This is a post on some hot neutrino news, mainly, but also and more on my mind it is about quotes that jump out to the reporter as perfect. They are so perfect they may need to be handled with care.

The news is that recent examination of neutrinos spat out by Fermilab near Chicago and detected 450 miles, or about  725 km, away in their ghostly rarity in the underground Soudan Iron Mine laboratory found slight evidence that some neutrinos have more mass than others. The difference shows up when comparing neutrinos to their anti-neutrino versions. None are going to weigh very much, all down in the realm of billionths of a proton mass, but that’s a problem. Evidence is that all neutrinos travel at about the same near-light-speed rate. But that requires they all have very much the same teensy mass and that a given neutrino and its corresponding anti-neutrino have identical mass. Now it looks like their masses may vary.  Ergo: problem.

Hot out now on line is a feature at Science News by prolific reporter Ron Cowen under the hed Neutrino experiments sow seeds of possible revolution . He gives the story his usual, resourceful treatment, with opinions offered from sundry people and, as is his custom, not much reliance on press releases.

I first went wow, and then thought to myself huh?, upon reading a quote in here from a theorist. It makes perfectly the point that this is potentially a big deal. The man tells Cowen that the data “could even signal a tiny breakdown of Einstein’s theory of special relativity…this could completely alter the way we are doing physics now.” As I say, oh boy wow. Completely alter it. But wait a second. Really, completely alter every part of what? And who is we? You may see the problem already. Is it just the theorists group, or all his colleagues who worry about some aspects of special relativity, or all facets of Einstein’s legacy, or all physicists? Even allowing for hyperbole, the neurotic journalist must ask him or herself, can this quote stand without crutches? One somehow doubts that a physicist puzzling over the computational prowess of entangled photons needs to change his experiments if neutrinos defy Uncle Albert. But if one throws in a caveat like “Physicist X said, of his corner of an arcane field in field theory, that ‘This changes everything’” that just clutters things up. It’s a problem.

Other than that, and its not much to quibble over, Cowens piece handles this about as well as can be expected at this length. It’s a tough topic. The piece out now follows a previous article by Cowen, June 1: Elusive Neutrino Change-Up Finally Detected ;

Other outlets took their own whacks at the  news:

• New Scientist – David Shiga: Sterile neutrino back from the dead ;
• Ars Technica – John Timmer: Unexpected antineutrino masses a puzzler for Standard Model;

Other recent neutrino news:

• BBC – Paul Rincon: Neutrino ‘ghost particle’ sized up by astronomers ; Different observations (with telescopes) help narrow error bar around neutrino mass (or masses).
• Scientific American – Steve Mirsky: Neutrino Mass Upper Limit Estimated by Galactic Distribution ;

- Charlie Petit

Grist for the Mill: Fermilab Press Release ;  Indiana University Press Release ;

A little more than two years ago a spot of news, carried by the Associated Press  and perhaps other outlets (see earlier post), reported that a Dept. of Homeland Security and former Ag. Dept. animal disease (and one time home of Army germ warfare research) lab was leaving its home on Plum Island in Long Island Sound.

The AP has an update now, bylined by Frank Eltman. He reports obtaining, in part via the Freedom of Information Act, documents that describe work done to prepare the island, aptly named as it is in fact plum real estate, for sale by the government. A new lab looking at such things at hoof and mouth disease is to be in Kansas. Some say that’s too close to herds of cattle, even with all the filters and monitors and  double security-gadgeted doors and sticky doormats and  negative pressure gradients and similar precaution such facilities have.

For all that, while the story has a nice summary of the history of the place it is sketchy on new information, and what it has is the general sort one might have guessed anyway. Hundreds of tons of contaminated or suspect material have been removed. Enviros are unconvinced the place is safe for development, and even if it is several citizens groups prefer it become a wildlife refuge. But what are the documents that AP has? What agencies signed off? Are they summary statements of generalities, or full descriptive reports of pounds of soil, crated old lab equipment, research materials…what? It does credit some info to unspecified old US Army reports, and some to “DEC” without explanation that it is the NY Dept. of Environmental Conservation. (It is, one must remark, always hazardous to use unfamiliar acronyms. It is so easy, as one suspects happened here, to have the first ref. edited out and leave readers with undefined alphabet soup. If a writer does it, he or she is wise to make a note to ed. at the first ref. that its id must remain.

One goes with what one’s got, and hat’s off to the AP’s enterprise in getting something. But we can’t even tell here exactly what the AP got. We also don’t know how much that interested parties, such as lawyer-equipped activist organizations, did not already have. Most likely, the public hearings mentioned in the piece will move the ball forward further.

- Charlie Petit

My post on public information staff listening in on reporters’ interviews spawned an interesting conversation when I posted the link on Twitter. Pia Christensen of the Covering Health blog of the Association of Health Care Journalists collected the tweets, which I’ve reprinted below. Thanks to Pia, and to those of you who weighed in.

- Paul Raeburn

From Twitter:

June 17
3:38 p.m.
AHCJ_Pia: News service will disclose in articles when press officers listen in on interviews http://bit.ly/8ZDjvR

June 22
10:47 a.m.
praeburn: Should reporters tell readers when a PIO listens in on an interview?  http://bit.ly/ctaMm5 #sciwri10

11:08 a.m.
maryknudson: I agree. RT @praeburn Should reporters tell readers when a PIO listens in on an interview? http://bit.ly/ctaMm5 #sciwri10

11:10 a.m.
matthewherper: @maryknudson @praeburn I’m not so sure. At some point, all these disclosures replace the actual story being written.

11:13 a.m.
maryknudson: @matthewherper Disclosure would just be a phrase in parentheses or set off by commas, told as fact, not grumbling…

11:14 a.m.
maryknudson: @matthewherper  I see disclosing presence of PR person as similar to explanation in a story of why reporter does not identify source

11:17 a.m.
MaryKnudson: @praeburn @matthewherper I once had an NIH PR person tell a scientist at my interview that he couldn’t say what he just said. I walked out

11:17 a.m.
RitaRubin: RT @maryknudson: I agree.  RT @praeburn Should reporters tell readers when a PIO listens in on an interview? http://bit.ly/ctaMm5

11:19 a.m.
RitaRubin: @maryknudson @praeburn @matthewherper I don’t like PIO listening in on interview, but I’m not sure my disclosure would make it into paper.

11:26 a.m.
AHCJ_Pia: RT @praeburn: Should reporters tell readers when a PIO listens in on interview? http://bit.ly/ctaMm5 #sciwri10 (AHCJ: http://bit.ly/8ZDjvR)

11:31 a.m.
RitaRubin: We can hope RT @maryknudson: Maybe only bcause it’s new thing  But if many reportrs started doing it, som would get published & then mre wld

12:20 p.m.
matthewherper: @maryknudson In a 400-word magazine story that could mean cutting the quote entirely.

1:03 p.m.
maryknudson: @matthewherper I hear u & understnd that stories are shorter now, but cld take 5 words to say interview  “attended by a PR representative”

1:16 p.m.
David_Dobbs: RT @RitaRubin: @maryknudson @praeburn @matthewherper re PIOs: for my ivws on PTSD,  VA often used TWO PIOs – 1 w ivwee, 1 a top DC brass.

1:29 p.m.
maryknudson: @David_Dobbs Yikes! That’s too much!

2 p.m.
David_Dobbs: @maryknudson was incredible.

6 p.m.
maryknudson: @GirlsSentAway Lots of jurno discussion abt whether to start mentioning in stories if a PR person sits in on an interview

6:05 p.m.
GirlsSentAway: @maryknudson Just read his post. YES, a thousand times, yes. Never occurred to me either to say in story that PIO present. BTW…con’td

6:59 p.m.
maryknudson: @GirlsSentAway Wish we had a thread of this conversation with all – @praeburn, @matthewherper, @RitaRubin, @David_Dobbs & @AHCJ_Pia’s story

6:44 p.m.
MaryKnudson: @GirlsSentAway Glad you agree.  I think none of us ever thought of including in story if PR was present, but this is relevant inf…

6:45 p.m.
GirlsSentAway: @maryknudson It’s so key! Glad @praeburn started the discussion!

6:48 p.m.
MaryKnudson: @GirlsSentAway U.S. jurnos in foreign countries say if story is read & possibly censored by foreign govt. PR presence is a form of censrshp

6:49 p.m.
GirlsSentAway: @maryknudson Whether it’s a PIO or a govt official, it’s censorship indeed!

6:59 p.m.
maryknudson: @GirlsSentAway Wish we had a thread of this conversation with all – @praeburn, @matthewherper, @RitaRubin, @David_Dobbs & @AHCJ_Pia’s story

7 p.m.
GirlsSentAway: @maryknudson Had we realized it, we could have added a hashtag. @praeburn @matthewherper @RitaRubin @David_Dobbs @AHCJ_Pia

7:03 p.m.
maryknudson: @GirlsSentAway Yup. Good issue for a story in ScienceWriters.

7:04 p.m.
GirlsSentAway: @maryknudson Paul should write it. Of course, I say that as if I know his work load!

7:07 p.m.
maryknudson: @GirlsSentAway Or maybe someone who has not stated a point of view and would also include reaction from some PIO members.

June 23
6:16 a.m.
matthewherper: @maryknudson It’s not just length. I think it’s pretty distracting to the reader when every quote is followed by several disclosures…

6:17 a.m.
matthewherper: @maryknudson @RitaRubin @praeburn I’ve rarely interviewed industry scientists without PR person on line. I need to disclose every time?

6:22 a.m.
JeffACSH: @matthewherper @maryknudson why disclosures only for industry scientists? Are they only ones with potential bias?

6:28 a.m.
matthewherper: @JeffACSH Argument started about academic scientists. Current practice is not to disclose presence of PR person for anybody.

6:49 a.m.
RitaRubin: @matthewherper @maryknudson @praeburn Same w/govt scientists, of course. I don’t even bothr asking PIO to get off line, ’cause I know answer

6:53 a.m.
maryknudson: @matthewherper @RitaRubin @praeburn If you interview 3 scientists for 1 story & a PR listened in each time, perhaps one mention covering all

6:55 a.m.
maryknudson: @JeffACSH No, this policy some journos are discussing would not be just for industry scientists. Govt agencies, hospitals, all sources.

6:56 a.m.
Jeff ACSH: @maryknudson @matthewherper good to hear.

A one-two punch of news this month seems to provide a convincing case that, as many believe but has been hard to prove, Mars was a long time ago a lot like Earth was at the time: very wet. But many news outlets appear to be reporting this combo of evidence separately, ignoring the first when reporting the second. Why is hard to fathom.

A week ago, although I didn’t put together a post, a report of evidence for a hemisphere-scale sea or ocean on Mars’s northern hemisphere in Nature Geoscience got some ink for its persuasive signs that a continuous sea with a long, still-visible shoreline draped Mars’s northern half 3.5 billion years ago. Such a thing had been long speculated from sketchy evidence, but new orbiter topographic info strengthens the case.  First a few examples of reporting  on that news.

• USA Today – Dan Vergano: Ancient ocean of Mars uncovered ;
• Space.com – Charles Q. Choi: Ancient Oceans Once Covered Much of Mars ; One extra reason to read this – the illus.
• MSNBC Cosmic Log – Alan Boyle: See the shores of Mars ;
• Science News – Ron Cowen: Wet past for red planet ;
• CBS News – Charles Cooper: Oceans Once Covered One-Third of Mars ;

Grist for the Mill: Univ. Colorado Press Release ;

Second Punch: Today in Science magazine is a report from a team primarily in France of another line of evidence that the northern half of Mars, and presumably the whole planet, was extensively altered by water during roughly the same time period. Orbiting sensors detect in craters that, well beneath the lava flows now covering much of the terrain, are minerals that indicate they were once submerged.

This week’s stories (with an asterisk for those that mention last week’s):

• BBC News – Victoria Gill: Mars’ entire surface was shaped by water ;
• * Space.com – Denise Chow: Water reshaped Mars more widely than thought ;
• Discovery News – Irene Klotz: Mars Was Wet, Globally ;
• Spaceflight Now – Stephen Clark: Study suggests water was a global occurrence on Mars ;
• CBS – Charles Cooper: Ancient Mars More Favorable to Life than First Thought ; Cooper covered the ocean story, too, sketchily. Still doesn’t acknowledge it in rewriting this week’s news.

Grist for the Mill: European Space Agency Press Release ; JPL Press Release ;

This is not a comprehensive review at all. But that reporters who presumably had time to check recent news while reporting the MOST recent news, ought all to have recognized the ocean piece in writing up the less dramatic news on hydrated minerals. One who did both stories, apparently rewriting press release, did not tie them together. No doubt some bloggers have put two and two together. And in truth big media outlets for the most part did not do either. A major wire service or national newspaper, one hopes, would not fail to do so. But providing news in context is part of any reporter’s job.

** UPDATE, for a Story that does both pieces of news, and then some:

• Universe Today – Nancy Atkinson: Water Was Widespread Across Early Mars, But no Oceans ; This is the sort of story that once was more or less the norm when there was wider competition in the media. That was when the ideal was to cover the news better than the competition – be sharper, faster, more analytical, and  poke holes in news that other outlets might just accept. Similarly, report things they don’t have. Nowadays it often seems that the incentive is more toward covering one’s behind rather than covering the news – rewrite the press release, check it off, we did it, not with distinction but we did it. Atkinson not only reports both papers, but finds that the exciting news in the early one of a hemispheric ocean is, in her telling, more or less refuted by the more prosaic analysis of hydrated minerals in the crater bottoms. Thus the glamor news with the better odds for big headlines gets trumped by a message similar to what we’ve been hearing for years: Mars, long ago an episodically and briefly wet and salty planet. Thank you Ms. Atkinson (see comments) for bringing your good work to our attention.

- Charlie Petit

Plenty of regular readers of ksjtracker no doubt know that to keep up on news within NASA the indispensable tool is Keth Cowing‘s NASA Watch website, a spot established before (I think) the term blog was coined for such places. His archive listing goes back to the mid-90s.

My attention was drawn to it late yesterday by a typically terse post on an intriguing possibility. It is Has China Been Formally Invited to Join the ISS Program? It was irresistable to me, as I’ve always imagined the semi-solution to the turkey called ISS is to sell it, lease it, give it, or at least share it with China or India or both – each a relatively new space power and each sure that people in spacesuits are the ticket to low-g greatness. This sure beats a prompt, flaming, Pacific-ocean dumping of that monster – a genuine masterpiece of heroic engineering and construction even if it is no more useful than a pyramid in the desert. Still magnificent. It is difficult to countenance it just being tossed away after all this (misguided, but a pile of) money spent.

Cowing links his post to its original source, a laconic Interfax  announcement on the site of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, which apparently has sent a feeler to Beijing. That’s understandable. The Russians provide the only human-rated ferry to the space station other than the shuttles that soon will retire. They would naturally not want to be in the hot seat should their own Soyuz line of spacecraft hit some sort of systemic snag. It’d be nice if China, with a line of similar but still distinct craft, were a backup.

More important, if NASA is a topic that attracts, don’t forget to check in regularly with Cowing. Just scrolling down the posts shows how diligently and resourcefully it is possible for one person – with a lot of contacts including inside tipsters – to cover a federal agency on line.

Pic source hi def

- Charlie Petit

On line now is a preview of a sensational, deeply-felt and agonizingly vivid portrait of what may be the end-days of one of the planet’s greatest wildlife spectacles. Vanishing fast are the mighty, swift, and beautiful schools of giant bluefin tuna that Japanese diners in particular eat, paying immense sums for the animals’ corpses sent to them, frozen and big at times as steers, from fisheries around the world. It runs in this Sunday’s NY Times Magazine. Writer Paul Greenberg starts Tuna’s End with a bloody scuffle in Malta between tuna fatteners, with their feedlot sea pens for growing wild-caught juveniles, and mayhem-minded agents of Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd determined to rip those pens apart and free the fish to breed, they hope, new generations.

I am indebted to Lynne Friedmann, San Diego science writer (and editor of NASW’s ScienceWriters magazine). She and her husband very recently, as seen in this blogpost, vacationed in Malta. She was struck by the battle unfolding over Mediterranean stocks of Atlantic bluefin, and the heavy, regular coverage in the Malta Times. She provided to The Tracker links to  the Malta paper’s coverage, shared below with a few later additions, and also just a day ago a heads-up to the strong, writerly feature spotlight on the same issue in the NYTimes.

Greenberg’s vision is global. His clear,crusading message is that the fate of oceanic wildlife – with Atlantic cod and some other species already commercially gone – is on the brink. We’ve heard the before; many of us have reported on it. This Sunday story gives visceral explanation of how, if the bluefin go, soon may follow swordfish, large sharks, and many more. His deft reporting on science, innovation, biology, plus his historic correction to cultural mythology, is terrific. Japanese fishing defenders say the red sushi of the bluefin is part of their cultural DNA, of their cultural essence. What a load of nonsense, this story declares, and explains why. In the wake of the International Whaling Commission’s latest case of paralysis, this tuna story smacks a bruise in Japan that was sore enough already. Greenberg does, easing the despair his story generally evinces, provide an avenue for legal and conservationist hope. He does so without implying that people anywhere must go without firm, fatty sushi.

The Times of Malta stories are local, and display a smallish news outfit doing its job competently and diligently. Wikipedia tells me the paper is considered center-right politically, was founded in 1935, and is the archipelago’s oldest paper still printing. Its stories comprise a saga of sorts too  – disjointed as daily news often is, and with no immense bias (but some) pro or anti-fishing industry. They are vivid and without the quivering moral outrage of Greenberg’s epic (A piece of an upcoming book). If you’ve been reading and wondering about bluefin tuna, other tuna, and human appetite in collision with the natural world in general, read ‘em all.

Times of Malta Stories (with some terrific photos, including this one of Greenpeace attacking a tuna pen, a Malta navy patrol boat bearing down) :

• June 10: Ivan Camilleri: Brussels closes bluefin tuna season .
• June 13: AFM stops Greenpeace action on tuna cage ; AFM is Armed Forces of Malta.
• June 14 – Kurt Bugeja Coster: AFM defends tuna pen;
• June 15 – Kurt Bugeja Coster: Tuna pen owner may take legal action ;
• June 18 – Kurt Sansone: Two Maltese divers airlifted to hospital / Conflicting versions of events at sea ;
• June 22 – Ivan Camilleri: EU stays out of tuna war ;
• June 22 – Kurt Bugeja: Footage shows protester’s ship ramming tuna cage. Libyan assistance to fishermen prompted by diplomatic
• June 23 – David Schembri: No confirmation yet of tuna catch legality ;

Grist for the Mill:

Greenpeace weblog Big trouble for bluefin tuna ; Sea Shepherd Press Release “..attacked in Libyan waters,’ ; Press Release “…Prime Minister defends illegal tuna operation“  and a Sea Shepherd captain joined the press conference, converses with Malta’s top man.

- Charlie Petit

(English intro to Spanish lang. post) El Universal in México has the conclusions of a science journalism workshop by Jack F. Ealy. One message seems to be that journalists should be the allies of scientists in order to help spreading science through society. Well… we don’t like the word “Ally” at all. Also, Venezuelan health minister assures his country that the dengue epidemic is due to climate change, not to government inefficiencies, and that media should be more spreading advice and educating the population instead of criticizing officials. More stories: Peruvian researchers have developed a new technique to improve bee’s reproduction. Passionate reporting in Argentina about the Chilean Extremely Large Telescope. Great story in Cuba comparing supercomputing strategies (grid vs huge centers of supercomputing). In Costa Rica, 90% of the coastal areas will be seriously affected by sea level rise, according to a British report on climate change impacts in Mexico and Central America. And a phrenology fMRI study reported in Chile tells us that we should not become scientists’ allies.

El Universal nos ofrece dos buenas notas con algunas de las conclusiones del Taller de periodismo científico Jack F. Ealy, pero en una leemos algo que nos desconcierta.

En la primera, Gómez Farías y Liliana Alcántara resaltan que el “rigor periodístico es vital para medios”, y que en este sentido, el director editorial de el Universal considera la información científica, ambiental y sanitaria de calidad una buena baza para la supervivencia de los medios de comunicación convencionales. Porque interesan a la gente. Un par de representantes de revistas (Quo y Revista de la Univ. Aut. Tamaulipas) recalcaron la necesidad de hacer textos sencillos y atractivos. Todo correcto por el momento. En esta línea versaba la nota de Farías y Alcántara “Divulgación de la ciencia debe ser divertida”, transmitiendo el mensaje de la astrónoma y divulgadora Julieta Fierro. Completamente de acuerdo en que esta misión más bien educadora de la divulgación debe ser divertida y creativa para despertar el interés. Ya lo dijo Carl Sagan en “la divulgación de la ciencia sólo tienen éxito cuando enciende la llama del asombro”. Pero según la nota, a Julieta se le ocurre decir –textualmente- que “los periodistas son aliados de los científicos”. Estamos en pleno desacuerdo en ello. La labor última del divulgador y el periodista no es idéntica. Nosotros debemos informar, y de manera crítica. No debemos ser aliados de nadie. Esto resulta obvio en temas políticos o económicos, pero también debe ser así frente a la información científica. Sí somos un vínculo entre la ciencia y la sociedad, pero no unos simples mensajeros al servicio de los gabinetes de comunicación e intereses de investigadores. Porque si nos convertimos en eso, no aportaremos valor añadido ni el rigor que se mencionaba en la primera nota. La labor de divulgadores como Julieta es maravillosa, necesaria, y loable. Para despertar el interés, y para explicar la ciencia básica detrás del cambio climático, qué es un virus, cómo funciona una placa solar o se fabrican biocombustibles… pero para analizar el impacto en la sociedad de una manera rigurosa no debemos ser aliados de un científico financiado para desarrollar un determinado tipo de investigación. De hecho, nuestra obligación es mantener cierto recelo. Compartimos objetivos comunes, pero no somos meros mensajeros. Ni educadores.

Más notas:

En Venezuela, la epidemia de dengue se está extendiendo por todo el país, y leemos en El Nacional y El Universal – Alicia de la Rosa- que la ministra de salud asegura que el aumento de casos se debe al cambio climático. No encontramos dos simples líneas con la hipótesis que lo sustenta. Puede ser, y sería una buena nota de información científica. Se ve que la ministra “pidió a los medios de comunicación que se conviertan en entes educativos y divulgadores de las recomendaciones para evitar la proliferación del mosquito”. Sí; pero no sólo debemos hacer eso.

El Comercio (Perú) – Sandro Medina Tovar: “Biólogos peruanos luchan por evitar la extinción de las abejas”. Ya hace tiempo que las poblaciones de abejas están en recesión. Un estudio peruano ha diseñado un protocola más eficiente para congelar espermatozoides, en caso de necesitar inseminación artificial.  Buena nota sobre investigaciones locales, incluyendo factores económicos a la motivación del estudio.

Juventud Revelde (Cuba) – Amaury E. del Valle: “Supercomputadoras ¿una para todos o todos para una?”. Muy buen artículo comparando las dos estrategias en supercomputación: grandes colosos o distribuir la tarea en una red de máquinas más pequeñas. Gran documentación, referencia inicial al MareNostrum de Barcelona, y posicionamiento del autor hacia aprovechar mejor el potencial de esta computación distribuida.

Página 12 (Argentina) – Futuro – Mariano Ribas: “El coloso de Atacama”. Apasionada pieza sobre los descubrimientos que permitirá el telescopio E-ELT de 42 metros que se construirá en Chile, y no empezará a funcionar hasta 2018. Incluye una entrevista con su director, asegurando que dará imágenes 15 veces más nítidas que el Hubble.

La Nación (Costa Rica). Pablo Fonseca: “90% de costas ticas perderían área debido a cambio climático”. Dato proveniente de un informe británico analizando los impactos en México y Centroamérica del aumento del nivel del mar. Podría interesar a otros periodistas de la región. El informe no sólo relaciona el cambio climático con problemáticas ambientales, sino también con seguridad nacional y estabilidad de los gobiernos.

La Tercera (Chile) – Teresita Quezada: “Descubren estructura del cerebro para cada personalidad”. Una de esas notas curiosas, en la que un investigador publica en una revista científica su estudio diciendo que la extraversión, neurotismo, complacencia y reflexividad están asociados a un mayor tamaño en algunas áreas del cerebro. En el estudio participaron 116 adultos a los que tomaron imágenes de resonancia magnética. No se… ¿seguro que debemos ser mensajeros aliados de los científicos?

- Pere Estupinyà

Well, surprise surprise. After a Stanford research team divided up the world’s published climate scientists into two groups, with rough markers to label them into those who doubt anthropogenic climate change as sketched by the likes of the IPCC, and those who buy it, differences emerged. The believers are way more numerous, and they are on average considerably more accomplished in pertinent fields. They publish more, in better journals, things like that. Well duh on the statistics. Less clear is whether all the individual assigned to one  the two polar categories belonged on their assigned ‘side’. A few mislabelings wouldn’t change the overall statistics much but they could misrepresent people of more nuanced opinion. Plus, if one is a conspiracy theorist of the first water, skewed stats would only show that the warmists are so out of control they have taken over the means by which scientists get tenure at top institutes, get published, or just get dissed. And since an author is Stephen Schneider – and he submitted it for publication as an academy member – but as he also is an accomplished scientists who is outspoken on global warming and already makes skeptics blow the coffee out of their noses in derision, his authorship alone is tinder for argument.

The report was in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences a few days ago. If it had come out in the middle of climategate when anything at all pertinent brought excess reaction, it would have been bigger news, one suspects. But all in all, not much coverage in the traditional outlets in the standard fashion. And the reaction tends more to be in blog mode even when associated with media outlets.

Stories :

• CBS News – Charles Cooper: Climate Change Researchers: Not all Expertise is Equal ; Structured to take aim at an easy target – refutation of denialism as representing much of a schism among serious climate scientists. But using as its illus of that crowd a picture of Sarah Palin is a cheap shot. She represents the deluded audience, in the public, for arguments that the science is teetering in the balance, pro or con. She’s not a member of the crowd that this study examined.
• NYTimes – Justin Gillis (Green blog): Study Affirms Consensus on Climate Change ;
• AAAS ScienceNow – Eli Kintisch : Scientists ‘Convinced’ of Climate Consensus More Prominent Than Opponents, Says Paper ; Kintisch smartly calls some of those researchers in the gray area between the poles – not terrified of climate change or at least willing to poke holes in some of the science arguing its seriousness, but not denialists either. Such as Colorado’s Roger Pielke Jr., and Georgia Tech’s Judith Curry. But while his sources poke some holes in how specific scientists were sorted, unfairly in some cases and in a way that might be called a black list, they don’t do much to alter the statistical meat of the report.
• BBC – Pallab Ghosh : Study examines scientists’ ‘climate credibility’ ;
• NYTimes (Dot Earth blog) Andrew C. Revkin: Notes form the Whaling and Warming Wars ; A catchall column by the thoughtful and non-vitriolic Mr. Revkin, with most of its effort aimed at this paper’s impact.
• USA Today – Doyle Rice: Report: 97 percent of scientists say man-made climate change is real ;
• Orange County Register – Pat Brennan: Global warming? 97 percent of experts agree ; He throws in that, so far, 2010 is the warmest year ever recorded. I’ll throw in this chart of, so far, the huge melt-off of last winter’s arctic ice pack. There is, one must add, broad doubt this year will wind up a record. But so far, so bad.
• Collide-a-Scape – Keith Kloor: The Climate Experts ; Noted climate blogger and enviro-archaeology reporter, NYU adjunct j-school professor Kloor provides a deep list and synopsis of blog responses to study.

Grist for the Mill: PNAS report ;

Other Climate War News:

• Sunday Times (UK) : IPCC Correction ; The paper essentially takes back and apologizes for a whole story it wrote during the height of climate gate and the free-fall the IPCC took in its public reputation due to exaggerated, un-refereed errors in some part of its past reports. The IPCC, it says here in effect did, after all we said about it, behave responsibly in saying that climate change poses perils for the Amazon basin rainforest.
• Guardian – Roy Greenslade: Sunday Times apologises for false climate story in a “correction’ : Greenslade provides a link to the original Times piece – which has disappeared from its site.

Pic source ; whole cartoon here,

- Charlie Petit

Thomson Reuters, parent organization to Reuters’s news operation, has an arm that keeps track of research statistics by nation and region, periodically providing an update on effort share and rankings. A new set came out this week. It’s not exactly riveting news, but illuminating.

Most diverting of the news accounts inspired by Thomson Reuters analyses is not on the big science powers, but the continent of Africa and its small but improving performance – with a big caveat as reported at NatureNews by Linda Nordling. She starts by defying a stereotype of the African scientist (outside S. Afr)  – a determined hero holding a program together through sheer pluck and often in near-isolation, maintaining his or her research with unreliable, ancient equipment  and paltry supplies (and, sometimes, dated and scant journals plus a spotty internet, power failures, etc). Gleaming new institutes with first-rate gear are to be found. The snag? African governments seldom have large budgets for much of anything, but are particularly miserly with science research.  The reason, she reports, is that NGOs and other outside funding sources are pretty good at boosting research – giving gov’t ministers a habit of putting their attentions elsewhere. The science may be African, the money not so much. To get a whiff of the foreign largesse that has at least one unintended side effect – sort of like the cheap wheat and other staples given as outside foreign aid to Africa that also undermines Africa’s farmers – see Voice of America today with a report on an $85 million NIH and Wellcome Trust set of grants for genetics research in Africa.

As for the big players, Thomson Reuters singled out Japan as an example of a traditional science power going sideways and down, while China blooms. Naturally its on the affiliated wire, where Reuters‘s Tan Ee Lyn reports that Japan’s output has stayed flat – while its share of int’l science publication has sagged – in the last ten years. China’s has quadrupled in the same time and is now well above Japan’s output.

Other recent T.R. Science Grading News Reports:

• NatureNews – Anna Petherick: High hopes for Brazilian science ;

This is a good place to remind those interested in these topics of the solid, non-profit news outlet SciDev.net. It explicitly covers scientific research as a goad to improving conditions in developing nations. One finds there a series of recently filed stories, largely from what used to be called the third world, on regional and national science priorities and investments:

• Naomi Antony : African genomics project launched ;
• Yidong Gong: China unveils grand plans to grow top talent ;
• Luisa Massarani: Brazil’s lessons on science for development ;
• Linda Nordling: Africa Analysis: Research networks show promise ; Looks like Ms. Nordling writes for both SciDev and NatureNews. She is based in South Africa, and prompted by discovery of two of her bylines today, further search yields a brief  bio at SciDev. It says she also covers science policy for The Guardian.

Grist for the Mill: Thomson Reuters Press Release ;

- Charlie Petit

A week or so ago the NYTimes‘s Nicholas Wade wrote on the tenth anniversary of the human genome project’s first full sequence with a comeuppance of a story top,  “A Decade Later, Genetic Map Yields Few New Cures.” He quoted Bill Clinton, that noted clinician, as saying  back then it would “revolutionize the diagnosis, prevention and treatment of most, if not all, human diseases.” Francis Collins, then director of NIH genomics, agreed. Yet, Wade reported, impact ten years in has been meager. Implication off the top: an overhyped event, no revolution at all.

Here’s the hed Reuters put this week on its assessment by Kate Kelland reporting from London: “Ten years on, genomic revolution only just starting.” That has a different tone – somewhat like Durante or Jolsen shouting part way through a boffo show, “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

The downbeat and upbeat are just different parts of the same tune, and so it is with these two headlines. When I saw the Reuters hed I expected a different take from Wade’s at NYTimes. The distinction fades on reading them. Notably, Kelland’s story draws largely on a talk that Collins gave in London. He is also, as noted, the second person quoted in Nick Wade’s story. And guess what? – there is no inconsistency at all. Collins said ten years ago, in the quote selected by Wade, that by now “genetic diagnosis of disease would be accomplished .. and that treatments would start to roll out perhaps five years after that.”  And it is useful in diagnosis – if not yet for prediction, as hoped by now, of who will eventually get it. We’ll have to wait to see how many treatments have come along in another five years.

The pieces agree, as reflected again by Collins’s recent remarks, that there was hype in the early going, and the the prospect for eventual big payoff remains good. One wonders about which opening is better. Both headlines are accurate, within the limitations of the few words permitted in such things. But which is the greater service to readers? Which draws the most people to read the rest of the story and hence is the greater service to news media (and their advertisers)? My vote is for the more optimistic-sounding one.

The Times editorialized on Wade’s article already, firmly on the waffly side and that’s smart, considering it’s about things that haven’t happened yet but probably will. By the way, Wade’s article was first of two parts. The second, as far as I can tell, is still in the can.

Related News:

• AAAS ScienceInsider – John Travis: U.K. to Sequence 10,000 Genomes in 3 Years to Shed Light on Dieases.

- Charlie Petit

As we’ve observed here before, John Fauber of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel apparently missed the memo on the death of print and the dwindling opportunities for investigative reporting.

So he continues to go to work, chase documents, make calls, and produce remarkable stories that any one of us could have done–but didn’t.

The last time we shifted our focus up to the Great Lakes, Fauber was telling a charming tale about a physician who collected more than $20 million in patent royalties from Medtronic–some of it while editing a journal in which favorable studies about Medtronic’s products appeared regularly.

Fauber is now raking up further muck with a story about physicians’ financial disclosures to medical journals. Earlier this year, Fauber reports, a cancer specialist at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health co-authored a paper on a radiation system developed at the university. The journal said the researcher had reported no conflicts of interest.

But Fauber reports that the researcher had told the university that he would make more than $20,000 in 2008 working for the company that sold the radiation system, and that he held options on company stock.

Fauber mined university disclosures and medical journal articles to come up with “at least nine UW physicians whose conflicts listed on financial disclosures to the university did not match what was revealed to the medical world in their published articles.”

Various editors and others told Fauber that journals operated on the “honor system,” or that there were too many authors for editors to do some checking of their own to be sure financial interests were being disclosed. They talk as if maintaining the integrity of published research were not too terribly important. Nice if you can manage it, but, hey, who’s got the time?

I’m tempted to spout my opinions about all of this, even though that isn’t my role here. My job is to say a word about Fauber’s story, not about medical conflicts of interest. But, dammit, Fauber’s story makes me mad.

And isn’t that what it was supposed to do?

There’s nothing argumentative here, no air of righteous indignation. (If you’re feeling that, it’s coming from me, not Fauber.) And that’s as it should be. The headline writer captured Fauber’s findings perfectly: “Physicians’ disclosures to UW, journals inconsistent.”

Inconsistent. Beautifully understated.

Fauber is a prime example of what a much-maligned and perverted television slogan is supposed to mean: We report, you decide.

Fauber reports, we decide–or get mad, or get even, or use the information however we like. Fauber himself just gets going on his next piece.

He’s done about a dozen of these stories, listed on the paper’s website under the series title, Side Effects.

The Journal Sentinel won a Pulitzer in 2008 for an investigation of improprieties in local pensions, and again in 2010 for an expose of Wisconsin’s child-care subsidy system. It was also a finalist in 2010 for a separate story on invasive creatures in the Great Lakes, and a finalist in 2009 for a series called “Chemical Fallout.”

What the hell is going on up there?

Fauber may be the next to win the prize. In the meantime, read his stories, be inspired, and do the same thing in your town. Your editors probably haven’t seen Fauber’s work, way up there in Milwaukee, and so you will look brilliant.

Just do it before he gets his Pulitzer.

- Paul Raeburn

Ooops, those Ws get you every time. Ignore the now fixed hed that for hours said Wall St. Journal had this story. The text had it right – The Washington Post this week gave its readers a look at the explanatory skill of Slate.com regular Brian Palmer, via a short course in solar cells and our energy fix. Journalists like to say they’re not in the education business. No, we’re in the information and news business. I say it too. Education is a side-effect. Palmer however walks gracefully close to the line, writing a story as though from a syllabus, with a nice pedagogic arc. He starts not with the lead, but with background on solar energy and its unappreciated permeation of most of our energy sources, ones that are seldom labeled as solar energy. I think the only one to exclude is nuclear power – but that’s stellar energy, anyway, left over from supernovae long ago.

His explanation of photovoltaic cells, citing Einstein and Beckerel and silicon-phosphorus layers, is terrific. Especially the part about how one inflates plastic pool floats and air mattresses and such. That’s how the N-layer works, sort of. Nice job. Here’s more of his stuff at Slate’s Explainer.

- Charlie Petit