Research on energy, and into physical sciences generally, got a double-headed boost yesterday. It appears to underscore emphatically the Obama administration’s conviction that scientific leadership is a direct reason for US innovation and private sector prosperity for the last century or so, and that the nation needs more of it to get back on beam.

Energy Sec’y Steven Chu, visiting Brookhaven Nat’l Lab on Long Island, laid out a $1.2 billion expenditure under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.  Mostly it is for physics and related disciplines, with new hardware with payrolls to match. One goal is to boost a clean energy revolution in the US. Basic research infrastructure gets a big piece of it too. As Chu announced his department’s specifics, President Obama at the White House released a fact sheet on a much bigger range of federal energy investments, met with leading researchers and energy entrepreneurs, pledged a fat list of tax credits to encourage investors to put big stakes on clean energy, and generally banged the pots to tell the world that lean, green energy remains high on his to-do list.

The news played widely, but hardly universally. National and int’l outlets focussed on  the big picture from Chu and Obama. Local ones looked at the new widgets, gee-whiz machinery, and hiring likely at their nearest national laboratory. Various light sources – applied-science devices for making atomic-scale, X-ray images of such things as advanced materials and rapid chemical processes – seem especially favored.

BIG PICTURE Accounts:

• AP – Philip Elliott: Obama unyielding on energy proposals ;
• Voice of America : Obama Pledges Support for US ‘Clean Energy’ ;
• Guardian (UK) Ewen MacAskill (in Wash.DC): Obama pledges billions for renewable energy projects/President says $129b that has been allocated for environmental plans is off limits to Congress ;
• NYTimes – Andrew C. Revkin (DotEarth site): Obama and Energy Chief Push Innovation ;
• Wash. Post – William Branigan : Obama Lays Out Clean-energy Plans ;

WHAT’S IN IT FOR US? (Local Coverage):

• Knoxville Sentinel – Frank Munger : Stimulus plan brings $71.2 million to ORNL ; A new Chemical and Materials Science lab included ;
• San Francisco Chronicle – David Perlman : Cal, Stanford labs get millions from stimulus; That’s $184 million inn all. The UC-operated Lawrence Berkeley Lab will expand its X-ray spewing, synchrotron-harnessed Advanced Light Source and help build a new, laser-based particle accelerator; the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center will spiff up its Linac Coherent Light Source, a machine in the same general category as LBL’s light source. Story’s first quote includes the magic word, ‘jobs’ ;
• San Mateo County Times/Oakland Tribune – Josh Richman : Bay Area labs get $184 million in stimulus funds ;
• Newsday – Patrick Whittle, Reid Epstein: Brookhaven Nat’l lab gets stimulus funding ; Yet another light source, the National Synchrotron Light Source II ; Plus companion story: Obama plan on renewable energy funds draw LI praise ;
• Chicago Tribune – Jo Napolitano: US gives two Chicago-area labs $48 million ; Mostly to Fermilab, much of that for a neutrino detector; some to Argonne national lab to fix its creaky electrical system.
• Mid-Columbia Tri-City Herald  :  PNNL: Richland lab to receive $124 million in stimulus money ; Big item is an Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, plus an Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Climate Research Facility.

Blizzard of Grist for the Mill:

Dept. of Energy Press Release ; White House Press Release ;  White House Clean Energy Fact Sheet ;

DOE p.r. effort included targeted info including: Oak Ridge Nat’l Lab Press Release ; Lawrence Berk. Lab. Press Release ; Brookhaven Nat’l Lab Press Release ; SLAC Press Release ; Pacific Northwest Nat’l Lab Press Release ; Fermilab Press Release ; and probably more…

Meanwhile, in Texas, related news:

• Dallas Morning News – Dave Michaels: Stimulus funds sought for West Texas coal project ; Not quite what it seems. This would be clean coal, including sequestration. But it’s not that green either. It’d pump the CO2 into the ground to free more crude oil for the pumping rigs. And the Texans only want a loan, not a grant.
• Wall Street Journal – Rebecca Smith: States Vie for Share of Clean-Coal Cash ; a good look at the big picture context for the D. Morning News story ;

Pic: Proposed BNL Nat’l Synchroton Light Source , source;

-CP

(English intro to Spanish lang. post) Let’s consider two papers published in NEJM last week. One, a European study, said that PSA-based screening reduced the rate of death from prostate cancer by 20%. The other, from the US, concludes that screening does not reduce deaths significantly. Did Spanish language reporters describe both, only one, or none? Short answer: Darth Vader’s disease took most of the spotlight.

Situación muy, muy interesante la que analizamos hoy.

Imaginaros que en el mismo número del New England Journal of Medicine, uno al ladito del otro, se publican dos extensos estudios analizando el impacto de la prueba del PSA en la mortalidad por cáncer de próstata. Uno concluye que la prueba de la PSA reduce el 20% el número de muertes, y el otro que no lo hace de manera significativa. ¿Cómo planteáis la noticia? Ambos se tratan de estudios randomizados tremendamente amplios; el primero está hecho en Europa y siguió durante 12 años la evolución de 162000 hombres de entre 50-70 años, el segundo se realizó en EEUU y participaron 77.000 personas durante 10 años.

El diagnóstico del cáncer de próstata por la proteína PSA lleva tiempo rodeado de controversia debido a la gran candidad de falsos positivos que se producen, y a las desventajas de una intervención sobre un tipo de tumor que aparece en edades avanzadas y en muchas ocasiones tiene una evolución muy lenta. Si NEJM publica juntas ambas investigaciones, es por algo. A no ser que sólo te fijes en la nota de EuropaPress en que ignora sin contemplaciones el estudio norteamericano, la reacción más periodística es darte cuenta que aquí hay una historia muy suculenta!

Esta es la actitud que tomó Fabiola Czubaj en su excelente nota en La Nación (Argentina). En ella, entrevistó a varios oncólogos para ir directamente al meollo de la cuestión: ¿es el PSA un buen marcador del cáncer de próstata? “pésimo, pero es lo único que tenemos”, opinaba uno de los expertos entrevistados.

El test de PSA mide los niveles sanguíneos de una proteína segregada por las células de la próstata.  Uno de los puntos controvertidos es que los valores normales se consideran por debajo de 4ng/ml, pero en el estudio europeo se bajaron a 3ng/ml para no dejar pacientes sin diagnóstico. Otro de los científicos entrevistados opina que esto conlleva un sobredignóstico, y “por debajo de 4ng/ml se podrían detectar cánceres que quizá nunca se manifestarán. En esos casos, un tratamiento nos haría caer en un exceso terapéutico con sus efectos adversos”

El periódico mexicano Info7 también analiza la controversia recogiendo las opiniones de médicos que dejarían de hacer el test del PSA a partir de los 70 años: “”Los datos que han surgido muestran apenas un beneficio relativo mínimo” y otros que encuentran errores metodológicos al estudio estadounidense, y para los que los beneficios del test de PSA superan las desventajas: “podríamos estar detectando muchos cánceres que nunca amenazan la vida. Pero estamos salvando vidas”

El Vocero en Puerto Rico, o La Voz de Houston y El nuevo Herald en EEUU recogen la nota de Stephanie Nano para AP, en la que también se destaca el aumento de la controversia que han generado

En España, Isabel Perancho sí tiene en cuenta ambas investigaciones para su reportaje en el suplemento de salud de El Mundo, en el que investiga a un científico español que participó en el estudio europeo y lamenta que la discrepancia entre las conclusiones estadounidenses y europeas «reste fuerza» a la ventaja detectada en el ‘Viejo Continente’.
Sin embargo, algunos otros periódicos como el diario ADN o Metro simplemente reproducen el contenido de la nota de EuropaPress y titulan de manera contundente y sin más análisis que la prueba del PSA reduce un 20% las muertes por cáncer de próstata. Belén Diego amplia información desde Estocolmo para Rioja2, pero tampoco menciona el estudio estadounidense.

Sí habla de las diferencias entre estudios Clara Simon Vazquez para Diario Médico, pero las asigna por libre  a que en el estudio norteamericano “el tiempo de seguimiento es menor (máximo 10 años frente a los 12 del europeo) y el número de pacientes también: 76.693 frente a 162.243 europeos”. A pesar de citar a los dos, no se profundiza en las discrepancias y se ensalzan los resultados del estudio europeo. Un experto español entrevistado defiende la disminución a 3ng/ml el límite de detección de la PSA.
Una consideración para terminar: Quizás es cierto que las dudas generadas por las diferentes conclusiones de los dos estudios publicados en NEJM los conviertan en una notícia poco atractiva para las redacciones de los periódicos. Pero no cabe la menor duda que son las dos investigaciones más amplias que se han realizado en screening de cáncer de próstata, y que se trata de un asunto que con el progresivo envejecimiento de la población puede afectar a una enorme cantidad de personas. Deja un poco desazonado que no se haya tratado con profundidad en más medios, y en cambio haya tenido mucho más éxito entre las redacciones de los periódicos la noticia sobre el anuncio público del cáncer de próstata del actor que encarnaba a Darth Vader .

- PE

From Norway’s Troll Research station in Antarctica the AP‘s Charles J. Hanley, who has been down there for quite awhile (unless he’s back now….??), has a good adventure yarn and reminder that doing science in such a place can be frustrating, hard work. (*UPDATE Correction: He was there just three days, one learns, for the Int’l Polar Year’s end celebration to file spot news and gather string for some features. Made good use of his time, it would appear). He heard a story that, even though it’s been some while since key events transpired, is too good simply to ignore. It features researchers who drove to the South Pole last year and made the return trip this season, traveling in a tractor-hauled convoy that sounds like a slow motion, South Pole version of a luxury railroad train complete with sleepers and a kitchen on skis. It’s a great story. One regrets that no journalist, unless perhaps one did, managed to talk the party into letting him or her go along on at least one leg. That would be one ethereal, mesmerising assignment. (*Second late addition: A Norwegian TV crew did go along).
Pix: A line of Nunataks near Troll, pic by reporter Hanley.

-CP

A National Climate Service? Has a good ring to it. That and other ocean science and climate change topics come up in Juliet Eilperin‘s profile plus interview with Jane Lubchenco that ran over the weekend in the Washington Post. Lubchenco, whose nomination (along with that of John Holdren for science adviser) was held up for procedural reasons mainly, has finally cleared the Senata. The piece is fairly brief, and serves largely to salute an expected rise by NOAA as a center for both policy influence and science research. One notes that Eilperin’s story is corrected, to change a mis-reference to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution to Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratories. That is a mixup that a lot of other reporters have previously made.
See Also:

NYTimes Andrew C. Revkin on DotEarth blog ; LA Times Kenneth R. Weiss on Greenspace blog, and Weiss in Print Edition Friday ; AP Jeff Barnard ;

*UPDATE (March 25) NY Times – Cornelia Dean : NOAA Chief Believes in Science as Social Contract ;

-CP

Mount Redoubt, a volcano about 100 miles from Anchorage and known to have disrupted airline flights with its ash plumes, is at it again. After months of smaller blasts, it went off yesterday, Sunday, and is still pumping ash into the sky today. Flights are being canceled but, so far, news reports say it does not yet pose a serious threat.

Early yesterday the AP sent out a bulletin on the edifice’s rising tempo of earthquakes, followed last night by a second bulletin on the first three blasts. This morning the service’s Mary Pemberton updated that one.

Similarly The Anchorage Daily News‘s George Bryson filed last night, with continuing updates. By this morning the big-blast total reached five, with radar images showing plumes attaining 60,000 feet altitude.

Nobody in standard media news writing seems to have taken a moment to bring up Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal’s remarks mocking “volcano monitoring” after the Presidents address to the Senate. But a blogger at TPMmuckraker, Zachary Roth, did. It’s notable that Mr. Roth not only reacted in standard blog fashion, he made a call (or, at least, emailed). To a vulcanologist in Alaska. Good on him. Who says bloggers don’t report? (Note added after checking: Roth is in real life a real reporter at Washington Monthly and elsewhere….) ;

Grist for the Mill: USGS Alaska Volcano Observatory including a link to its staff’s tweets ;

-CP

Worries that massive, utility-scale solar harvesting farms out in the desert might seriously threaten local wildlife and vegetation have simmered for years, and especially in California. The AP‘s Kevin Freking over the weekend led a recent upsurge in news articles with his report on Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s proposal to take a lot of solar-eligible land out of the hands of the Bureau of Land Management. Her bill would turn select acreage into a National Monument, thus preventing much if any construction and roads. Among its backers is a man from the Wildlands Conservancy, which helped get much of the land donated to the public. He says, it says here, that extensive solar would “destroy the entire Mojave Desert ecosystem.” Wow. What’s that mean? Every single sidewinder, Joshua tree, creosote bush and cactus wren? Things could be bad but one wonders – shouldn’t the reporter press the source or find some other expert to assess the literal meaning of that statement? Politics is where hyperbole is the norm, but really…..

At East County Magazine, based in San Diego, editor Miriam Raftery jumps on the news. Her lede focusses on a local GOP member of Congress and his competing bill. It would exempt solar farms from strict environmental review on the BLM land that is most in contention. One thinks ah, a story that perhaps presents why industry thinks it can build big mirror and PV arrays in a way that lets the tortoises and other native residents survive and thrive. After all, it seems plausible that facilities that run without many people around, and that don’t shade too high a percentage of land, would perimit the ecosystem to recover within a few years of construction. Not so much like that – the story promptly points out that the lawmaker gets big donations from big solar. It then turns to other sources to explain why certain lands ought to remain off limits to its facilities.

*UPDATE: New York Times – Felicity Barringer : Environmentalists in a Clash of Goals ;  Ms. Barringer meets a man at the heart of the (selected) opposition to big solar, and goes with him to look at the land. Excellent summary, excellent atmosphere.
Other stories:

• Riverside Press Enterprise – David Danelski: Feinstein tries to halt solar projects on donated land ;

Grist for the Mill: Office of Sen. Dianne Feinstein Press Release ;

A flurry of news stories in the last two weeks have reported arguments among Mars specialists whether liquid, and very salty (perchlorate-rich) water splashed on to the now-frozen Phoenix lander near the planet’s north pole last year (this site mentioned some of this in an item on the NYTimes science section, earlier post). This week at the big, annual Lunar and Planetary Conference near Houston several papers will get into that issue and, more important, the implications for the whole planet’s hydrological cycle and geomorphology. Late last Friday Science News’s Ron Cowen filed another curtain raiser on the drops or not-drops question. Notably, he and a few other reporters continue to move the ball forward a bit. One of his sources is described in other accounts such as the NYTimes with apparent accuracy as dead-set convinced that the lander’s legs had no liquid drops on it. Cowen reports however that the man is nonetheless on board with dewdrop-advocates on a more important issue. One finds similar, but briefer, reporting at Scientific American from John Matson.  Phoenix’s discoveries on soild chemistry suggest such things are nonetheless possible in principle. That could mean much for for how and whether water is flowing just under the surface. One hopes one or a few reporters cruise the poster session and fill this drama out a bit further this week.

In all news reporting on the topic, the speculation about life on Mars – a will-o’-the-wisp but sure fire as a news hook – takes precedent over the more certain discovery. Mars’s surfaced is mostly frozen, but maybe not entirely.

Grist for the Mill:  Univ. Michigan Press Release ;

-CP

The LA Times‘s Louis Sahagun spent some time recently with commercial fishermen (fishers as a gender-free term just doesn’t yet scan in Tracker’s brain), sports fishers (ok ok), and marine biologists. California, he reports, leads the nation’s coastal states in establishing marine reserves. A prime goal is to provide a haven for reproduction of species gettting hammered by those who catch fish, molluscs, crustaceans etc. for either fun, profit, or both. It has the usual suspects, and a kicker quote at the end that reveals, if there were any doubt, whose side Sahagun is on. The piece’s blend of info and atmosphere feels right. The picture captured The Tracker’s attention. That’s the Casino, in Avalon, in the background. As a youth, on his first visit to the place, I imagined it full of glamorous young women in little black dresses. Like a James Bond movie. No such luck.

-CP

Tracking for the Knight tracker comes with a certain latitude in judgment. Therefore this item’s topic, as it bears upon neuroanatomy, is deemed a medical story. To wit: the Chronicle‘s Stacy Finz had the lead story Sunday in the garden section, renamed for the day Gnome and Garden. The story is on of course garden gnomes.

It included a panel of examples. The one to the right was among them. The main story was amusing – light and yet analytical, respectful of their kitsch and history. The examples included fat, explanatory captions on their histories. For the one to the right it is:

“Our kids named this very old cement gnome Bob after our friend who tried to commit suicide by shooting himself in the temple. He didn’t die, but succeeded in giving himself a lobotomy, which calmed him down, but left him with very little ambition. His sense of humor is still intact. You will notice that Bob has some damage to the top of his head.”

That is not a caption. That is a whole Coen Brothers movie.

-CP

The Post‘s sharp-eyed Juliet Eilperin keeps her readers up to date on the yins and yangs of land policy bills today, focussing on the remote Aleutian village of King Cove, Alaska, its residents’ inability to drive (rather than take an air cushion ferry) to an airport, and Izembek National Wildlife Refuge. A road that crosses part of the last item would be built under a huge “bipartisan lands package poised to make in into law,” she reports.

One of her sources, with a private support group for such refuges nationwide, calls the project a boondoggle that makes the refuge a “sacrificial lamb.” The story does provide some info on protections for the refuge that also are included in the package’s line item on the road (which has surfaced occasionally, previously, in national news reports). The Tracker would however like to know more, stemming from this item (fifth one down) at Alaska’s public radio network APRN. If there is a 61,000-acre addition to the refuge in exchange for the 206 acres needed for the road, that seems like a potentially mollifying factor.

Pic source ;

-CP

The US Interior Department yesterday released a report, requested by the Bush administration, entitled clunkily but effectively The State of the Birds  / United States of America 2009. Led by Hawaii, where native birds are particularly in trouble, it says that nearly a third of the 800 bird species native to the US are endangered, threatened, or in serious decline. The Audubon Society, which releases its own state of birds reports, has described things similarly (see previous post, and this Audubon site). The Interior Sec’y promoted it with a press teleconference from the Nat’l Press Club. This brought fast, wide pickup. Don’t ignore the Grist at the bottom. It has links to the raw material including a remarkable video that Cornell University’s Ornithology Lab produced, presumably on DoI’s tab.

Stories:

• NYTimes – Cornelia Dean : One Third of U.S. Bird Species Endangered, Survey Finds ;
• Greenwire via NYTimes – Allison Winter:  Report showing threats to birds spurs call for conservation ;
• AP, two reports; Audrey McAvoy : Nearly all native birds in Hawaii in peril ; Dina Cappiello : Energy production choking bird population ;
• Reuters – Deborah Zabarenko: Nearly a third of U.S. bird species in trouble ; Includes a notable bit of info from the Sec’y of the Interior – existing federal funds for bird protection are getting a boost from the President’s economic stimulus package.
• San Francisco Chronicle – Jane Kay : The state of birds in the U.S. ; Her third graf of this front page story lists notable California birds on the list.
• Washington Post – Juliet Eilperin: Major Decline Found In Some Bird Groups / But Conservation Has Helped Others ;
• Science News – Solmaz Barazesh : U.S. Bird Populations in Decline, Report Says ;
• Wired News – Brandon Keim: Citizen Science Is for the Birds ; Nice to find one without a straight news lede on this. In the brief piece Keim focusses on how the general populace contributed to, and can move forward, the report’s conclusions. Plus a nice quote from one of the reports scientist authors. He says some of his colleagues have tin heads.
• NPR All Things Considered – Elizabeth Shogren : Reports Warns Many Bird Species Declining in U.S. ;
• Wall St. Journal – Stephen Power : Nearly One-Third of U.S. Bird Species Seen at Risk;
• Topnews.com – Manjinder Singh : Study: One-third of US bird species in danger! ; This US reporter for an India-based pub. likes exclamation marks and, most notably, has his story run with the cheeky blue bird pic. It’s a slightly off beat but well-done bit of reporting.
• El Paso Times – Diana Washington Valdez : Threats put 180 species of birds on watch list ; Well localized to Texas’s white-winged doves and great-tailed grackles etc.
• Duluth News Tribune – John Myers: Interior secretary highlight plight of America’s birds ;
• Christian Sci. Monitor – Mark Clayton : One third of US bird species are in peril / Climate change, oil spills imperil birds, according to landmark report ; Story notes a “sharp break” in how this report is being handled now and how it might have been pushed under the Bush administration. Sharp angle. Somebody on the copy desk however should have fixed that hed’s use of both peril and imperil. Tsk tsk. ;
• Sci. American – John Platt: State of US birds report is a ‘clarion call to action’ ;

Grist for the Mill: US DoI Press Release, Report (links to full pdf plus a powerful, eye-popping promotional video well worth watching – and showing to any little kids in the house) ;

-CP

Years ago, when The Tracker was a real reporter with a beat, I signed up for a renewable energy e-newsletter (Renewable Energy World). It’s interesting so I never canceled it. This morning it carried a piece so nicely and spritely written I told myself too bad this is a trade pub, else I could give it a shout out. Then I got to the bottom and found it had been excerpted from the Washington Monthly. That’s legit and it has the full, much more satisfying story. One of WM’s editors, Mariah Blake, visited Gainesville Florida. There she meets a fellow “with slicked-back hair and ostrich boots.” He’s an investor. At a time when solar energy venders nationwide, like most everybody except auctioneers of foreclosed homes, are in a slump they are putting up rooftop panels in this Florida city as fast as they can pull the triggers on their power bit drivers and nail guns. Not much here at all on technology or science, per se, but it has a great deal to do with energy policy. The city is a leader in, speaking of bit drivers, putting the screws to the local utility. It does sound like a serious warping of the market due to a town ordinance requiring a “feed-in tariff.” The power company is compelled to buy solar power at a handsome rate from anybody in the area selling it. The Tracker gets electricity essentially free in terms of cash flow, from the roof over my head. But I can only zero the bill. I can’t make money. This system does the latter.

The story could be better, as can any. An unanswered question is what the utility’s managers think, and how they’ll integrate all that fluctuating solar power into the grid. It does say here that other nations, notably Germany, have made it work like gangbusters. Blake’s lead vignette on Florida takes the story into an in-depth look at such things in Europe. Oh great, here come the snorters. Europe, socialist Europe?!

A few more feed-in tariff stories:

• All-Africa.com: South Africa: Wind Farms Want Higher Feed-in Tariffs;
• Fairbanks News Miner (op-ed) Tom DeLong: State should buy renewable power ;
• S. Africa Business Report – Ingi Salgado: Eco-sceptics poison potential for renewables ;
• Hawaii Reporter (Op-ed) Ed Case: Hope For Hawaii’s Energy Future ;

-CP