Quailing Before the Messy Business of Science 3 Time for Earth's 7-Billion
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Quailing Before the Messy Business of Science 3 Time for Earth's 7-Billion-Person Checkup 8 This Import Might Preserve American Jobs 12 The Swine Flu Vaccine: 1976 Casts a Giant Shadow 15 Who Needs God When We've Got Mammon? 20 Extreme oil: Scraping the bottom of Earth's barrel 22 Low-carbon future: We can afford to go green 27 Autism and schizophrenia could be genetic opposites 30 Transparent universe reveals hidden galaxies 31 Cellphones and cancer: Interphone can't end the debate 33 Long-lived Titan lakes are boon to life 36 Split-personality home routers can cut net energy use 38 Seas could rise 1.4m, warns Antarctic climate review 39 Where next for social networking? 40 How our brains build social worlds 42 Five ways to revolutionise computer memory 45 The electronic fink that will squeal if you drink 50 The power of same-sex liaisons 54 Personalised vaccines could protect all children 58 Glue injections help sick babies 59 Men's genes 'may limit lifespan' 61 US approves 'ethical' stem cells 63 Pandas 'chirp' to get pregnant 65 Fund family planning 'to cut CO2' 67 The Dangerous Mysteries of ConsciousnessWe still need answers. 69 Old Books Gassier With Age 71 E-Readers: They're Hot Now, But the Story Isn't Over 73 Is Loneliness Contagious? 76 Bad Teeth Tormented Ancient Egyptians 78 The world looks different if you're depressed 80 Story? Unforgettable. The Audience? Often Not. 81 A Christmas Rewrite, as Dickens Edits Dickens 83 Classic Botticelli, Ethereal Ad Man 86 We May Be Born With an Urge to Help 88 A Lost European Culture, Pulled From Obscurity 91 E-Mail Fracas Shows Peril of Trying to Spin Science 94 Developmental Psychologist Says Teenagers Are Different 96 To Curb Repeat Hospital Stays, Pay Doctors 98 Foetal blood vessel failure clue 100 Sistema de Infotecas Centrales Universidad Autónoma de Coahuila Mass cannibalism clues uncovered 102 Clue to 'drug-resistant' epilepsy 103 Gene flaw 'causes child obesity' 105 Lower birth weight puberty link 107 Worm could offer Parkinson's clue 109 Study measures ocean's CO2 uptake 111 Mobiles 'not causing brain risk' 113 Solar-Powered Camel Clinics Carry Medicine Across the Desert 116 CONCRETE CLOTH: Flexible Material Makes Durable Disaster Shelters 117 Print: Applying Quantitative Analysis to Classic Lit 118 A Rembrandt Identity Crisis 119 The Illustrator 120 Photography 122 Paris 124 The Circular Logic of the Universe 125 Optimism as Artificial Intelligence Pioneers Reunite 128 New NASA Craft, With Infrared Power, Will Map the Unseen Sky 130 Postpartum Depression Strikes Fathers, Too 131 Underwater Data Back Up Theory of Hawaii’s Origin 133 The Perils of Being Selfish With Shellfish 134 Spices Halt Growth of Breast Stem Cells, Study Finds 137 Not All Parents Place Their Babies 'Back to Sleep,' Researchers Find 139 New Clues Into How Invasive Parasite Spreads 140 Scientists at Climate Talks Say Major Changes to the Nitrogen Cycle Cannot Be Ignored 142 Recreational Drug Use Is Related to Impulsive Behavior, Spanish Research Reveals 144 Self-Destructing Bacteria Improve Renewable Biofuel Production 145 Solving the Mysteries of Enigmatic Binary Star System Cygnus X-3 147 The End of Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon? 149 Breakthrough in 'Spintronics' Could Lead to Energy Efficient Chips 150 New Computer Model Could Lead to Safer Stents 152 Undocumented Volcano Contributed to Extremely Cold Decade from 1810-1819 154 Papillomavirus Silences Innate Immune Response 156 Cosmic Rays Hunted Down: Physicists Closing in on Origin of Mysterious Particles 158 Diesel Truck Engine Made With Barely Measurable Emissions 163 Computer Screen Pop-Ups May Slow Down Your Work More Than You Think 165 Brain Waves Can 'Write' on a Computer in Early Tests, Researchers Show 166 Newly Explored Bacteria Reveal Some Huge RNA Surprises 168 Stopping MRSA Before It Becomes Dangerous Is Possible 170 Remains Of Minoan-Style Painting Discovered During Excavations Of Canaanite Palace 172 Test 'reduces birth false alarms' 174 Coffee 'might cut prostate risk' 176 Loneliness 'raises cancer risk' 178 Reading in the Brain 180 Sexes' danger reactions 'differ' 182 Dogs vs cats: The great pet showdown 184 The research that might save us after Copenhagen 190 Ancient Amazon civilisation laid bare by felled forest 194 California gives green light to space solar power 196 Women on testosterone only think they're macho 198 Dinosaur-killing impact set Earth to broil, not burn 199 2 Infoteca’s E-Journal No.95 December 2009 Sistema de Infotecas Centrales Universidad Autónoma de Coahuila Quailing Before the Messy Business of Science By: Joan Melcher Recent events are showing that, in the contact sport of climate change science, reasonable people on both sides may have cause to fear that the loser will be the scientific method. As scientists, policymakers, diplomats and environmentalists begin to converge on Copenhagen for climate talks, the integrity of leading climate change researchers has come under attack; a release of some 1,000 hacked e-mails from the University of East Anglia in Britain has created a stir, with some suggesting the e-mails demonstrate hoarding of and manipulation of data by climate researchers. The e-mails were written by the "A-team" — members of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — and raise questions if the work of other respected scientists may have been disregarded or hampered by a climate change orthodoxy (or "climate oligarchy") that does not value, indeed may discourage, informed debate and dissent. The hope of presenting a unified front may have trumped the messy process of determining scientific consensus. Adding to the distress is that scientists were supposed to be the good guys fighting to get the facts pushed through the political sieve, not sieving the data themselves like politicians. These fears recall the resignation of Christopher Landsea from the IPCC after its panel chair reported in a 2005 news conference that global warming was a factor in the severe 2004 hurricane season in the Atlantic Ocean. Landsea, then a meteorology researcher with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association and author of the first two IPCC assessments on hurricanes, countered that there was no peer- reviewed science to substantiate that claim. More recently, papers published by respected scientists from the same university, differed on a key element of climate change science, but the study conducted by IPCC members suggesting acceleration of a trend that would impact global warming received the most attention. Is this just elbowing among scientists who are playing at the top of their games or a march-step method in approaching science that should concern the public and policymakers? Who's On First? Let's look at the two studies recently released. The study by the IPCC members received big play in London's Guardian newspaper, with the headline heralding a prediction that global temperatures would rise by 6 degrees C by the end of the century — a suggestion of the paper but not its key finding. This paper, by scientists researching under the umbrella of the Global Carbon Project, was published in Nature Geoscience. It focused on trends in carbon sinks and found the fraction of anthropogenic (human caused) CO2 in the atmosphere likely increased from 40 to 45 percent between 1950 and 2008. About the same time, another paper was published in Geophysical Research Letters, a small but respected scientific journal, and it turned many heads. The findings: The fraction of anthropogenic carbon released from emissions has remained constant in the atmosphere since 1850. One of climate science's main focuses is the capacity of land and sea to absorb CO2; if "carbon sinks" lose the ability to sequester carbon, more CO2 will remain in the atmosphere, likely escalating warming. The pertinent question is, are the sinks beginning to lose their ability to absorb CO2, and if so, at what rate? Wolfgang Knorr, the author of the second study, couldn't find a trend from 1850 to 2007; Corrine LaQuéré, lead author of the first study, said an increase from 40 to 45 percent between 1959 and 2008 was "likely." 3 Infoteca’s E-Journal No.95 December 2009 Sistema de Infotecas Centrales Universidad Autónoma de Coahuila Both papers are on the cutting edge of climate science, and both lead authors research at the University of Bristol. The university was quick to acknowledge both studies in a press release, note small differences in approaches and include quotes from the authors, who reiterated that global warming is quite real, more research is needed, and reducing emissions of CO2 should be considered a top priority. A few days later, the blogosphere erupted with news of the hack of some 1,000 e-mails and 3,000 documents from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, posted on The Air Vent, a skeptic blog. Skeptics and climate change "deniers" were quick to jump on the e-mail messages, some of which suggested manipulation of data to support a warming trend. A few e-mails seemed to indicate an attempt to keep scientific papers by skeptics from publication and still more that dismissed requests for information under the Freedom of Information Act. Environmental reporters for The New York Times and The Washington Post covered the story, inevitably dubbed "climategate," giving IPCC scientists a chance to explain the e-mail exchanges. One scientist mentioned he used a statistical "trick" to hide a decline in a warming trend, and another bemoaned the record-cold temperatures in Colorado in October, writing, "The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't." Michael Mann, a professor at Pennsylvania State University (famed for his tree-ring-based "hockey stick" graph of global warming) and one of the authors of the hacked e-mails, explained that scientists often use the work "trick" to refer to a way of solving a problem, i.e.