problem is in keeping with the themes of the strip, and involves getting Skip out of yet another jam that he usually gets into.  Each day is focused on a step in the engineering design process.

While the National Academy of Engineering pointed me to this new series of strips:

Our friend Jonathan Mahood has created another strip about #engineering in his comic "Bleeker: The Rechargeable Dog" http://t.co/7EAJgV2w

— National Academy of Engineering (@theNAEng) February 19, 2013

There does not appear to be an official partnership between the NAE, or the National Engineers’ Week Foundation and Mahood.  Good on him for continuing to educate – and bring the funny – with his comic strip.

BRCA Patents Are Working Through The Courts Down Under

The Supreme Court will soon hear a case concerning Myriad Genetics and its patents of genes associated with breast cancer.  The main issue is whether or not the patenting of this genetic material for the purposes of lab tests is valid.

At least one other country is dealing with the same question through its courts.  Australia’s Federal Court ruled on Friday (H/T The Conversation) that the Australian patent for the BRCA1 gene is valid.  In short, that there was sufficient work done to create within the patented material an ‘artificial state of affairs’ that made the work patentable.  The Judge in the case did not consider it an easy decision.

“The real problem lies in knowing, or rather not knowing, what degree of human intervention is necessary before it can be concluded that the requisite artificial state of affairs exists. It is an especially difficult problem in the present case, not so much because the authorities provide no clear solution to it, but because the problem has an almost metaphysical dimension to it.”

Remember folks, I Am Not A Lawyer, and I’m not Australian.  The rest of the judgment provides useful Australian legislative history, suggesting that the country’s Parliament has considered, and may still, refine the requirements for patents related to genetic material.  As this is the first judicial action on the matter, the judgment is somewhat conservative – judicially speaking.  Recognizing that the legislature may yet act to change the legal landscape, the judge in this case seems disinclined to write new law – which is usually the case.

The Federal Court “shares first instance jurisdiction with the Supreme Courts of the States and Territories in the complex area of intellectual property (copyright, patents, trademarks, designs and circuit layouts).”  So the case started with this court, and there are possibilities for appeal.  The Applicants (plaintiffs) have until March 8 to file an appeal.  I would not be surprised if they did.