A Blue View

New Regulations On Food Safety Coming

From the Wash Post (also see New Regulations On “Speculative” Energy Trading Coming):

The Obama administration took its first step yesterday toward overhauling food safety regulations that have been blamed for a steady stream of food recalls and related illnesses.

The new proposals, recommended by a working group that President Obama created in March, emphasize prevention, enforcement and improving the government's response time to such incidents.

"There are few responsibilities more basic or more important for the government than making sure the food our families eat is safe," Vice President Biden said at a White House news conference, where he was joined by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. "American families have enough to worry about today. They should not have [food safety] as a concern."

Fears about food safety have been spurred by outbreaks of salmonella and E. coli illness from products as varied as peanuts, spinach, tomatoes, pistachios, peppers and, most recently, cookie dough.

Fifteen federal agencies oversee food inspections in a complex and sometimes bizarre division of labor: The Food and Drug Administration is responsible for produce, while the Agriculture Department is responsible for meat. Cheese pizzas are inspected by the FDA, while pepperoni pies go to the USDA.

The administration outlined a variety of measures yesterday to prevent the spread of salmonella, a bacterium that causes more than 1 million illnesses each year in the United States.

Among them is a final rule, issued by the FDA, to reduce the contamination in eggs. About 142,000 Americans are infected each year with Salmonella enteritidis from eggs, the result of an infected hen passing along the bacterium. About 30 die.

The FDA will now require that egg producers test regularly for salmonella and buy chicks from suppliers who do the same. Eggs, which must be refrigerated by wholesalers and retail stores, will have to be refrigerated on the farm and during shipment, as well. About half the egg industry is following similar guidelines voluntarily.

The agency said that will help reduce the number of related food-borne illnesses by an estimated 79,000 a year, or about 60 percent. The new requirements will cost producers about $81 million a year, and add about 1 cent to the cost of a dozen eggs, FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said. Sebelius said it will save the nation about $1.4 billion a year in medical expenses ... 

Both agencies also announced plans to tackle E. coli. FSIS will step up enforcement at meat processing plants and increase sampling that tests for the pathogen, especially in ground beef. By the end of the month, the FDA, which is responsible for fresh produce, will issue guidance on ways to reduce contamination in the production and distribution of tomatoes, melons and leafy greens ...

On the whole, food safety advocates were pleased with the new initiatives. "We are coming out of a phase, just like in the financial sector, where the government was loath to regulate," said Caroline Smith DeWaal, food safety director for the advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest. "Tougher controls earlier in the food chain will result in fewer recalls and fewer outbreaks."

Bill Marler, a longtime food safety litigator who writes a blog about the issue, said: "Part of the problem with how we currently deal with food-borne illness cases is we wait until people get sick and die, and then we announce an outbreak. It seems that the focus here is a bit on preventing it before we have sick and dead people, as opposed to counting the bodies after salmonella or E. coli is out of the barn."

"A Case Study Of The Way Government Mandates Can Spur Innovation"

This NY Times report both refutes tired GOP complaints about government mandates and nicely complements my earlier post on the wisdom of compact fluorescent bulbs:

When Congress passed a new energy law two years ago, obituaries were written for the incandescent light bulb. The law set tough efficiency standards, due to take effect in 2012, that no traditional incandescent bulb on the market could meet, and a century-old technology that helped create the modern world seemed to be doomed.

But as it turns out, the obituaries were premature.

Researchers across the country have been racing to breathe new life into Thomas Edison’s light bulb, a pursuit that accelerated with the new legislation. Amid that footrace, one company is already marketing limited quantities of incandescent bulbs that meet the 2012 standard, and researchers are promising a wave of innovative products in the next few years.

Indeed, the incandescent bulb is turning into a case study of the way government mandates can spur innovation.

“There’s a massive misperception that incandescents are going away quickly,” said Chris Calwell, a researcher with Ecos Consulting who studies the bulb market. “There have been more incandescent innovations in the last three years than in the last two decades.”

The first bulbs to emerge from this push, Philips Lighting’s Halogena Energy Savers, are expensive compared with older incandescents. They sell for $5 apiece and more, compared with as little as 25 cents for standard bulbs.

But they are also 30 percent more efficient than older bulbs. Philips says that a 70-watt Halogena Energy Saver gives off the same amount of light as a traditional 100-watt bulb and lasts about three times as long, eventually paying for itself.

The line, for now sold exclusively at Home Depot and on Amazon.com, is not as efficient as compact fluorescent light bulbs, which can use 75 percent less energy than old-style bulbs. But the Energy Saver line is finding favor with consumers who dislike the light from fluorescent bulbs or are bothered by such factors as their slow start-up time and mercury content ...

For lighting researchers involved in trying to save the incandescent bulb, the goal is to come up with one that matches the energy savings of fluorescent bulbs while keeping the qualities that many consumers seem to like in incandescents, like the color of the light and the ease of using them with dimmers.

“Due to the 2007 federal energy bill that phases out inefficient incandescent light bulbs beginning in 2012, we are finally seeing a race” to develop more efficient ones, said Noah Horowitz, senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Some of the leading work is under way at a company called Deposition Sciences here in Santa Rosa. Its technology is a key component of the new Philips bulb line.

Normally, only a small portion of the energy used by an incandescent bulb is converted into light, while the rest is emitted as heat. Deposition Sciences applies special reflective coatings to gas-filled capsules that surround the bulb’s filament. The coatings act as a sort of heat mirror that bounces heat back to the filament, where it is transformed to light.

Science And Religion

Texas School Board Votes On The Age Of The Universe

Why are scientific questions being voted on by a bunch of politicians?  They are not a matter of opinion ...

Next up, a motion to declare pi equal to exactly three, because that's what God said it was in the Bible.

Do You Believe In Science GOP Rep Pence?

Not so much ... while Mathews can often be annoying, he was quite diligent in getting his [good] point across no matter how much Pence evaded.

Bill Maher On Swine Flu And Evolution

Clever throughout; with a great ending.

Science Guides Obama, And In This Case He's Actually Is Familar With It

From the NY Times:

In coming up with his public management of this crisis, the president’s aides said, he was being guided by science. But this science is not new to him. And while many in the country might not have seen the potential for a pandemic, Mr. Obama’s political record suggests he did.

“I don’t know if ironic is the right word, but that this should come into play 100 days into his administration, it’s helpful that he was ahead of the curve,” said David Axelrod, his senior adviser. “He pushed very hard on everyone right away because he understood that these things untended can be extraordinarily damaging.”

As a freshman senator in 2005, Mr. Obama took the lead on a bill devoting $25 million to help prevent an avian flu outbreak. It was one of his first pieces of legislation — and, arguably, his most substantial — in his brief time on Capitol Hill. He decided to take on the threat of killer viruses after reading a magazine article about the avian flu and a book about the 1918 pandemic. It was the perfect bipartisan cause. And because it had not been taken on by any other members of the Senate, it was one that could help get Mr. Obama, the junior senator from Illinois, some national attention.

He enlisted the support of Senator Richard G. Lugar, Republican of Indiana, and the two of them visited laboratories in Russia and Ukraine that were working on cures for some of the world’s most lethal pathogens.

Kids, Read A Book. After That You Will Be Smarter Than John Boehner.

Bri Holt has fun extending the theme of Why Is The GOP So Full Of Scientific & Historical Ignoramuses?:

Why Is The GOP So Full Of Scientific & Historical Ignoramuses?

They don't believe in evolution, they don't believe in global warming and they repeatedly prove they don't bother learning history.  No wonder they're always opposed to increasing funding for education ... since they've succeded without one they see no need for anyone else to get educated. (Though this argument does assume you believe getting elected to Congress is a measure of success.)

Watch Olbermann rip into two prime illiterates: Bachamnn and Fox (more on Fox here):

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Obama Admin Considering Geoengineering Climate

From the Wall St Journal:

The president's new science adviser said Wednesday that global warming is so dire, the Obama administration is discussing radical technologies to cool Earth's air.

John Holdren told the Associated Press in his first interview since being confirmed last month that the idea of geoengineering the climate is being discussed. One such extreme option includes shooting pollution particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect the sun's rays. Mr. Holdren said such an experimental measure would only be used as a last resort.

"It's got to be looked at," he said. "We don't have the luxury of taking any approach off the table."

Mr. Holdren outlined several "tipping points" involving global warming that could be fast approaching. Once such milestones are reached, such as complete loss of summer sea ice in the Arctic, it increases chances of "really intolerable consequences," he said.

Twice in a half-hour interview, Mr. Holdren compared global warming to being "in a car with bad brakes driving toward a cliff in the fog."

At first, Mr. Holdren characterized the potential need to technologically tinker with the climate as just his personal view. However, he went on to say he has raised it in administration discussions.

Mr. Holdren, a 65-year-old physicist, is far from alone in taking geoengineering more seriously. The National Academy of Science is making climate tinkering the subject of its first workshop in its new multidiscipline climate challenges program. The British parliament has also discussed the idea.

The American Meteorological Society is crafting a policy statement on geoengineering that says "it is prudent to consider geoengineering's potential, to understand its limits and to avoid rash deployment."

The GOP's Anti-Intellectualism, Anti-Science, Anti-Fact Approach To Everything

Here's how the Wash Post describes Robert M. Groves, the prominent, well respected survey researcher that President Obama just picked to run the Census Bureau, less than a year before the 2010 census begins:

Groves, 60, served as the bureau's associate director from 1990 to 1992 and holds dual professorships at the universities of Michigan and Maryland as part of the Joint Program in Survey Methodology ...

He has researched why people participate in statistical surveys, worked to develop surveys with lower non-response errors and studied how data is collected for surveys. He would preside over an organization that has acknowledged that it may inadvertently miss counting several million people in urban areas and those displaced by the home foreclosure crisis.

"He's one of the four or five people in the country who everyone would turn to for advice" on census issues, said Kenneth Prewitt, who served as census director from 1998 to 2001.

And here's how they reported the Republican's reaction to Grove's selection:

But some Republican lawmakers voiced concern yesterday that Grove supported a statistical adjustment to the 1990 census to make up for undercounting approximately 5 million people, including many minorities from urban areas who trended Democratic.

So he's one of 4 or 5 people most knowledgeable on the subject and the GOP objects to something he has advocated based on ... what, facts, statistical analysis, countervailing experts? No, of course not.  They're objecting for entirely political reasons (counting more poor people will help the Dems and hurt them) devoid of any factual or scientific basis.  Just another example of the GOP's faith-based approach to everything.

Rep. Shimkus: Ignore the science of climate change because God decides when the "earth will end"

The Republican Party is filled with anti-science, anti-intellectual yahoos who have way too much in common with the Muslim fundamentalists they so claim to hate.

Texas Enters The 21st Century, Defeating Anti-Evolution Crazies

From the Dallas Morning News:

In a decision watched by science educators across the nation, the State Board of Education on Thursday narrowly turned aside a last-ditch effort by social conservatives to require that "weaknesses" in the theory of evolution be taught in science classes in Texas.

Board members deadlocked 7-7 on a motion to restore a longtime curriculum rule that "strengths and weaknesses" of all scientific theories – notably Charles Darwin's theory of evolution – be covered in science classes and textbooks for those subjects.

The tie vote upheld a preliminary decision by the board in January to delete the strengths-and-weaknesses rule in the new curriculum standards for science classes that will be in force for the next decade. That decision, if finalized in a last vote today, changes 20 years of Texas education policy.

Because the standards spell out what must be covered in textbooks, science educators and publishers have been monitoring the Texas debate closely. As one of the largest textbook purchasers in the nation, Texas influences what is sold in other states ...

Voting for the requirement were the seven Republican board members aligned with social conservative groups. Against the proposal were three other Republicans and four Democrats. Critics of evolution managed to add a few small caveats to the curriculum, but none as sweeping as the strengths-and-weaknesses rule ...

Evolution critics scored some victories before the standards for all elementary and high school science classes were tentatively adopted Thursday.

The most significant was a change brought by board Chairman Don McLeroy, R-College Station, who proposed that students be required to study the "sufficiency or insufficiency" of common ancestry and natural selection – two key Darwin tenets – in examining fossil records and cell structure, respectively. Both provisions were affirmed in close votes, with some board members saying they would be challenged again Friday ...

The language adopted by board members on evolution and other scientific theories states that students shall "analyze and evaluate scientific explanations using empirical evidence, logical reasoning and experimental and observational testing."

Action on the science standards caps several months of debate. The issue last flared up when the board adopted new biology textbooks in 2003, when social conservatives tried to reject books that were deemed too pro-evolution but failed.

Bush's Plan B Restrictions Thrown Out By Judge

From the NY Times:

A federal judge ordered the Food and Drug Administration on Monday to make the Plan B morning-after birth control pill available without prescription to women as young as 17.

The judge ruled that the agency had improperly bowed to political pressure from the Bush administration in 2006 when it set 18 as the age limit.

The agency has 30 days to comply with the order, in which the judge also urged the agency to consider removing all restrictions on over-the-counter sales of Plan B. The drug consists of two pills that prevent conception if taken within 72 hours of sexual intercourse ...

On Monday, in a decision that criticized former F.D.A. officials, Judge Edward R. Korman of Federal District Court in New York threw out the F.D.A. ruling.

Judge Korman wrote that officials of the agency had repeatedly delayed action on the petition, moving only when members of Congress threatened to hold up confirmation hearings on acting F.D.A. commissioners. Several officials also violated the agency’s own policies, he wrote.

Citing depositions, Judge Korman wrote that agency officials had improperly communicated with White House officials about Plan B. And, he said, F.D.A. employees sought to influence decisions by appointing people with anti-abortion views to an independent panel of experts reviewing Plan B for the agency.

The agency also departed from its normal procedures, the judge wrote, by ignoring favorable conclusions about the drug by an advisory panel as well its own scientists and officials who found that the drug could be safely used by women at least as young as 17.

Such “political considerations, delays and implausible justifications” showed that the F.D.A. had acted without good faith or reasoned decision making, Judge Korman wrote.

Susan F. Wood, a former F.D.A. director of women’s health who resigned in 2005 to protest the handling of Plan B, said Monday that the judge’s decision to send the drug back for reconsideration signaled hope of the agency’s ability to act independently under a new administration.

There is a new chance to “restore the scientific integrity of the F.D.A.,” said Ms. Wood, now a professor of public health at George Washington University.

Sunday Afternoon Relaxation

Two from the Onion today. First, a business story on a bullet manufacturer's recall of their hollow point bullets because they failed to explode inside their victims:

Then a science unit report on the Disney genetics lab's fine work:

GOP Fear Mongering On Stem Cell Research

Another great assemblage of devastating clips from the Daily Show (starting at 1:00):

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Stem Sell

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things w/ Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Jim Cramer

Progress

Setting Science Free

Similar cartoons are here and here.

Freeing the Detainees

Stem Cell Research

Setting Science Free As A Means Of Time Travel

Obama To Shield Science From Politics

Important news from the Wash Post:

When President Obama lifts restrictions on funding for human embryonic stem cell research today, he will also issue a presidential memorandum aimed at insulating scientific decisions across the federal government from political influence, officials said yesterday.

"The president believes that it's particularly important to sign this memorandum so that we can put science and technology back at the heart of pursuing a broad range of national goals," Melody C. Barnes, director of Obama's Domestic Policy Council, told reporters during a telephone briefing yesterday.

Although officials would not go into details, the memorandum will order the Office of Science and Technology Policy to "assure a number of effective standards and practices that will help our society feel that we have the highest-quality individuals carrying out scientific jobs and that information is shared with the public," said Harold Varmus, who co-chairs Obama's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology ...

"We view what happened with stem cell research in the last administration as one manifestation of failure to think carefully about how federal support of science and the use of scientific advice occurs," Varmus said. "This is consistent with the president's determination to use sound scientific practice, responsible practice of science and evidence, instead of dogma in developing federal policy."

The memorandum will ensure that "people who are appointed to federal positions in science have strong credentials and that the vetting process for evaluating scientific information doesn't lead to any undermining of the scientific opinion," he said.

Obama Is Changing Bush's Stem Cell Policy

From the NY Times:

President Obama will announce Monday that he is reversing Bush administration limits on federal financing for embryonic stem cell research as part of a pledge to separate science and politics, White House officials said Friday.

As a presidential candidate, Mr. Obama spoke out in favor of stem cell research, so his intention to undo the curbs put in place by President George W. Bush is not surprising. But the decision is nonetheless of great interest, involving a long-controversial intersection of science and personal moral beliefs.

The officials said that advocates of unfettered stem cell research, as well as about 30 Democratic and Republican lawmakers who support it, had been invited to a White House ceremony scheduled for 11:45 a.m. Eastern time, when Mr. Obama is expected to make an announcement.

One person familiar with planning for the event said the president would also speak about a general return to “sound science” in his administration, as a fulfillment of his campaign promise to draw a demarcation line between politics and science. The Bush administration was often accused of trying to shade, or even suppress, the findings of government scientists on climate change, sex education, contraceptives and other issues, as well as stem cells.

Mr. Obama’s announcement is not likely to lead to any immediate change in government policy, since it may take many months for the National Institutes of Health to develop new guidelines for research.

Still, research advocates are expected to push for the process to go as quickly as possible to ensure that universities have time to submit grant proposals that can be reviewed and accepted before September 2010, when the health institutes must commit the last of the $10.4 billion given to the N.I.H. as part of the economic stimulus program.

"The Obama administration respects science"

A CBS report on Obama's support for--and unlike Bush, his belief in--science.

Obama Sets Science Free III

Earlier versions are here and here. 

Obama Sets Science Free

From the NY Times:

When he vowed in his Inaugural Address to “restore science to its rightful place,” President Obama signaled an end to eight years of stark tension between science and government ... many scientists were exuberant. Staff members throughout the government’s scientific agencies held inaugural parties on Tuesday, and many reported being teary-eyed with joy.

“If you look at the science world, you see a lot of happy faces,” said Frank Press, a former president of the National Academy of Sciences and former science adviser to President Jimmy Carter. “It’s not just getting money. It’s his recognition of what science can do to bring this country back in an innovative way.”

On issues like stem cells, climate change, sex education and contraceptives, the Bush administration sought to tame and, in some cases, suppress the findings of many of the government’s scientific agencies. Besides discouraging scientific pronouncements that contradicted administration policies, officials insisted on tight control over even routine functions of key agencies.

In early 2004, more than 60 influential scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates, issued a statement claiming that the Bush administration had systematically distorted scientific fact in the service of policy goals on the environment, health, biomedical research and nuclear weaponry. The administration, it said, had “misrepresented scientific knowledge and misled the public about the implications of its policies.”

Just last month, the inspector general of the Interior Department determined that agency officials often interfered with scientific work in order to limit protections for species in danger of extinction.

These are the sort of wounds to scientific integrity that President Obama promised to heal in his Inaugural Address. The quickest-acting balm was the change of tone, delivered instantly in the speech ...

During the Bush administration, for instance, officials at the Food and Drug Administration could not issue even routine press releases without specific approval from supervisors at the Department of Health and Human Services. The result was a backlog that caused some announcements to be issued days after the events in question had already occurred. Some documents advising industry about how to follow some agency rules were never issued. Warning letters to pharmaceutical companies required additional review by agency lawyers, with the result that the number of such letters plunged.

William Hubbard, an associate F.D.A. commissioner who retired in 2005, said top Bush administration officials were so reflexively opposed to nearly all regulations that even when consumer groups, industry associations, scientists and drug agency officials all agreed that new rules were needed, top officials rejected them. With less stringent oversight, agency officials will most likely soon issue new rules to prevent contamination of eggs and produce and to tighten the oversight of imports, Mr. Hubbard said ...

Analysts say the hardest changes will involve new financing priorities, especially in an age of spiraling deficits. But Kei Koizumi, a senior budget analyst at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, said the stimulus bill going through Congress already bore hopeful signs of an Obama uplift, with new money slated for several science agencies.

“It’s an early indication,” Mr. Koizumi said, “that the administration will go for more science funding in priority areas, even at a time of big deficits.”

Obama Frees Science

The Top 500 Worst Passwords Of All Time

From Whats My Pass:

From the moment people started picking passwards it didnt take long to realize how many picked the very same passwords over and over. Even the way people misspell words is consistent.  In fact, people are so predictable that most hackers make use of lists of common passwords just like these ... There are some interesting passwords on this list that show how people try to be clever, but even human cleverness is predictable. For example, look at these passwords that I found interesting:

ncc1701 The ship number for the Starship Enterprise
thx1138 The name of George Lucas’s first movie, a 1971 remake of an earlier student project
qazwsx Follows a simple pattern when typed on a typical keyboard
666666 Six sixes
7777777 Seven sevens
ou812 The title of a 1988 Van Halen album
8675309 The number mentioned in the 1982 Tommy Tutone song. The song supposedly caused an epidemic of people dialing 867- 5309 and asking for “Jenny”

Approximately one out of every nine people uses at least one password on the list and one out of every 50 people uses one of the top 20 worst passwords.  Keep in mind that every password listed has been used by at least hundreds if not thousands of other people.

View the top 500 worst passwords of all time. If you see your password on this list, please change it immediately.

European AIDS Awareness Campaign

Europe is Venus, the US is Mars.

40 Years Ago Today: Earthrise On The Moon

Apollo 8 astronauts read from Genesis on Christmas Eve 1968 and provided the first televised pictures of the entire Earth from space. The Earthrise portion is at about the 1:29 mark. Some have called the picture at the end of the video the most influential environmental photo of all time.

Goodbye Faith-Based Presidency, Hello Science & Rational Thought

Here's the official spin from Change.gov:

In the latest weekly address, President-elect Barack Obama took a bold stand for making decisions based on science and facts rather than ideology as he introduced leading members of his science and technology team.

“The truth is that promoting science isn’t just about providing resources—it’s about protecting free and open inquiry,” President-elect Obama said. “It’s about ensuring that facts and evidence are never twisted or obscured by politics or ideology. It’s about listening to what our scientists have to say, even when it’s inconvenient—especially when it’s inconvenient. Because the highest purpose of science is the search for knowledge, truth and a greater understanding of the world around us. That will be my goal as President of the United States—and I could not have a better team to guide me in this work.”

The Wash Post's take:

President-elect  Barack Obama's selection Saturday of a Harvard physicist and a marine biologist for science posts is a sign he plans a more aggressive response to global warming than did the Bush administration.

John Holdren and Jane Lubchenco are leading experts on climate change who have advocated forceful government action. Holdren will become Obama's science adviser as director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Lubchenco will lead the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which oversees ocean and atmospheric studies and does much of the government's research on global warming.

Holdren also will direct the president's Council of Advisers on Science and Technology. Joining him as co-chairs will be Nobel Prize-winning scientist Harold Varmus, a former director of the National Institutes of Health, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Eric Lander, a specialist in human genome research ...

President-elect  Barack Obama's selection Saturday of a Harvard physicist and a marine biologist for science posts is a sign he plans a more aggressive response to global warming than did the Bush administration.

John Holdren and Jane Lubchenco are leading experts on climate change who have advocated forceful government action. Holdren will become Obama's science adviser as director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Lubchenco will lead the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which oversees ocean and atmospheric studies and does much of the government's research on global warming.

Holdren also will direct the president's Council of Advisers on Science and Technology. Joining him as co-chairs will be Nobel Prize-winning scientist Harold Varmus, a former director of the National Institutes of Health, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Eric Lander, a specialist in human genome research.

Space Is A Weird Place

Palin Is A Scientific Ignoramus

Sorry I didn't post this at the time, but remember Sarah Palin's first "policy" speech on children with special needs?  Did you catch the scientifically illiterate statement Palin made in it?  Watch:

The thought of this creationist, scientific ignoramus having any say in government policies on science, technology or education scares the living daylights out of me.

"Striking" Differences In Approach To Science, Technology & Innovation

From the NY Times:

In 2002, the nation’s high-technology balance of trade went south, and it never came back. By 2007, the annual gap between high-tech exports and imports had grown to $53 billion. The gap this year is expected to be the largest ever — approaching $60 billion.

Both presidential candidates, in their careers and in their campaigns, have made detailed arguments for how the nation should deal with technology rivals, sharpen its competitive edge and improve what experts call its “ecology of innovation.”

Yet their visions are strikingly different. They diverge mainly on the appropriate role for the federal government in education, in spending on research, and in building, maintaining and regulating the complex infrastructure on which innovation depends. The visions both face tough questions on their viability amid the nation’s deepening financial crisis.

Senator John McCain, the Republican nominee for president, seeks to encourage innovation by cutting corporate taxes and ending what he calls “burdensome regulations” that he says inhibit corporate investment. But Mr. McCain has also repeatedly gone up against business if he sees a conflict with national security, for instance, in seeking to limit sensitive exports.

In Senator Barack Obama’s view, the United States must compete far more effectively against an array of international rivals who are growing more technically adept. Mr. Obama, the Democratic nominee, looks to the federal government to finance science, math and engineering education and the kind of basic research that can produce valuable industrial spinoffs.

The personal styles of the candidates also contrast. Mr. McCain says his leadership of the Senate commerce committee has versed him in technology issues, but he also jokes about his ignorance of personal computers and e-mail. Mr. Obama, an avid BlackBerry user, commenced an aggressive drive for campaign donations over the Internet.

Mr. Obama embraces the theory of evolution and argues that the teaching of intelligent design and other creationist ideas “cloud” a student’s understanding of science. While Mr. McCain says he personally believes in evolution, he has also said children should be taught “all points of view.”

Sunday Afternoon Thinking

I have to thank Michael Scherer for pointing out this very thought-provoking talk about how our minds approach politics and how it often hinders political reconcilation.  It's worth grabbing a cup of coffee, sitting back, and watching it.  Here's Scherer's introduction:

People who regularly eschew partisanship and politics now spit at their televisions and scream and drink and choke up when they hear the candidates speak. They gather with strangers to knock on doors. They wear T-shirts and affix bumper stickers. They answer questions from children not yet old enough to read: "Mommy? Daddy? Do you like McCain or Obama?" And the kids learn. They must decide to play for team blue, or team red. This stuff matters. It is, in short, a wonderful time for our country, a time when the nation comes alive to do the one thing that has always defined us, to cast a free vote. And that is an emotional act. You can overhear it in the conversations at bars or in the office. You can hear it in the roar of arenas that the candidates fill. As Americans, we weigh the issues with our minds, but we tend to decide with our guts. Among those who vote, we care a great deal.

I mention all this because I watched a lecture this morning by Jonathan Haidt, an associate professor at the University of Virginia who specializes in something called "moral psychology" and the "moral foundations of politics." The lecture is called "The Real Difference Between Liberals and Conservatives," and it examines how we organize ourselves into political teams, and why a "moral matrix" sometimes makes political debate so difficult. Haidt talks about how conservatives have strict restrictions for sex, and how liberals have strict restrictions for food. He explains, I think quite convincingly, how our minds approach politics, and argues not for a lessening of partisanship, but for a greater understanding of how the other side works. The lecture is 19 minutes long, and not boring at all.

Problems playing the video? Watch it here.

Medical Journalists Are Failing The Test

Gary Schwitzer just released an analysis of 500 health articles from mainstream media in the US. The results, published in PLos Medicine, were so dismal I'm going to start double checking every medical news story I read/hear/watch from now on.  I bet a similar analysis would give political journalists a failing grade too.

In our evaluation of 500 US health news stories over 22 months, between 62%–77% of stories failed to adequately address costs, harms, benefits, the quality of the evidence, and the existence of other options when covering health care products and procedures (Table 1). This high rate of inadequate reporting raises important questions about the quality of the information US consumers receive from the news media on these health news topics.

At a time when US health care spending now represents 16% of the gross domestic product, only 23% of the health news stories that we analyzed covered the costs of medical treatments adequately. In an era when most news organizations reported on postmarketing problems found with rofecoxib (Vioxx), coronary stents, or hormone replacement therapy, many of those same news organizations still fail to adequately quantify the harms and benefits of the products they report on today. Only 28% of the stories we evaluated adequately covered benefits, and only 33% adequately covered harms.

Mars Soil 'Friendly' To Life, Tests Show

From the Wash Post:

Early results from the first-ever "wet" chemical analysis of the surface soil of Mars show the planet harbors many of the nutrients needed for life and none of the acidity that some feared would make life highly unlikely.

"There's nothing about it that would preclude life. In fact, it seems very friendly," said mission scientist Samuel P. Kounaves of Tufts University. "We were flabbergasted."

Kounaves said that the soil was similar to what people would find in their back yards on Earth and that if organic material was added, "you could probably grow asparagus, but not strawberries."

Carbon-based organic material, however, has not been found and may be impossible to detect with the equipment now on Mars. The Viking missions to Mars in the 1970s failed to find evidence of carbon.

Life On Mars More Plausible Today

To have life (at least as we know it) you have to have water. We've now confirmed that Mars has it (the white areas in the photo). From Bloomberg:

The existence of ice on Mars was confirmed today by NASA scientists, the first time frozen water has been sampled on another planet. Water in liquid form is an essential ingredient for life.

Whitish, dice-sized chunks, which were dug from the rocky red soil and warmed in the sun, vanished four days after the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Phoenix probe dug them up June 15. They confirm what NASA satellites have suggested for years: Frozen water exists several centimeters beneath Mars's surface.

Scientists believe ice exists on planets including Pluto, though Phoenix is the first probe to confirm it on the ground. The survey is part of NASA's theme in Mars exploration: follow the water ...

The agency's plan is to gather up ice and dirt, then deliver it to the Phoenix's airtight ovens. The matchbox-size ovens will then bake the sample ... the probe will analyze the samples for any long-chain carbon molecules such as amino acids, the building blocks of life.

``That's what you need to have for a habitable zone on Mars,'' Smith said.

Surprise! Bush Administration Lied About Climate Change

From the Wash Post:

An investigation by the NASA inspector general found that political appointees in the space agency's public affairs office worked to control and distort public accounts of its researchers' findings about climate change for at least two years, the inspector general's office said yesterday ...

James E. Hansen, who directs NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and has campaigned publicly for more stringent limits on greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming, told The Post and the New York Times in September 2006 that he had been censored by NASA press officers, and several other agency climate scientists reported similar experiences ... 

From the fall of 2004 through 2006, the report said, NASA's public affairs office "managed the topic of climate change in a manner that reduced, marginalized, or mischaracterized climate change science made available to the general public." It noted elsewhere that "news releases in the areas of climate change suffered from inaccuracy, factual insufficiency, and scientific dilution."

View From A Window

Andrew Sullivan often posts views out of his reader's windows ... while this photo is not from A Blue View reader, I though it noteworthy to post anyway.

This is the surface of Mars as seen from the Phoenix Mars Lander after it made a successful landing on Sunday in the northern polar regions of the Red planet.  Phoenix is getting ready to search for life-sustaining water.