Another one of those entertaining young scientist stories that makes me want to chuck it all and go back to school: She clearly delights in the work, in part because it’s about answering questions scientists are only beginning to understand how to ask. “I have no idea what I’m going to be doing in 20 …
It’s bad enough when the science establishment charges for access to the loading dock, but Shelley Batts’ experience is even worse. Intrigued by a paper in The Science of Food, she blogged it, including a graph and data table from the paper. For which sin she was threatened with legal action for violation of copyright. …
Big Toe Gets Himself Donated to Science Originally uploaded by Driving in Heels. I’ve been increasingly concerned about the rigor I’m able to offer here, so I recently made the decision to add a climatologist to the Inkstain staff. Big Toe has a Masters Degree in Science, and has read several of the books on …
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One of PZ Myers’ criticisms of the whole idea of framing scientific communication is the lack of specifics about how to implement the ideas Matt Nisbet and Chris Mooney are pushing. I’ve been feeling as well that the whole discussion has been a bit lacking in the way of concrete examples (Gavin’s attempt to anchor …
Yesterday I pointed to framing by Bob Loux, head of the Nevada’s effort to block Yucca Mountain. Loux used the nuclear transportation danger frame in a presentation before the Sparks City Council, urging the council to pressure the Walker River Paiutes to block rail transportation of waste to Yucca Mountain. Today, we see the results: …
The “loading dock” is a metaphor in the science policy wonk world for a process by which scientists just sorta drop off information for folks, hoping that they somehow find it useful. Mitchell Berger, a New Jersey public health planner had an letter in Science April 6 placing an interesting twist on the issue: It …
From the Yucca Mountain debate: Transporting nuclear waste by rail to Yucca Mountain through Reno and Sparks could adversely affect tourism in the area even if there never is an accident. That was the message the Sparks City Council heard Monday from Bob Loux, the executive director of Nevada’s Agency for Nuclear Projects.
UN Security Council climate debate: Britain holds the council presidency this month and organized an open meeting to highlight what its foreign secretary, Margaret Beckett, said was the “security imperative” to tackle climate change because it can exacerbate problems that cause conflicts and threatens the entire planet.
Press release today from the House Science Committee’s Republicans: Today, in the first congressional hearing with authors of the Working Group II section of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) fourth assessment report, Climate Change Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability, the Science and Technology Committee was told that many different factors will determine the impacts …
Jon Carroll on the Galileo problem: My correspondents seem to be taken with the image of the lone scientist battling for truth against the bigwigs and their lackeys. “They laughed at Edison,” one told me. Maybe so. They also laughed at a lot of people who turned out to be laughable. Being laughed at is …