The Tracker noticed this morning that high on the NYTimes’s most-trafficked blog list is a post by Ed Yong, Brit science writer, on an amazing and slightly discomfiting discovery by Dutch researchers that indicates yet again that the emotion-buffeted human brain is weird. This is already circulating madly, so needs no boost from me, it appears.  But if it hasn’t reached you already, take a look at his entry at Not Exactly Rocket Science. It gives me one bit of solace – perhaps by using a somewhat dated and decidedly heavy Toshiba laptop with the full screen, I am thereby behaving as a more serious fellow than if I were to have invested in one of those flyweight notebooks or superthin Macs.

    Plus, one wonders – remember back in the day at university when, before on line teaching aids including text books lightened the load, serious students lugged huge book bags around with truly weighty and cerebral tomes jammed into them, intimidating those of us bithely skipping about with just one or two books stacked on a clipboard? Maybe it was the lugging, not the things lugged, that made them say things that seemed so, you know, heavy.   

    One salutes also the courtesy with which Yong acknowledges, after thinking he was first out of the gate, that he was blogally scooped  by Vaughan Bell at a site called Mind Hacks.  But Yong did it funnier.

-CP

The Tracker is wracking his brain and can’t quite recall where or why it was, but I’ve seen that image of transfixingly regular holes in the sea floor that accompanies the lede piece in today’s Science Times. Or a pic very much like it anyway. William J. Broad tells of a near-obsessive hunt by marine biologists for a living Paleodictyon nodosum. Included in the tale is the kind of heroic and complex hardware Broad’s writing tends to highlight.  A few posts down, I wrote this morning of the challenge in writing of scientific mysteries that are in half-solved limbo (it’s the one about honey bees). The cleanest news stories to write are those in which the puzzles are huge and unplumbed, or suddenly have convincing answers. Broad’s tale is of the first sort. It concerns overwhelming hunger to answer a riddle. I know the essence of this is not new. But these details and angles on the researchers’ personal characteristics are.

    Before finishing the SciTimes roundup, one has to recognize the good front page reporting by Keith Brasher from Wuxi, China, on the galloping photovoltaic industry in that country. The Times has provided readers with illuminating coverage prevously of wind power in China; Now we get the sun power. Thinking about China may evoke a mood here akin to what swept Europe a century ago on witnessing the habit in the then-rambunctious US of doing things BIG.

    Back to Sci Times, and straight to p. 2 where Kenneth Chang writes, darned near, the advance obituary for NASA’s manned space program as we’ve known it. His first quote predicts the effort is about to go in the ditch. A feared new reality seems to be taking shape, he writes: “…the American human spaceflight program might not accomplish anything new anytime soon.”  Whoof, that’s  a punch in the belly for old time NASA fans. The upcoming Augustine Panel’s report to NASA  may have its advance summation right there. This ought to have been parked on p. A1, or led Week in Review, or been somewhere else where plenty of eyeballs belonging to  the science-averse would have seen it. Chang has been writing about this general topic, covering breaking events, for awhile now. This one shows he knows how to blow the cobwebs of daily news writing out of his mind and focus on the essential.

Other Science Times Stories:

• John Tierney: Guilt and Atonement on the Path to Adulthood ; Who knew that guilt comes in distinct flavors called Puritan, Catholic, and Jewish, among others? Tierney thinks so. This is more meditation on morals and ethical compasses than an account of research.
• Sarah Arnquist: Research Trove: Patients’ Online Data. What if all those inchoate but useful online discussion groups among patients with rare or baffling disease could be distilled and put in one place? And more currency here for a new term: crowd-sourcing of research.
• Abigail Zuger M.D.: Books / When a Doctor Is More, and Less, Than a Healer ;  Looks like Amazon and other book sellers better brace for a surge in sales for the novel “Right of Thirst.” When a writer, in a reviewer’s opinion, composes in a manner “so unusual, the touch so light and sure, you could have walked along with him forever…”  a lot of people are going to want to look for themselves.

As usual, lots more. Whole Section ;

-CP

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have for years been among leaders of research into stem cells especially the kinds called ips, for induced pluripotent stem, cells. Such cells, as has been covered extensively in media around the world, behave very much like embryonic stem cells. The university put out a release on its latest this week, published in the Proceedings of the Nat’l Academy of Sciences. One of its research teams was able to regress skin cells to an ips state, and then to induce the cells to differentiate into two types of tissue essential in retinas. They got a taker in Milwaukee. This is significant but incremental news.  It’s refreshing  to see that in parts of the country, the  press has some science writers who keep their readers aware that the labs at nearby institutes are busy.

Story:

• Milwaukee Journal Sentinel – Mark Johnson: Skin cells changed into retina tissue.  Included is a link to an impressive collection of articles and special sections on stem cells.

Grist for the Mill: U. Wisconsin-Madison Press Release ;

-CP

One might wonder about the intellectual capacities of whoever is in charge at the US Chamber of Commerce after reading in the LA Times a Jim Tankersley tale of legal strategies against science (well, the plaintiffs would say they’re FOR sound science, of the right sort). It would be, say some at the business lobby, a “Scopes monkey trial of the 21st century.” That’s an odd metric of merit, one must say – to proclaim as an aim an event similar to the most infamous effort in US history to steer scientific discussion by wielding gavel and jury. The Scopes trial, of course, decided in favor of the anti-Darwinists and against the school teacher, but only made the former look foolish in the long run. Foolish to some, at least. To others, the trial is merely unfinished business – and something to try again and again.

     Oh, the news. The Chamber is demanding that the EPA hold an evidentiary hearing to judge the merit of evidence that greenhouse gases emitted mainly by human activity are dangerously warming the planet. The EPA says don’t be silly, academies of science all over the world have already done that, etc. Tankersly handles it straight, with a listing of organizations that see the issue as a non-issue. Plus the position of the chamber that some evidence implies that Americans will be better off should temperatures go up. Hmm. Hard to say if it is an argument against the science (reality) of global warming to say ok maybe it’s real, but if so it will be good for us.

-CP

You won’t find the lede in the White House press release. And it’s not in the recommendations from the report of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.

But the news was frightening: As many as 90,000 Americans are expected to die of swine flu this fall, many of them children and young adults. This flu could infect half of the population and lead to 1.8 million hospital admissions.

To find that news, reporters properly went beyond the news release and recommendations to page viii of the White House report, which also said that flu posed special risks for pregnant women, and for those with “pre-existing conditions” (a distracting word choice borrowed from the insurance industry) such as neurological or respiratory disorders, diabetes, and obesity. And here’s the kicker: the flu season starts in September, but the vaccine won’t be ready until mid-October. Many of the stories I looked at did not include this important piece of the story. Was this inevitable? Is it a failure of government? Most of the coverage leaves us wondering.

The job for reporters was to report this frightening news as it was–without overstating the case. I wondered how many people die in an ordinary flu season; and I searched in vain in many of the stories.

Here’s a sampling of the coverage:

• Steve Sternberg of USA Today reported the range of deaths–30,000 to 90,000–which is more precise than using only the scarier maximum figure, as I did above–and probably shouldn’t have.  He also noted the report’s comparison of the coming flu season to 1957 (70,000 deaths) and 1968 (34,000 deaths). He does not tell us how many die in a typical year.
• Tom Randall and Alex Nussbaum of Bloomberg were also more temperate than I was, using the 1.8 million hospitalizations in the lede and the range of possible deaths. But no figures for the typical year.
• CNN went max all the way. It used “up to 90,000 deaths” and gave us the typical year figure for flu deaths:  up to 40,000.  (The White House report says in a typical year 30,000 to 40,000 die.)
• The New York Post had the most precise figures, using the ranges of deaths both for this year and the typical year.
• The Wall Street Journal story by Betsy McKay did take note of the vaccine problem (nice work). But it didn’t explore the reasons for it.
• Other stories: MSNBC follows up with Robert Bazell Q&A; Richard Knox on Americans’ complacency on the NPR Health Blog; Maggie Fox of Reuters focuses on speeding up arrival of vaccines.

- Paul Raeburn

(English intro to Spanish lang. post) Every Saturday the Chilean newspaper “La Tercera” offers a supplement with a fairly good amount of science information. Last weekend it had a nice review of scientific literature on Takotsubo cardiomyopathy (broken-heart-syndrome). It explains the relationship between disease and occasional deaths, and also the mechanism how it happens. Although the heart is healthy overall, it appear, inflammation driven by continuous release of adrenaline might cause malfunction similar to what a myocardial infarction triggers.

Existe una estrategia alternativa para tener éxito en tu artículo sobre ciencia: no hagas caso de las notas de prensa o noticias embargadas que reproducirán todos los periódicos, ni acudas al científico preguntándole qué es lo más importante en un campo de investigación determinado. Posiblemente te responderá algo en tal grado de detalle que dejará indiferente a tus lectores. Cada cierto tiempo, y cuando tu editor te lo permita, haz lo contrario: escoge tú el tema, la pregunta que inquieta al público, y dirígete a la ciencia para escudriñar la respuesta.

Esto es lo que ha hecho Sebastián Urbina con una nota sobre el Síndrome del Corazón Roto esta semana en el suplemento Tendencias de La Tercera (Chile).

Un primer aviso para visitantes rezagados del tracker: sólo podréis leer online el artículo de S.U. durante la semana de su publicación, ya que el link anterior se actualiza cada 7 días con el nuevo suplemento, y no queda un archivo de anteriores. Una lástima…

Sobre el artículo: Más o menos cercana, todos tenemos alguna referencia de persona que enferma tras la pérdida de su pareja. Pero… ¿es un mito? ¿una de esas casualidades que terminamos asociando por “sabiduría popular”? Si realmente hay una relación fuerte entre pena y salud… ¿cómo afecta? ¿qué dice la ciencia al respecto? Estas son preguntas que interesan mucho a la gente, y aunque no sea noticia de última hora ni pueda resultar lo más relevante para la comunidad científica, a veces vale la pena demostrar al público que la ciencia es la manera más fehaciente de resolver sus dudas.

Sebastián hecha mano de publicaciones científicas para confirmar que los hombres de más de 60 años que enviudan tienen un 21% más de riesgo de muerte que los de la misma edad que mantienen a sus parejas, que en 2007 un estudio de Lancet estimó que la etapa de más peligro dura unos 6 meses, y que una investigación reciente establece que las mujeres afectadas por el síndrome del corazón roto (miocardiopatía de Tako Tsubo) tienen el doble de posibilidades de fallecer durante el año posterior a la muerte de su marido, y los hombres 6 veces más tras desaparecer sus esposas.

Dejando de lado la confusión que al lector le suscita comparar esta última cifra con el 21% anterior, queda claro que la ciencia confirma que dicha asociación no es un mito. Pero bueno… si se limitara a eso no tendría gran valor. La arma de la ciencia no es sólo explicar qué ocurre, sino también el porqué.

En el caso del Tako Tsubo, el nombre “corazón roto” parece no ser el más adecuado. Tanto durante este síndrome como tras un infarto, algunas partes del corazón dejan de contraerse y otras laten de manera anormal. Pero en el caso del infarto es debido efectivamente a una lesión, mientras que en la persona deprimida lo causa una inflamación muscular debido al estrés emocional.

Más ciencia todavía: según otro estudio científico, es la liberación continuada de adrenalina por las glándulas suprarrenales lo que altera el corazón y provoca el dolor de pecho, dificultades para respirar, y posible fallo cardíaco. Los pacientes que analizó el estudio tenían las arterias  despejadas, estaban sanos y no tenían riesgo cardíaco; pero los efectos fisiológicos de su desesperación eran parecidos a los del infarto.

Sin duda lo último en células madre debe aparecer en cualquier sección de ciencia, pero si además de hablar de lo que interesa a los científicos, añadimos también lo que interesa al público, seguro que generaremos un producto de mayor interés.

- PE

Scientists may be closer to answering  the “what” question in the mysterious cause for the collapse of honey bee colonies in many nations including the US starting three years ago and, lately, Britain. Researchers at the Univ. of Illinois and US Dept. of Agriculture say, in Proceeding of the Nat’l Academy of Sciences, that something seems to be thrashing the protein-assembling ribosomes in the bees’ cells. Bits of rRNA are accumulating in the bees’ guts. But why? Tougher question. Probably viruses and perhaps not just one kind. And mites that carry the viruses. Or something else. 

      A team of villains and potential perps makes for a dissatisfying explanation,. It hands reporters a messy story to tell. That’s how it goes some times, but to have a clear and singular cause would make for simpler story telling. The heart of the news may not concern bees as much as the use of whole-genome microarrays to look for genes and gene products that seem unusual. Thus it is an example of benefit of the field of metagenomics generally and specifically from having sequenced the entire honey bee genome a few years ago. But still: a  complex and ambiguous narrative to try to weave.  

    For a somewhat random example, in the UK The Times‘s Mark Henderson simply tells this murky tale as it is, saying the big news is that the nation’s recent loss of a fifth of its hives “could be caused in part by a virus.” Or, viruses, actually. “Could be” and “in part” don’t have much punch. But they are appropriate here.     

Other stories:

• Time Magazine, Bryan Walsh has it under the hed “New Clues in the Mass Death of Bees.” He smartly  focuses on the powerful scientific tools that have taken researchers this far.
• BBC – Judith Burns: DNA clue to honey bee death ;  After interviewing the lead scientist, Burns dives forthwith  into genome arrays and other complexities of the analysis. ,
• AP: New Clue found to disappering honey bees ;
• The Scientist – Bob Grant: Bee calamity clarified ; Includes comments from outside sources, insightful quotes. Good thorough job of reporting. Final line: “…it’s just painfully slow.”
• New Scientist – Priya Shetty : Bee genome gives killer clue to colony collapse disorder;
• Scientific American – Steve Mirsky: Disappearing Bees Have Devastated Ribosomes ;

Grist for the Mill: U. Illinois/Champaign Press Release ; USDA Agricultual Research Service Press Release ;

Other, Barely Related Bee News:

• BBC: Buzz of Excitement over bumblebee ; On a few small British isles, discovery of colonies of the seldom-seen great yellow bumblebee.

-CP

In Eaton Rapids, Michigan, a spanking new, 38,000 square foot factory for making wind turbines stands clean, ready to go, and idle. Nearby the plant’s owners have other shops banging and bending metal for smaller jobs, but their gamble that wind energy would replace auto parts as their regular customer has been a costly loser -  so far anyway. The Los Angeles Times runs today a story in which the *Washington Post’s Dana Hedgpeth covers it well, providing illustration for idealists out there that the messy business of transforming an economy, and leaving old eras behind, involves a lot more than changes in tax law and in stimulus dollars. The piece has little obvious cant – not overly pro-free market or overly pro-government-regulation; it’s just a tale of some owners of a smallish business doing their best to be nimble and smart in trying times.

*The Tracker missed it the first time around and took a while this morning to realize that this good piece in the LATimes had an origin a week or so ago at the Wash. Post. Still worth a post.

-CP

The San Diego Union-Tribune is talking to itself today. Its science writer Scott LaFee recently interviewed one of its own, regular contributors, a science education specialist at UC San Diego. She  wrote a book published this year called Lies, Damned Lies, and Science.  The Tracker had no high hopes for the result but was wrong. This is a sensible conversation. LeFee chose his five questions well to make good use of rather scant space. The topic is the difficulty for most people whose lives involve little science, and who generally have better things to do than ponder it, when they are compelled to discuss something of a c nature. Most delightful – the section on the professional meanings, vs. colloquial, of  hypotheses and theories.

-CP

The Economist’s Green View column has a diverting, slightly silly and in the end useful, analysis of the greenhouse gases emitted by the world’s electronic widgetry. That mostly means the computer industry but also such necessities as cell phones. It is a lot. And yes the piece acknowledges that computers also are vital  to discovery of a solution to the despoilment of the planet. Also here is a nifty, suggested salve for one’s conscience while surfing and tapping along.

-CP

Big topics can be tackled big – with a hefty overarching report – or small with an intimate portrait that suffuses the larger landscape with meaning. Each strategy went on display over the last few days. The top US newspaper and the top US news magazine had separate but highly related and overlapping meditations on the US food industry. Both conclude Big Ag’s so-called factory food is bad and locally-grown food from family-scale farms is good (and, the fly in the ointment, more expensive). In both pieces UC Berkeley’s  ubiquitous Michael Pollan, hero of the local foods movement, makes an appearance.

•  NYTimes –  Nicholas Kristof: Food for the Soul; In his Sunday column Kristof reminisces about growing up on a family farm in Oregon. He mentions a friend whose family dairy markets its product  at costs nearly as low as the big, mechanized, and (it says here) soulless fields of big agriculture. It’s worth reading if only for the engaging tale of the ugly gosling. It is also a departure from Kristof’s usual beat – the ability of people to be beastly with one another (that worthy focus of his was also on display yesterday in the NYTimes Magazine, its theme the exploitation of women.)
• Time Magazine – Bryan Walsh : Getting Real About the High Price of Cheap Food ; A big, heaviliy reported story that starts off with horrors from giant hog farms where the pigs have their tails cut off to ease the awkardnesses of being jammed into pens all their lives, then essaying angrily on how cheap food is actually exceedingly costly to society. Plus a visit to a ranch in California where the cows, and steers,  really are happy, or as happy as cows get.

-CP

Late last week at AAAS’s ScienceNOW news operation Phil Berardelli wrote up a new idea for why spiral galaxies form.  The Tracker has one question: what exactly is an “independent”  mathematician or astronomer?  Whatever the answer, and it is probably different for each one, one of each has teamed up and put in Proceedings of the Royal Society A their refutation of an existing “epicycle” hypothesis for such galaxies’ elegant forms. The epicycle idea – inspired in part by Ptolmey’s old effort to keep the Earth at the solar system’s center – has a catchy, brief name. Their new one, according to the paper’s abstract to which Berardelli kindly links, describes the collective stellar orbits that produce spiral arms as a process of  ”perturbed ellipses aligned at a focus in coordinates rotating at the rate of precession of apocentre.” Alrighty then! It does render an image in the mind. But let’s get a shorter moniker for it.

   Berardelli’s piece is succinct, and about as clear as possible, for a fairly short story. Hat’s off and all that. But if it were on a news service aimed at the more general public, surely an exploration, if only brief, of how these two gentlemen – one Brit and one Yank - make their way as professional scientists without any institutional affiliation would  displace some of that technical stuff for a little human interest, uh,  fluff.

Grist for the Mill: PRS-A  Abstract ;

What the Heck Dept: Another idea explaining spiral structure with a catchy name: Matriarchal Order. And it offers hope for a way free from the world’s economic morass, too.  For more, see a site stumbled upon while investigating the piece referenced above. It’s at Scienceblog.com.

-CP