Science Cheerleader » Science Policy

Newt, Science, and the Office of Technology Assessment

Darlene — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 20:10:48 +0000

[This is an update of an article originally posted in 2010.]
Newt Gingrich maintains his support for increases in federal spending on scientific research. And I mean massive funding increases at two federal agencies in particular, the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health (these agencies primarily oversee and support scientific research across the U.S.). Yet, in the 1990s as part of his Contract with America, he axed one, relatively small Congressional agency you’ve probably never heard of: the Office of Technology Assessment. The scientists and policy wonks who worked there published hundreds of reports at the request of Congress to help them make sense of often complicated science and technology policy matters. You can find archives of the reports here. Many are still referenced today.

Newt felt the OTA had become too politicized and insignificant. Perhaps it had. Perhaps that had something to do with the fact that one tiny little line in the legislative language crafted to form the OTA was ignored as the years passed. The OTA was created to provide a shared working space for scientists, policymakers and citizens in an effort to assess, to the best of our abilities, the potential opportunities and challenges inherent in an endless stream of emerging technologies…then to use that combined knowledge to better inform policies. Basically, to help us, as a nation, better anticipate some of the economic and societal implications of emerging technologies. But the “citizen input” never really happened. Turns out it was difficult to make this happen in the 1970s when the OTA was launched. This was before the Internet, mind you, and with a tiny budget, the OTA couldn’t regularly afford to fly people together for meetings of the minds. If public input had become a staple of the OTA, as was designed, is it possible the agency would not have been viewed as a politicized one? Perhaps the public would have rallied to save the agency when Newt issued his call to arms.

Not too long ago, I launched a national effort to reopen the OTA and it sparked a strong, well-organized movement within the science community now to lobby Congress to refund the OTA. On one hand, I was thrilled! Wait, let me back up a bit to tell you how I became obsessed with the OTA. Please bear with me for just a moment.

I stumbled upon the OTA as a graduate student at UPenn (this is me on graduation day with comedian Yakov Smirnoff, seriously!) where my History and Sociology of Science professor handed me an assignment to “write about the rise and the fall of the OTA.” (Thank you Professor Susan Lindee!)

I read virtually every piece of literature that existed and contacted many of the authors and former staffers of the OTA.

I even met with Newt Gingrich, Sen. Kennedy, Rep. Rush Holt and chatted with Rep. Vern Elhers and several of the architects of the OTA. I was convinced that Congress was lost a bit without its only source of dedicated, nonpartisan tech assessments and believed the Office should be refunded (it was never really killed by Congress…it was just stripped of its $23million +/- budget).

However, in this era of public participation, open source, collaboration, and transparency, I sought to open a new, decentralized, 21st Century OTA, one that would provide a mechanism to both inform the public and seek their input before Bills are posted for public comment (who really comments on posted Bills besides lobbyists and special interest groups anyway?). It’s not an entirely new idea. Richard Sclove, the founder of the Loka Institute, more than hinted at this suggestion back in the 80s. Ironically, following a major public, political and economic disaster surrounding the 1990s roll out of genetically modified foods in Europe, the E.U. opened parliamentary OTAs with a twist: the science and technology assessment undertaken by the experts at their OTAs often include citizen participation as this has been found to help assess risk, create a better informed public, and better understand societal implications of emerging technologies. All of which are key ingredients in good policy making decisions, no? Do you want scientists or special interest groups to represent you and your questions/concerns societal impacts of science and emerging technologies? Congress knows no more than you do about these and many other scientific issues and they openly admit this. While I think it’s imperative for scientists to drive a discussion and impart their expertise on such matters, it’s equally vital that WE are afforded the opportunity to learn about and weigh in on these matters BEFORE Bills are created.
This is where the organizers of the current effort to reopen the OTA (the science community) and I differ. For the most part, they either do not understand or they don’t see the value in public participation. I can understand why if recent Town Hall meetings are what they’re basing their opinions on…but that’s not the type of participation I’m advocating for. I’m talking about a deliberate, well-constructed, inclusive approach that’s been proven to be successful in Europe (and even in China for crying out loud) and here in the U.S. although those efforts were not directly tied to Congress.

To advance this idea and help produce a “proof of concept,” Science Cheerleader teamed up with the Boston Museum of Science, Arizona Statue University, the Loka Institute, and the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars to form ECAST: Expert and Citizen Assessment of Science and Technology. We’re in the midst of our first, official activity tied to the World Wide Views on Biodiversity. If you’d like to learn more or get involved, please visit the website to sign up. It’s pretty exciting and I hope you’ll join in this evolving journey!

So where does Newt stand on the matter of the OTA today? Here’s a fairly recent video in which he suggests a few scientists on this side (R) and a few scientists on that side (D) would suffice as advisors. Dare I suggest this idea is worse than reopening the old OTA without public participation? Not only is he suggesting an “expert-only” approach, but a mere handful of experts at that. This former cheerleader can smell a clique a mile away

What do you think? Is there a better path forward, a shinier future for science policy making? Now, more than ever, let’s hope the answer is “yes.”

“Changing Planet” Town Hall: clean energy, green jobs

Darlene — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 16:11:00 +0000

Click flyer for all the details

On Tuesday, July 26 at 9pm ET, The Weather Channel will air the “Changing Planet” Town Hall focused on clean energy and green jobs.

SciCheer’s sister site, ScienceForCitizens.net, is a partner in this three-part series. I also had the pleasure of working with Discover, NBC and the NSF to produce the series.

Here’s more information from NBC News:

This town hall broadcast is the second in a 3-part series that brings together scientists, thought leaders and students for a discussion on the issues of climate science.

The Weather Channel announced that it will air a “Changing Planet: Clean Energy, Green Jobs, and Global Competition” on Tuesday, July 26th at 9 PM/ET. NBC News Chief Environmental Affairs Correspondent Anne Thompson moderated the event, which was hosted by George Washington University. The town hall meeting is the second in a three-part series produced under a partnership between NBC Learn (the educational arm of NBC News), the National Science Foundation (NSF) and Discover magazine.

The “Changing Planet” town hall series is intended to encourage student learning and to open a dialogue about climate change by gathering scientists, thought leaders, business people, and university students to discuss the facts of climate science, understand their implications, brainstorm solutions and even get involved in real research through citizen science projects on ScienceForCitizens.net.

“Today’s technology allows us to think about new energy options that impact the planet less and help the economy more,” said Thompson. “It is critical that we have these important discussions about how clean energy and the economy can go hand in hand, in order to bring the best solutions to the spotlight.”

This edition of “Changing Planet” brings together over 100 students and features four leading experts from the science and business communities: Chris Busch, Director of Policy and Program at Apollo Alliance; Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins, Chief Executive Officer of Green For All; Timothy Juliani, Director of Corporate Engagement at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change; and Ken Zweibel, Director at the GW Solar Institute.

Here’s a preview clip of the panelists at the “Changing Planet” town hall explaining why the U.S. is lagging behind other countries on clean energy, and what can be done about it:

The program will re-air on The Weather Channel on Tuesday, July 26 at 11 PM/ET and Wednesday, July 27 at 3 AM/ET. In addition, it will re-air on Saturday, July 30 at 9PM/ET and Sunday, July 31 at 12 AM/ET, 3 AM/ET and 6 PM/ET, and will be available for viewing online on nbclearn.com/climate and discovermagazine.com and ScienceForCitizens.net. A special print adaptation of “Changing Planet” will appear in the September 2011 issue of Discover magazine, available on August 9.

The first “Changing Planet” town hall was hosted at Yale University in January of 2011 and was moderated by NBC News Special Correspondent Tom Brokaw. Video of that event can be found here. The final town hall will be held at Arizona State University on August 25. [If you'd like to attend, kindly refer to the evite at the bottom of this post.]

The “Changing Planet” series is taped before a live audience at each university, produced by NBC Learn, and underwritten by NSF, in cooperation with Discover magazine.

In addition to the “Changing Planet” town halls, NBC Learn and NSF are working together to produce a series of 17 reports looking at the impact of climate change in various locations around the world. From Bermuda’s tropical seas to the Arctic Ocean, each story follows scientists in the field who are studying the dramatic impacts of rising temperatures in the air, in the water, and on land. The series is narrated by Anne Thompson.

Designed for use in the classroom, each report is correlated to state standards and includes a lesson plan with activities created by the “Windows to the Universe” project team at the National Earth Science Teachers Association, led by Dr. Roberta Johnson. The videos are available on nbclearn.com/climate, nsf.gov, and Windows2Universe.org, and are available for widespread broadcast and digital distribution.

About NBC Learn

NBC Learn is the educational arm of NBC News dedicated to providing resources for students, teachers, and lifelong learners. The online resources NBC Learn has created for the education community leverages nearly 80 years of historic news coverage, documentary materials, and current news broadcasts. The NBC News Archives on Demand feature gives students and teachers access to thousands of video clips from the NBC News archives, including great historic moments–from the Great Depression to the Space Race to the latest political coverage. NBC Learn also offers primary source materials, lesson plans and classroom planning resources, and additional text and image resources from our content partners.

About the National Science Foundation

The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency that supports fundamental research and education across all fields of science and engineering. In fiscal year (FY) 2010, its budget is about $6.9 billion. NSF funds reach all 50 states through grants to nearly 2,000 universities and institutions. Each year, NSF receives over 45,000 competitive requests for funding, and makes over 11,500 new funding awards. NSF also awards over $400 million in professional and service contracts yearly.

About Discover

Now in its 31st year of publication, Discover magazine covers a wide range of topics related to science and technology. Key subjects include physics; astronomy and space exploration; the brain; medicine; biology and evolution; and energy and the environment. Both in print and online, the magazine’s award-winning staff brings these topics to life with the help of the leading science writers and photographers. Discover is the largest general science interest magazine in the world, with over six million readers every month.

About The Weather Channel Companies

The Weather Channel Companies (TWCC) are made up of The Weather Channel® television network, The Weather Channel digital properties, and WSI. The Weather Channel is based in Atlanta and is seen in more than 100 million U.S. households. TWCC also operates Weatherscan®, a 24-hour all-local weather network; The Weather Channel Radio Network; and The Weather Channel HD. The digital properties of TWCC, which include the weather.com® site, The Weather Channel Desktop and The Weather Channel Mobile, reach more than 40 million monthly unique users, are the most popular source of online weather news and information, and offer the second most popular mobile application on all smart phones. WSI, headquartered in Andover, MA, primarily provides business-to-business weather services, particularly for the media, aviation, marine and energy sectors. TWCC is owned by a consortium made up of NBC Universal and the private equity firms The Blackstone Group and Bain Capital. For more information, visit www.weather.com/press.

About Science For Citizens

ScienceForCitizens.net is a website that connects regular people to real science they can do. It’s the place to find out about, take part in, and contribute to science through recreational activities and research projects. For scientists, this is the place to tell eager citizens about research and get them interested in helping out. ScienceForCitizens.net brings together the millions of citizen scientists in the world; the thousands of potential projects offered by researchers, organizations, and companies; and the resources, products, and services that enable citizens to pursue and enjoy these activities.

Meet Ms. United States (aka SciCheer’s creative director)

Darlene — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 15:58:44 +0000

Reposted on DiscoverMagazine.com.
Last night, Laura Eilers, AKA Ms. Virginia, was crowned MS. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA! The Science Cheerleaders–current and former NFL and NBA cheerleaders pursuing science and engineering careers–are very fortunate to have Laura as our extremely talented choreographer and creative director.

In addition to being a former cheerleader for the St. Louis Rams, cheerleader and choreographer for the Kansas City Chiefs, and an NFL Hall of Fame Game Cheerleader, she’s also the creator of Going Pro Entertainment, LLC, a network of professional cheerleading and dance alumni.

In school, her favorite science projects included “creating an amoeba structure out of cookie cake and icing, researching anthropologist Dian Fossey and her work with gorillas, and engineering a balsa wood structure that could withstand heavy weights. My team tested the structure repeatedly and competed with other schools for the strongest balsa structure.”

And, yes, she “most definitely believes evolution should be taught to our children.”

Congratulations, Laura!

And now, I’d like to turn your attention to a recent blog post written by Joshua Rosenau at Thoughts from Kansas. Following up on all the chatter surrounding the Miss USA contestants’ answers to the question of whether evolution should be taught in schools, Josh writes:

I’m glad to see professional cheerleaders and pageant contestants stepping up and talking about science. It has to have been nerve-wracking for the Miss USA contestants to be asked about the question without time to prep, and I think the awkwardness and “ums” and “likes” and “you knows” in the transcript mostly just reflect how people actually talk, especially when we’re nervous. The substance of the Miss USA pageant answers wasn’t at all impressive, but the fact that the pageant thought Miss USA should be able to speak about science education is impressive.

Ms. Virginia, or “huge science geek” Miss California (now Miss USA), can go into rooms and connect with audiences that just don’t care to listen to anything said by me, or PZ Myers, or Richard Dawkins, or Eugenie Scott. So can a professional cheerleader. And if the goal is to make a more science literate society, it behooves us to make sure that women waving pom poms or wearing a sash with a state name on it are just as ready to talk about the joys of science as a doctor in a white coat or a geologist in dusty jeans.

And at the end of the day, I smile every time I see Cavalier play this video. Because why shouldn’t a little girl at a massive science festival want to be a doctor and a teacher and a cheerleader? How better to encourage all of her dreams than to chat with a former professional cheerleader who is now a doctor and cheers for science? Someone else might see that you can call yourself a science geek and a history geek and still be chosen Miss USA, and decide to take her schooling more seriously. And that’s for the best.

Read Josh’s full post here.

SciCheers get “often-ignored populations excited about the basics of science”

Darlene — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 17:24:40 +0000

Now THAT’s what we’re talkin’ ’bout.

I’ll be blunt. I was a little nervous about speaking at the huge Netroots Nation conference a couple of weeks ago, where they “…push the practice of online and offline organizing forward and change the debate on policies.” I was there to talk about ways to reach people–with science–in unexpected places. Wasn’t entirely sure these (mostly liberal, certainly progressive) good folks would want to hear about our recipe of professional cheerleaders, sports fans, bar patrons, amateur scientists…

BUT…check this out! BoingBoing reporter, Maggie Koerth-Baker, was one of the attendees. Readers of SciCheer will probably appreciate her take.

Cavalier is the brains behind the Science Cheerleaders, which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. There are cheerleaders. They are talking about science. And you ought to resist the urge to brush this off as fluff. That’s because Cavalier is using the concept as a way to get often-ignored populations excited about the basics of science. At Netroots, she told the audience about taking a team of Science Cheerleaders into a Philadelphia bar during a football game to talk about geometry. When you’ve got a drunk guy swiping your megaphone to yell about vectors, I actually think you’re doing something right. (Plus, it was more than a little awesome to watch her video clip wherein several pro-sports cheerleaders discussed their other careers in medicine, biology, neuroscience, and math.)

If you assume cheerleaders are bimbos and bar patrons won’t care about math, then you’re never going to get those people thinking seriously about the science of climate.

Read the full post, here (it’s worth it, promise).

Speaking at Netroots Nation and then Stanford

Darlene — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 22:58:31 +0000

Heading to Stanford University to talk about education avenues for synthetic biology then it’s off to Minneapolis, MN to speak at the Netroots Nation conference where I’ll address novel ways to get folks involved in scientific research and science policy discussions.

“…pushing the practice of online and offline organizing forward and changing the debate on policies.”

Science Policy in Unexpected Places
Fri, 06/17/2011 – 4:30pm, M100 H

In the last two years science has been restored to its rightful place, as scientific innovation has been put at the center of our national agenda. But American students lag the world in science education, and too many Americans think science is too hard, too scary or too boring. How can scientists and policymakers engage a public that too often thinks science is dull? How do we bring this wary public into crucial decisions about the jobs and industries and discoveries that will define the future? With trading cards that teach about conservation, cheerleaders who encourage citizen science, and outreach to weathercasters and moviemakers, this panel has done it and will tell you how to do the same.
PANELISTS: Josh Rosenau, John Abraham, Darlene Cavalier, Heidi Cullen, Rick Loverd, Shawn Otto

BioBricks at Stanford University: June 16, 2011

The emerging field of Synthetic Biology aims to utilize rapid developments in biotechnology to engineer synthetic biological systems for useful purposes, and in doing so, increase our understanding of and interactions with the natural world. SBx.0 draws attendees from around the world.

The SBx.0 international conference series is the preeminent meeting in the field of Synthetic Biology. Started in 2004 with SB1.0 at MIT, the conference was envisioned as an event that would bring together the then-nascent community of biological engineers who were utilizing DNA to build biological systems and bringing engineering principles to bear on biological problems.

SB1.0 through SB4.0 have hosted over 1,500 researchers from more than 18 countries and have been held on 3 continents. In addition to presentations of cutting-edge biotechnologies, the meetings have included discussions to place the research within its current and future social context, including issues of biosafety, biosecurity, bioethics, and intellectual property. Another unique feature of the conference series is that it brings together academic, government, and industrial researchers and students from a variety of disciplines, including engineering, molecular biology, computer science, biochemistry, biophysics, industrial biotechnology, biosecurity, environmental sciences, public policy and bioethics. This interdisciplinary gathering facilitates interactions between the researchers and others in support of the work and continues to build the community of biological engineers.

“Educational avenues for synthetic biology.” Participants:
Darlene Cavalier, ScienceCheerleader.com
King Lau Chow, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Jonathan Eisen, UC Davis and PLoS Biology
Ellen Jorgensen, Genspace NYC and New York Medical College
Ilona Miko, Nature Education
Judy Scotchmoor, UC Berkeley

Moderator: Natalie Kuldell, MIT

2011 Risk Science Symposium

Darlene — Sat, 21 May 2011 00:30:37 +0000

Received this invitation from Andrew Maynard at the University of Michigan. It’s open to all so if I’m sharing it with you.

I wanted to bring to your attention the 2011 Risk Science Symposium. The symposium brings together an exciting set of speakers from multiple sectors who will take the lead in making this a unique forum for exploring emerging challenges and opportunities associated with human health risks and technology innovation. The two day symposium will address how new approaches can support sustainable social and economic progress to potential health risks in today’s technologically complex and interconnected world, how more proactive approaches to addressing emerging rsk issues can be developed, and how innovation might lead to more effective ways of addressing human health risks.

More information on the symposium can be found on the web at http://umriskcenter.org/symp.htm

Look forward to seeing you there!

Andrew Maynard

Director, University of Michigan Risk Science Center
Chair, 2011 Risk Science Symposium
http://umriskcenter.org/symp.htm

Citizen science: Armies of volunteers aid research

Darlene — Mon, 09 May 2011 12:39:23 +0000

From the Associated Press, this morning. It’s been printed in the Philadelphia Inquirer, The Washington Times, USA Today and many other media outlets:

Once restricted mainly to counting birds – most famously, in Audubon’s 111-year-old Christmas Bird Count – citizen science has expanded rapidly in recent years, both in number and variety of projects. Some projects count things – fireflies, ladybugs, frogs, herring. Others record data on water quality, weather, flower budding and other phenomena. Still others already have the data but need a lot of people to sort through it.

Darlene Cavalier, whose ScienceForCitizens website brings together volunteers and research projects, said she started the site when she was a graduate student writing a thesis on promoting citizen science. The site’s growth from a blog listing about 40 projects in 2006 to a busy portal with more than 400 projects in its database today mirrors the expansion of citizen science in the US, Cavalier said.

“My goal is to get as many people as possible involved in citizen science projects,” said Cavalier.
Read the full story.

Mon, 09 May 2011 8:58a.m.

By Mary Esch

Environmental scientist Chris Bowser pulled a tiny shrimp-like creature from the muck in an eel trap as teenagers in chest waders surrounded him in the rushing Fall Kill, where they were collecting transparent baby eels.

“This is called a scud, or amphipod,” Bowser said, launching into a riff on the food chain and pollution.

“Are you going to eat it?” a girl interrupted.

“What? No!” Bowser snapped, then reconsidered and popped it in his mouth. “Tastes like shrimp seasoned with mud.”

Besides being a researcher in the state’s Hudson River Estuary Program, Bowser leads citizen projects that collect reams of data for scientists and resource management agencies while engaging volunteers in hands-on science and teaching them something about the world around them. His Steve Irwin-style exuberance and enthusiasm for his subject matter make Bowser an ideal leader in the rapidly expanding world of citizen science.

“My goal is to get as many people as possible involved in citizen science projects,” said Cavalier. The more people learn about science and build a personal connection to research, the better they will be able to participate in policy decisions related to science and the environment, she said.

For researchers, volunteers provide free labour and are able to complete a great deal of work in a short time if there are a lot of them. Galaxy Zoo was launched in 2007 to enlist volunteers to classify photographs of a million galaxies. More than 250,000 people have participated so far, providing information used in numerous peer-reviewed journal articles.

“Professional science communities were a little wary of involving the public in the past because of trust issues and concerns about bad data,” Cavalier said. Better design of projects and new methods of weeding out bad data have overcome much of that concern, she said.

Janis Dickinson, director of citizen science at Cornell Lab of Ornithology, is co-author of a book soon to be published about the lab’s highly regarded citizen science projects, which include Project FeederWatch, the Great Backyard Bird Count, and eBird, a global online tool where birders enter sightings into a massive database.

“The book is about how we can harness the internet to create conservation communities that are actually practicing data collection over huge and relevant geographic scales that really encompass the distributions of the organisms that we’re concerned about,” Dickinson said. “The internet allowed us suddenly to be able to take in data from a broad public, now globally with eBird, and then process that data and provide tools to the public so they can visualise and manipulate the data.”

As citizen science has become more sophisticated, the scientific community has embraced it, Dickinson said.

“Ten years ago when our researchers tried to publish they’d usually get a peer reviewer who was sceptical of the data,” Dickinson said. “We don’t see that any more. The research associate working in my group, who did his Ph.D. working from citizen science data, submitted a paper last August that was one of the fastest accepted I’ve ever seen.”

Bowser said researchers are becoming more accepting of volunteer-based data collection, but only if the protocols are straightforward enough and the citizens participating are trained and able to follow those protocols carefully.

“This eel project is a great model for citizen science,” Bowser said after wading ashore and leaving the students to their eel counting and water sampling. “For one thing, the species has a real demonstrated conservation need. We’ve seen a decline in American eels – in some populations 80 to 90 percent – since the 1970s, and we’re not sure why. The data we collect goes to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, which wants this information.”

Volunteers like to know they’re doing something with real value, he said. They also like the fact that it requires a time commitment of just two months in the spring.

“Also, the eel has this very compelling story,” Bowser said. “They’re born in the ocean in the Sargasso Sea, then travel thousands of kilometres as baby glass eels to swim up rivers and populate the watersheds. And they’re charismatic in an underdog, Humphrey Bogart kind of way.”

“It’s good for kids to get outdoors and see what’s out there,” said 20-year-old Jorge Reyes-Bravo, who started working on the eel project when he was in high school and continues to volunteer now that he’s in community college majoring in environmental studies. “We don’t want to see species disappear. We want to figure out why they’re disappearing and help them.”

Changing Planet @Yale

Darlene — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 18:40:02 +0000

Changing Planet is a series of three, televised Town Hall meetings, hosted by Tom Brokaw and Anne Thompson of NBC News, on what climate change means. The first event was held at Yale on 1/25 and the just-broadcast video of that program is posted above. It first aired on the Weather Channel, this weekend. A feature article appears in the June issue of Discover Magazine (available on newsstands in mid-May).

The second event was held at George Washington University on 4/12 (thanks to all of you who came to the event!). The final, televised Town Hall meeting will be held at AZ State University on 8/25.
The series can be followed on Twitter #ChangingPlanet

This series is produced by Discover Magazine and NBC Learn in conjunction with the National Science Foundation, Planet Forward and Science For Citizens (a sister site of SciCheer).
For more videos about climate change, please go to www.nbclearn.com/climate

There are many ways you can get involved in climate-related research to help the planet. Here’s one example currently featured on Science For Citizens.
Researchers need YOUR help tracking the presence of American robins (Turdus migratorius) so they can compare your observations with other environmental data, including climate and weather changes.

American robins are arriving in the Colorado Rockies 14 days earlier than they did 30 years ago and have been spotted in parts of Alaska for the first time. Because robins consume a wide variety of foods, an increase or decrease in their population may indicate (or impact) changes in other animal and plant species. It’s time for you to get involved and help the planet!

1. Spot a robin
2. Record the date and location
3. Take note of its activity (what is it doing? what is it eating? is it near other birds?)
Now, share your observations here, and, in the process, help researchers at Nature’s Notebook, a project of the USA National Phenology Network. The scientists will report back to you regularly!

Shad, a reprise.

Darlene — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 21:28:01 +0000

It’s shad season here in Philly. This fish is even more remarkable than your average salmon. Find out why, right here.
Time to dust off the old shad pieces featured here in the past…including a folksy audio file you might enjoy!
(This is a picture of a Shad’s otolith or ear bone.) Close followers of ScienceCheerleader.com are aware of my fascination with the Shad. Managed to feature this near-extinct fish in a science policy paper , a folksy radio documentary, and a (short) environment article in Discover Magazine (june ’09) reaching more than 7 million readers.
Wish I could say there are some updates to add, that things are looking up for the shad, but that’s not the case….yet.
Are you a shad connoisseur? Tell us more in the comments section or over on our Facebook page.

“Sometimes scientists must make themselves heard.”

Darlene — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 15:39:58 +0000

Credit: John Overmyer/Phila Inq

Dr. Steven M. Altschuler, chief executive of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, penned this editorial in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer. This was written as part of the Philadelphia Science Festival, continuing through April 28.
A good reminder that scientists have valuable information the public ought to learn so they can make better-informed decisions. (What’s not referenced, is that the public often also has valuable information scientists and policy makers ought to consider when assessing risks and societal implications of emerging fields of research and technology.)

Here’s an excerpt from Dr. Altschuler’s piece:

Often, it makes sense to extend their scientific findings beyond our patients and care providers by speaking out on public-health issues.
In the public exchange of ideas, scientists are not voicing just another set of opinions; theirs are backed by peer-reviewed evidence. The famous American physicist Richard Feynman is quoted as saying, “It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is; it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong.”

To be clear, scientists don’t have all the answers; but they do have “evidence-based” information which should trump misinformed opinions and anecdotes.
It’s also important to remember that much of science is an ongoing process full of promise and peril and sometimes conflicting information: “red wine is good for you!” “red wine may increase chances of developing breast cancer.”

Don’t let incompatible media snippets turn you off. The last thing we need is another excuse not to make the effort to become better informed on important research issues. If you’re confused about what you read, dig a little deeper, or simply ask your doctor (or me) to point you to reliable sources of information. Read more about identifying reliable sources of medicine.
The good news is, there are mounting efforts underway to bring together the scientists, policy makers, and the public to confer on a number of emerging research topics such as geoengineering and synthetic biology. Don’t be surprised to receive an invitation to participate in one such effort before too long!
Until then, stay informed and don’t be afraid to ask questions and engage in dialogue with the scientists who are “making themselves heard.” I bet we’ll all learn from each other.