Last night, I was reading through the January edition of Discover Magazine, which chronicles the 100 Top Science Stories of 2009, when I made quite a discovery (pun intended): a story written by our very own Darlene Cavalier placed #69! Darlene’s piece, “Prize-Driven Research Takes Off,” focuses on the growing number of organizations offering prizes for successful science and technology innovations. The article should be released online in the next few weeks, and we’ll make sure to post it here.

Congratulations Darlene! What an honor!

What does Cap and Trade mean? Where do the candidates say they stand on this particular issue and how do their words compare to their voting histories?

Any mom who used bingo chips to barter babysitting hours will understand this analogy immediately. Take a group of three moms. Give each, say 10 bingo chips. One chip = one hour of babysitting. If Dana asks Joanne to watch her boys for two hours, she must give Joanne two chips. Joanne can ask Tania to watch her girls for one hour but she will lose a chip to Tania.
Need more chips? Sacrifice some nights out, offer to watch some kids and rebuild your chip reserve
Of course, there are some differences between the babysitting chip method and the cap and trade system:
1) In general, when political wonks refer to Cap and Trade they are not organizing babysitting schedules. They are most likely talking about an approach used to control pollution by providing economic incentives for achieving reductions in the emissions of pollutants.

2) Babysitting chips cannot be bought and sold (despite my numerous attempts to do so). Within a cap and trade system, companies are given a limit–capped–on how much they can pollute the environment. Let’s say they are given a limit of 25. That’s 25 points or credits (or chips) a company can use. They are licensed accordingly. They will not be given more chips by the government. As they start to near their cap, they must buy credits (chips) from other companies who have an excess of credits. This is the “trade” part. Trading money for credits. How would a company have an excess of credits? By lowering their pollution output.  In effect, the buyer is paying a charge for polluting, while the seller is being rewarded for having reduced emissions by more than was needed. Thus, in theory, those that can easily reduce emissions most cheaply will do so, achieving the pollution reduction at the lowest possible cost to society.

Both candidates are in favor of a Cap and Trade policy. Read on.

This morning–as part of its two-week investigative report comparing the candidates’ answers to 14 Science Debate questions to their voting history–Popular Science takes a look at Climate Change. (Yesterday, the topic was Innovation.) Both candidates agree that global warming poses a serious threat and needs to be tackled immediately with carbon emission reduction. Both candidates want to institute a cap and trade system to make carbon reduction market friendly. But do they have the record to back it up?

In short: the answer is yes. Read the brief, but important, details here.

Tomorrow, PopSci will take a shot at Energy.

Today, Popular Science magazine announced a two-week investigative report comparing McCain and Obama’s answers to 14 Science Debate questions to the senator’s voting records “to see if their history matched up with their promises for the future.”

The report,  titled “The Record Behind the Words: Unpacking ScienceDebate2008,” opens with issue number one: Innovation. The Science Debate question posed to the candidate was this: “What policies will you support to ensure that America remains the world leader in innovation?”

How did their answers stack up to their voting histories? Read the brief details here. 

Hint: Popular Science reports, “Not surprisingly, the candidates took the not-so-bold stance of being for innovation. The first bunch of ScienceDebate answers seem well supported by the candidates’ legislative histories. Come back tomorrow when we examine their answers regarding climate change.“ 

Science Cheerleader’s Simple Summary:  Obama is for increasing funds for basic research and education. McCain also supports greater funding for education but also wants to put a man on the moon…and Mars.
Pick me! Pick me! 

Seriously, come back tomorrow. The comparison between the candidates’ answers promises to be more dramatic.