In 2013, stem cell therapy is touted as the future of
medicine by proponents in Europe and Asia while scientists in America urge
caution. Contrast that to a decade ago, when the concern was that American
President George W. Bush was holding back progress because he limited federal
funding for one form of stem cell research. In 2012, Governor Rick Perry of
Texas not only believed in stem cell research, he declared that he wanted to
make his state the home of American stem cell science.
Organic food labeling is almost dizzying. Despite the claims of this $29 billion industry that it is 'organic' and therefore nutritionally and environmentally and medically superior to nasty regular food of the last few centuries,
it is really only 95% organic - and the list of dozens of synthetic ingredients that are exempted is truly difficult to fathom.
Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS) collaborators
are reporting what could be a weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) signal at the 3-sigma level. In common parlance, that is 99.7 confidence - which sounds high. But to physicists it really means they have 3 bumps in their data that could be a WIMP, which means it might be a hint of dark matter.
That sounds like a lot of qualifiers but particle physics is conservative that way. Data means what it means and not much more. But certainly not less, and that is pretty important too.
The adage that 'there is a sucker born every minute' has always been true. Organic food? Homeopathy? Social psychology? I am cool with all of those unless poor people who think they are accepting science are being exploited for financial gain.
And so if a company claims they will name an asteroid after you for five bucks, or a star, and you don't want to do the creative design work of making your own certificate and printing it off, I suppose that's harmless enough, but if you ask I will still tell you how meaningless it is.
If you're not a researcher, you probably don't use Mendeley a lot, I don't have an account there even though I have written lots of pieces about their stuff. But it's popular among researchers and in the early days of Science 2.0, when I had the Science 2.0 name itself reserved for a collaboration tool, I always assumed we would buy something like Mendeley or something like Mendeley would buy us, depending on who got biggest first. Other than a few emails with the CEO when he had something interesting to share, I have no involvement with the company.
The Environmental Protection Agency has always been a political beast - it is political appointees accountable to whatever administration is in power, not the electorate. President Richard Nixon created it, that should tell you something.
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