President Obama Returns To Address National Academy Of Sciences

Yesterday President Obama made his second address (video) to the National Academy of Sciences during it’s annual meeting, a first for a President.  The Academy is celebrating its 150th anniversary all year, and the President didn’t pass up the opportunity to make the connection to President Lincoln in his remarks.

Compared to his 2009 address before the Academy, this speech was free of new policy initiatives.  For that you’d need to go to his remarks at the White House Science Fair last week.  This speech returned to old themes, not unique to this President, about the promise and potential of U.S. scientific research.  While the influence of the budget sequester was part of the speech, the language wasn’t terribly different from language used in his 2009 address.  And the historical examples of early scientific help to the nation focused, as they do today, on application to national goals.

Most of the science press coverage has focused on the promises to preserve peer review, which is of concern based on the recent restrictions placed on political science research, and possible efforts to extend those restrictions throughout the National Science Foundation.  (I’ll have more on that later this week.)  But there were some other highlights:

“one of the things that I’ve tried to do over these last four years and will continue to do over the next four years is to make sure that we are promoting the integrity of our scientific process”

“we produce here ends up having benefits worldwide.  We should be reaching for a level of private and public research and development investment that we haven’t seen since the height of the Space Race.  That’s my goal.”

“Today, my administration relies on your expertise to answer critical questions like:  How do we set our priorities for research?  How can we get the most out of the nanotechnology revolution?  What are the underlying causes of gun violence?”

“That sense of wonder and that sense of discovery, it has practical application but it also nurtures what I believe is best in us.”

So, a big day for the science community, certainly.  But the bigger day for communicating the value of science was still the Science Fair from last week.

Science and Technology Guests on Late Night, Week of April 29

This Friday the latest Iron Man film premieres in the United States.  I mention that mainly for the likelihood of science fiction technology to factor into the film.  I don’t expect the same to occur with the appearances of various cast members on the next several talk shows.

The biggest science guest of the week is once again on Jimmy Kimmel Live!  Science Bob Pflugfelder returns on Thursday’s program.  Iron Man 3 star Robert Downey, Jr. is on the same program, so there is an opportunity to test my hypothesis.

In other guests, Kal Penn stops by Late Night with Jimmy Fallon on Wednesday.  Penn is the host of The Big Brain Theory, a competition series premiering this week on the US Discovery channel (and re-broadcast on The Science Channel).  The program is looking for engineering talent with the winner getting, among other things, a contract to work for a design firm.  The co-founders of Snapchat, Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy, will sit with Stephen Colbert on Wednesday.  Snapchat is a photo sharing service with a twist.  The shared photos are temporary, disappearing after a period of time set by the sharer.

Politicians With Science Degrees Are Still Politicians

The recent passing of Baroness Thatcher, former Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, prompted the usual reflections after any leader of note passes.  While being the first female Prime Minister of her country, her science background was also a first for the U.K.  First training as a chemist at Oxford, Thatcher worked as a research chemist prior to her legal training and political career.

A review of her political career suggests a couple of things regarding politicians with scientific backgrounds.  They are politicians first.  As Tom Wilkie relates in Research Fortnight, Thatcher’s noted 1988 address on climate change to The Royal Society was promoted with political reporters rather than the scientific press.  (Tomorrow’s scheduled speech by President Obama at the National Academy of Sciences may prove an interesting point of comparison.)  And the speech itself was targeted to that audience, rather than at those who had been informed by the science reporters covering the issue (the same could likely be said of her other major addresses on climate).

Additionally, when party priorities conflicted with what could be considered science-friendly policies, the Baroness did what should be expected of any political leader.  The party interests won out.  Arguably Thatcher broke the seal on the supposed promise of the Haldane Principle, which says that researchers are the ones who should determine what projects research funds should be spent on.  Her government decided during the first years of the AIDS/HIV epidemic that the Medical Research Council could not conduct research on the sexual behavior of the country; research that would have helped inform a possible public health response (The Wellcome Trust stepped in to support the research).  Basic research funding was strained, and while it was later boosted, the relationship between scientists, universities and the Thatcher government were never particularly cordial.  David Edgerton has an analysis of the Thatcher scientific legacy that suggests not only that party ideology motivated most of the decisions, but that the consequences of those choices are a bit more complicated than many would suggest.

So would be the idea that getting more scientists into political positions makes scientist-friendly policies more likely.

Nature Ratchets Up Disclosure Requirements

Nature has taken steps to make it easier to try and reproduce the results it publishes in its pages (and online).  Starting in May, the journal and associated publications will require more disclosures of data and methods from researchers submitting manuscripts.

There is now a checklist for prospective authors to complete with their manuscript(s), which explicitly connects portions of their articles with relevant methods (the page restriction on methods has been abolished, and Nature maintains a protocol exchange), statistics, reagents, animal models, human subjects protections and data depositories.  Nature does not consider the checklist exhaustive, and may, depending on the input of editors and referees, take additional steps to assess methods and statistics for submitted papers.

This is just the first step of a long journey.  Nature, and Science (based on Congressional testimony earlier this year from its then-Editor-in-Chief) are trying to make it easier for other researchers to do what it expected of them by the norms of most scientific communities – check the claims of their colleagues for accuracy and reproducibility.  If the moves toward increased public access to scientific information continue, the expectations that this information can be verified will likely increased.  It’s nice to see journals trying to be ready.  Hopefully researchers will be able to keep up, and this collection of articles on reproducibility will have more positive additions in the future.

Science Fiction Friday – Educating Innovation By Stories And Imagination

With the summer blockbuster season approaching in the movie theaters, this year has the potential to present some interesting science fiction material – possibly with policy implications.  Oblivion was the first science fiction movie of the summer season.  However, the one feature that I think has the highest potential for such discussions is Elysium, arriving in U.S. theaters in August.  The second feature from Neill Blonkamp, who directed District 9, Elysium is set in a future society where the well-to-do are separated from the rest of society in a floating city.  (For what it’s worth, a similar conflict is set on a floating city in the new video game Bioshock Infinite.)  The setting of Elysium has the potential of heightening   sociological tensions between economic classes – demonstrating the ability of science fiction to hold a (possibly funhouse) mirror to society.

On other science fiction fronts, a Republican state legislator in West Virginia has introduced a bill to require science fiction reading in the educational curriculum (H/T The Guardian).  Introduced by Delegate Ray Canterbury in March, the bill would require integrating grade-appropriate science fiction works into the current reading, literature and other courses for middle and high school students.  This is the second time Canterbury, who represents a district in the southern part of the state, has introduced the bill.

Not having been educated in West Virginia, I have no idea how common science fiction is in the educational curricula.  In my middle and high school courses, there were some science fiction books assigned, but they were not done with the same idea underlying this bill – to get more kids into math and science.  Not even all of the science fiction I taught in an introductory science studies course took such a perspective.  From the bill (which is quite short)

“To stimulate interest in math and science among students in the public schools of this state, the State Board of Education shall prescribe minimum standards by which samples of grade-appropriate science fiction literature are integrated into the curriculum of existing reading, literature or other required courses for middle school and high school students.”

As the assigned science fiction texts of my early education were mainly of the dystopian variety, I don’t think they would fit the bill, so to speak.  Canterbury is interested in the more positive varieties of science fiction, which help explore potential.  As he told Blastr,

SpaceX Is Hopping Back To The Future

While U.S. space exploration has been stuck in a political loop for years (grand plans announced that will come to pass years after the announcing President/Congress are after office), robots and private interests continue to move things forward (sometimes in spite of Congressional distrust of the private sector).

The first and so far only reusable space transportation system – the Shuttle – has been retired in favor of a return to massive rockets.  But at least one company is still pursuing reusable technology.  And they’ve been busy on that front lately.

SpaceX has, among its other rockets, one called Grasshopper.  Made from part of a Falcon9 rocket, the Grasshopper is a vertical take-off and vertical landing vehicle.  Intended to be part of a rapidly reusable rocket system, the Grasshopper would be able to return and land intact after launching its payload.  In March the vehicle launched to a height of 262 feet, hovered for several seconds and returned to land on the same spot.  That’s landing thruster quality precision.

This past week the Grasshopper topped itself in its fifth test launch.  It managed to replicate the same pattern it did in March – launch, hover, land – but flying to over 820 feet and holding its position in wind.  Take a look at the video (you may want to turn down the volume).

As the article linked to above indicates, future tests of Grasshopper will include a water landing of a Falcon9 first stage later this year, and if that goes well, doing the same over land in 2014.  Meaning we could have a Space Shuttle style launch, except the pieces return to the launchpad under their own power (the external boosters for the Shuttle needed to be retrieved).

Maybe it’s because I just saw some Star Trek on the big screen, but Grasshopper has me fired up.  Once the Grasshopper becomes spaceworthy, it will be the first time in my life that big space science fiction becomes reality.  That’s a little bit awesome.

Bike Your Way To Clean Water

Monday was the Third White House Science Fair, and here are some highlights:

The Administration has been ramping up the event, bringing in LeVar Burton and Bill Nye, The Science Guy to interview participants during a live webcast:

In contrast to the science fairs that I participated in as a kid, the White House event is more demonstration than competition.  Many of those who participate have shown promise through winning in competitions like the Google Science Fair or the Intel Talent Search, or have otherwise demonstrated serious science and engineering chops.

Think of it as though a championship sports team was coming to visit, and instead of just getting the picture with the President and perhaps giving him a uniform/ball/cap from the team, the team plays an exhibition game.  And the President gives a long-ish speech detailing and praising their achievements.

Of course, there’s a broader policy goal in this event – promoting science, technology, engineering and math in education and the culture.  In this year’s address, the President announced a new national service initiative to connect scientists and engineers with students in their communities.  It includes a number of programs, such as a private sector initiative to get major science and technology companies to have 20 percent of their science and engineering workforce volunteering in education.

But on to the gee-whiz stuff.  While the President riding the water-filtration bike gets the big visual prize, there were plenty of other compelling projects demonstrated at the fair.  Robotic limbs, tactile sound, cancer screening tools, and water-cooled football shoulder pads simply scratch the surface.  It’s great to see this kind of attention, but during the run-up to the so-called ‘nerd prom’ of the White House Correspondents Dinner, there’s still a long way to go to get science and technology makers into a better place in the culture.

Attention Crowd Researchers and Citizen Scientists: More Work And Recognition Await

Those who enjoy community research projects and/or sifting through large data sets in their spare time may appreciate some new opportunities.

The White House is looking to celebrate citizen scientists in a Champions of Change event on June 4.  Champions of Change are people doing extraordinary things in their communities, and the White House has recognized several different groups with the Champions distinction.  For citizen scientists, nominations are due April 30.  The White House is interested in finding those who have “demonstrated exemplary leadership in engaging the broader, non-expert community in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) research.”  People who have worked with groups traditionally underrepresented in STEM projects will are of particular interest.

If you’re just looking for another project, The Encyclopedia of Life is looking for some taxonomists, according to BoingBoing.  The Encylopedia needs people to research and write short (300-500 word) entries for some of life’s most interesting species.  Anyone over 13 can enter, and submissions are due May 20.  There are some suggestions for species/taxa on the Encyclopedia website.  There are prizes for the person with the most descriptions, the person with the best sources, and the best overall description.  If you are chosen for the latter category, you can get a behind the scenes tour of the Natural History Museum.  Keep checking in with the BoingBoing post for updates and FAQ.  And don’t use Wikipedia as your primary sources.  Seriously.

Science and Technology Guests on Late Night, Week of April 22

Let’s get to the big deal up front.   Adam and Jamie from the MythBusters have a late night appearance this week, and it’s not with super-fan Craig Ferguson.  The boys are scheduled to appear on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Wednesday night.  As Kimmel is the sole late night stop for “Science Bob” Pflugfelder (who is scheduled to visit Jimmy’s show next week), I would not rule out a wacky demonstration or two.  The 10th anniversary season of MythBusters starts in the U.S. on May 1.

In other late night science and technology content, Stephen Colbert brings it early in the week.  Food writer Michael Pollan visits tonight (Monday).  His newest book focuses on cooks and cooking.  On Tuesday Eric Schmidt, Google Executive Chairman and member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology sits down to promote his book on the future.

In this week’s catch-up corner, I point you to the March 28 edition of The Daily Show, where author Denise Kiernan, appeared to talk about The Girls of Atomic City, a history of the women who worked at the nuclear facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee during the Manhattan Project.  The interview ran long, and the book appear to cover a lot more about the logistics, science and technology of the project than I initially expected.  Kiernan has also curated some of the promotional and archival material for the book at Atomic Cocktails.  In what should be little surprise, Mary Roach’s latest appearance (April 1) on The Daily Show also ran long.  Her latest book is Gulp, and no guesses about what it covers.

Welcome The Digital Public Library Of America

Earlier this week the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) opened online.  The end of the beginning for a 2.5 year and counting project, DPLA is a collaboration between several dozen libraries, repositories and other collections across the country.  The idea is to aggregate, without significant overlap, library resources to make collections more publicly available.  The DPLA will deal in metadata – data about the various collections it is connected with.

As the project’s Executive Director described it to The Atlantic, the DPLA has a few distinct purposes.  First, and what most people are likely to use it for, the library will serve as a portal to a national collection of a multitude of collections.  This would go far beyond the books to include visual media, artwork, archived and unpublished documents, and perhaps even audio materials (the last point is speculative on my part).  These collections would be more usable for the public, not simply because of the single point of access, but because of the technical infrastructure connected to these collections.  DPLA will make it possible for indexing the material in new and different ways.  It will also make the material effectively public domain, and coupled with an API, the content can be remixed and reused by the public.  Two apps have already been developed.

This collaboration came together with the funding assistance of federal partners and foundations.  The future success of DPLA will depend as much on maintaining and expanding relationships with other libraries, archives and collections as on publicizing to the public the resources it’s connected with.  It may seem pretty ephemeral right now, but it has made going to the library just a little bigger.