It’s no secret to long time tracker readers that this particular tracker is a fan of Quirks and Quarks, the CBC radio show that Bob McDonald hosts each Saturday – with  exec. producer Jim Handman as drover.

Last Saturday had a good lineup on such things as foiling bed bugs with sex pheromones, an ancient Anasazi Pueblo’s charnal house with intimations of ethnic cleansing and maniacal dismemberment, the great early Eocene CO2 spike that put alligators in the Arctic, and so on. I listened in morbid fascination to just one, CSI Pueblo on the Anasazi slaughter as related by one of the archeologists. It is distressing, and convincing.

A particular reason to call attention to Quirks and Quarks is the convenience, completeness, and openness of the website. The popup audio player indeed pops right in a jiffy for each episode (or one can listen to or download the entire program). Text summaries are succinct. Most  impressive are the prominent direct links to (when available) the primary paper relating the science, links to university or other pages with pertinent info, any press releases, and most refreshing, another news story. The latter, one suspects, are stories that may have tipped the program to the topic. Or, perhaps, they are simply particularly good adjunct reading. This is a model for how honest on line news websites, especially those that have a news-aggregator aspect, should share with readers links to convenient source documents or other material they use. McDonald’s interview m.o. is skilled and often extends a  story considerably beyond all the other linked material. But seeing it enriches the site enormously for the show’s audience.

- Charlie Petit

The AP‘s Seth Borenstein late last week put a sly slap atop a carefully done  story on the amount of oil that the BP oil spill – remember that? It seems so along ago already – actually spilt. The government, he writes in his lede, “finally got it right.” The news peg is a report in Science, by Columbia U. researchers, independently calculating the volume of oil the spewed from the failed blowout preventer on the seafloor. The government had said the amount was about 172 million gallons, the new study said 185 million gallons. Best of all in this story, Borenstein explains that both numbers are fuzzy, each comes with calculated margins of error, and he gives the numbers. The result is that readers have no reason to think – as many news accounts suggest they should – that these kinds of estimates are meant by scientists to be taken as exact measurement. They are useful, but not precise. Ergo, statistically, 172 million and 185 million signal agreement, not the opposite. Stories in the daily media that get into error bars are not common. This one does.

Over the weekend, other outlets ran updates on the multi-arena wrangle over who knew what and did what and when and who’s on the hook.

A sampling of other recent Gulf oil spill stories:

• Wall St. Journal – Siobhan Hughes: Scientist Says More Than 50% of Oil Still in Gulf ; Mostly out of water column, buried in coastal and deep sea sediments.
• The Hill (blog) – Ben Geman : Thad Allen: Low-balled oil spill estimates didn’t hamper response ; Probably so, worth reporting. but there is a straw man element here. Geman might better have added that, at the time, few reports said otherwise. Rather, suspicion was that BP kept numbers low to keep fines and other penalties, some calculated by spill size, as low as possible too.
• AP: Dina Cappiello, Seth Borenstein: Allen: third party needed in oil spill response ; Coast guard man says a non-BP but industry-based person or team should have been part of the response team – and ought to be built into plans for similar event. Also, Dina Cappiello: Experts question BP’s take on Gulf oil spill ;
• Financial Times – Gregory Meyer: Halliburton says BP missed ‘red flags’ ;

Grist for the Mill: Columbia University Press Release ;

- Charlie Petit

Ah, the temptation and elixir of a steady paycheck in trade for weasel words, scare quotes, inane facts, Wikipedia rewrites, irrelevant one-sentence paragraphs, and random quotes for balance!  People, one imagines but cannot name names in public because one of them may have been a friend of mine or even me on occasion (not that I remember it), have made good livings as science writers making quick deadline while relying heavily on such recipe.

For laughs, tears, or an ouch, read:

• Guardian (The Lay Scientist blog) Martin Robbins: This is a news website article about a scientific paper ;

Thank you Malcolm Ritter for the tip.

PIc source

- Charlie Petit

(English intro to Spanish lang. post) “Here in Paraguay, scientific journalism doesn’t exist”, or so says one of the winners of the Science Journalism Award in Paraguay, part of the Inter-American Scientific Journalism Program that The Organization of the American States (OAS) launched. We track the 5 stories winners. Publishers were the newspapers ABC Color, Última Hora, and La Nación, and they deal with energy efficiency, heat waves, a new center for innovation in the country, exobiology, and local research on the pharmacological possibilities of a plant called “burrito”. There is a lot to do to improve science journalism in Paraguay, but it seems that there is a good group of young journalists willing to assume the challenge. The National Council for Science and Technology has also established it as one of its missions, and announced actions in the early future. We’ll follow up.

Una nueva iniciativa para apoyar el periodismo científico en Latinoamérica está en marcha. La Organización de Estados Americanos (OEA) está fraguando su ambicioso Programa Interamericano de Periodismo Científico (PIPC), que durante un plazo de dos años promete realizar diversos encuentros de capacitación regionales, crear una red que una a periodistas, investigadores, responsables de medios, instituciones, políticos y legisladores, y abanderar acciones concretas destinadas a fortalecer el periodismo científico en la región. Una de estas primeras iniciativas ha sido el Premio de Periodismo Científico convocado en varios países, y cuyos resultados ya han sido anunciados.

El ganador de Paraguay fue Juan Cálcena con el reportaje “Tecnología verde, herramienta válida para economizar energía”, quien según informa ABC Color participará con los gastos cubiertos al primer seminario regional del PIPC los próximos 13, 14 y 15 de Octubre en Buenos Aires.

Última Hora anuncia que su periodista Patricia Benítez fue la segunda clasificada, e incluye la cita “El periodismo científico acá en Paraguay, como tal, no existe. Somos aprendices todavía en este campo”. No es una queja, sino el reflejo de una oportunidad. Las palabras de Patricia no deben ser interpretadas como derrotismo, sino mostrarnos el mucho trabajo bonito que tenemos por hacer. Y hay más personas e instituciones de las que nos pensamos con ganas de apostar por ello. En este sentido, la nota informa de la voluntad decidida del Conacyt paraguayo en mejorar la difusión de la ciencia en su país, y el anuncio de la organización de un taller a realizar en los próximos meses.

Continuemos revisando los trabajos ganadores de Paraguay, que cubren áreas tan diversas como la eficiencia energética, el clima, la obtención de fármacos a base de plantas locales, la búsqueda de vida inteligente fuera de nuestro planeta, y la necesidad de apostar por centros de innovación científica y tecnológica.  Por orden de primer a quinto clasificado:

ABC Color – Juan Cálcena “Tecnología verde, herramienta válida para economizar energía”. Reportaje que resume algunas de las iniciativas actuales cuyo objetivo es reducir el gasto energético. Presta especial atención al 2% de la contaminación global que según el reportaje se produce en las oficinas. El término “contaminación” es muy amplio, y no queda muy claro a qué se refiere. Buen texto, aprovechando la visita de un experto en tecnología verde a las instalaciones del periódico.

Última hora – Patricia Benítez “El calor rompe récords”. (pdf) Reportaje realizado en 2009 analizando las altas temperaturas que en casi todo el mundo se estaban alcanzando en ese momento, y hacían pensar que 2009 se convertiría en uno de los años más calientes desde 1850. Interesante la crítica que se hace a la medición de temperaturas por vehículos e instrumentos de empresas publicitarias, explicando porqué acostumbran a dar datos erróneos. Buena abundancia de datos, pero quizá faltaría un poco más de ciencia climatológica para darles un sentido.

Revista Foco (Diario La Nación) – Jessica Barreto “Rompiendo la inercia hacia la innovación” (pdf 1, 2, 3, 4). Muy completo trabajo sobre el Parque Tecnológico de Itaipú, que incide en la alta vocación innovadora de esta recién creada institución La pieza habla más de organización que de ciencia, pero hace una muy necesaria denuncia al escaso contacto entre universidad y empresa, y profundiza muy bien en la labor social que un centro de investigación de estas características debe tener. Realmente positivo dar a conocer a la población paraguaya que en su país existe un equipo de 60 profesionales altamente formado trabajando con la convicción de que la investigación científica mejora directamente la sociedad que se atreva a apostar por ella.

ABC – Eduardo Quintana “En busca del vecino planetario”. Texto divulgativo sobre la búsqueda de vida inteligente fuera de la Tierra, repasando el proyecto SETI, la ecuación de Drake, matizando la enorme diferencia con la ufología, y terminando con una de las frases más míticas de Carl Sagan. Buena revisión, a la que por pedir, quizá se le podría haber añadido alguna referencia a trabajos más actuales.

ABC – Gladys Benítez: “Científicos validan el conocimiento popular sobre bondades del burrito”. Según la cultura popular, el burrito es una planta habitual en Paraguay con propiedades digestivas y relajantes. Gladys explica de manera muy completa la historia que llevó a científicos locales a demostrar experimentalmente dichas propiedades, y a extraer principios activos del burrito que quizá llegarán a convertirse en fármacos. Un poco arriesgado decir que los antidepresivos podrán ser sustituidos por pastillas de burrito sin efectos secundarios, pero de nuevo importantísimo sacar a relucir investigaciones locales, y aprovechar como se hace en los últimos párrafos para decirle al lector que la innovación es la base para el desarrollo económico, y recordarle que la ciencia no es ni mucho menos sólo para países ricos. Lo único que nos faltó –y es importante- son datos de los estudios realizados, resultados obtenidos, alguna referencia, y un poquito más de ciencia.

Felicidades a los 5 ganadores, a las instituciones convocantes, y ánimo a todos en seguir apostando por el periodismo científico. Los primeros con su predisposición a cubrir ciencia, y los segundos aportando recursos e iniciativas. Continuidad es una palabra importante.

- Pere Estupinyà

Martin Rees, aka Sir Martin aka Lord Rees aka Baron Rees of Ludlow aka the Astronomer Royal, unofficially Britain’s top scientist while officially 59th President of the Royal Society, has always occupied a special place in my mind and I expect those of other reporters whose beats lead to encounters with him. He can always  be counted on to say something terribly smart and fresh. This often occurs as he throws in something a tad gloomy about general affairs. He does so while seeming to be enjoying a quiet joke on himself.

A taste of his talent for being being evasive, illuminating, intimate, and amusing all at the same time and in public are on display in the UK’s Independent Newspaper. There science editor Steve Connor distills an interview with the beaky baron upon his completion of his stint at the Royal Society.

It is a pleasant, refreshing, well-composed story. There are two minor flaws to mention. The first is one that many news people may have duplicated. The hed is misleading and sensational :  Martin Rees: ‘We shouldn’t attach any weight to what Hawking says about god.’ That seems hardly the topic of the conversation. He doesn’t say anything particularly distinctive about Hawking’s new book or his old friend Hawking, and from the looks of it his remarks were an aside during a conversation devoted to meatier things. No matter, it is a newspaper after all, and the Hawking hook will draw readers. The other is this description of Rees: “…one of those rare examples of someone with a brilliant mind who can talk to lesser mortals without making them feel as if they suffer from a mental deficiency.” Some and perhaps many lofty intellectuals are in fact conversational snoots. But there are many friendly, forgiving, and engaging ones in that class as well. Rees is not all that rare, not on this score.

*UPDATE: For a look at what put Sir Martin most recently in the news in the UK:

• Reuters – Stefano Ambrogi: British scientists say cuts will cripple research ;

- Charlie Petit

Last Thursday, Kenneth Chang of The New York Times reported, in a brief story, that the Nobel Prize winner Linda B. Buck (left) had retracted two research papers originally published in Science and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Buck shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2004 for her work on the sense of smell.

The Times has reported occasionally on Buck’s work, so it was important–and responsible–for the Times to note the retraction. The retracted papers were not part of the work that won Buck the Nobel, and so the consequences, from the public’s point of view, are minimal.

But it’s an important bit of follow-up; if we report what researchers are doing, we should report what they are undoing.

The Times has also reported regularly on the work of Savio Woo, a cancer researcher and the head of the gene and cell medicine department at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and a past president of the American Society for Gene Therapy. He is, in short, a prominent researcher.

Woo also retracted two papers last week, following the earlier retraction of four others. Yet, as far as I can determine, the Times did not report on that retraction. Admittedly, Woo is not a Nobel Prize winner, but he is a notable researcher whose doings the Times has covered. Should not the paper have also covered these undoings? It could even have done so in the same article in which it reported on Buck.

I found out about the Woo retraction from the excellent (and relatively new) blog Retraction Watch, presided over by Adam Marcus, managing editor of Anesthesiology News, and Ivan Oransky, executive editor of Reuters Health. Not only did Retraction Watch report on Woo’s latest retraction, it has been covering him regularly for a month. Where were the rest of us on this? If you’ve written a story on Woo, you owe this reporting to your readers, listeners, or clickers. (Incidentally, Chief Tracker Charlie Petit beat me to the punch on this one, mentioning Retraction Watch last month in connection with the Marc Hauser affair at Harvard.)

I confess that when Retraction Watch appeared, I predicted (silently, so nobody could catch me on it later) that it would die a slow death, because there would be too few retractions to justify paying attention to this worthy but misguided endeavor.

For what must surely be the first time in my reporting career, I was wrong.

Marcus and Oransky are finding something to post several times a week. The scientific establishment is apparently publishing and retracting unsubstantiated research papers all the time. That’s a story! And it’s one that most of us have missed.

Add Retraction Watch to your feed. I’m guessing you will find plenty of ideas to steal. And your editors will marvel at how well connected you are.

- Paul Raeburn

Bloomberg‘s Alan Bjerga and Mario Parker write a near-obit for the great US experiment in ethanol fuel, nearly all from corn. Its theme is set at the top. One meets Representative Jim Sensenbrenner, a Wisconsin Republican, refusing to put ethanol-dosed gasoline in his two cycle outboard motor for a cruise across a lake. It’ll corrode the motor’s sensitive parts, he fears.

The story is well-reported and, while it dwells not at all on the particulars of ethanol distilling from corn, it addresses an essential topic in environmental and energy sciences. If you’d like a catch-up on changing tax laws and other official encouragements for ethanol, this is a good place to lo0k.

Personally, if I’d been one of these reporters, I’d like to think I’d have politely asked the Congressman why he doesn’t just trade in that smog-belching motor for a four-cycle engine after checking with the manufacture to be sure it’s fully tolerant of ethanol? But that’s another topic, and anyway  these days Republicans elected to office and who want to stay that way are being even more determined than usual to declare that it is their right, even duty, as Americans to do as they please even if it makes no sense to others and especially to members of the so-called liberal media or who are, even worse and holy moly, government bureaucrats.

After this thud for ethanol in the news, a look around for what other outlets are saying about biofuels turned up a few, more broad ranging and generally optimistic examples.

Stories:

• Columbus Dispatch – Gina Potthoff, Caitlin McGlade: Turning flora into fuel / Algae, sunflowers among sources sought to replace gasoline ; Stochastic reporting, jumps about a bit with no larger theme than to spotlight the cleverness of two ideas. And the lede says that, on alternative fields, “corn is only the beginning.” A note on that beginning’s near-end would have been useful. The sunflower episode is interesting, one must add.
• Regina Leader-Post (via Vancouver Sun) Bruce Johnstone: Experts predict ‘clean technology’ boom ; Not limited to biofuels, but remarkably free of details or evidence of more than a single source. One is not even sure who the source works for. Answer is in this press release ;
• Forbes (blog) Hilary Kramer: Cunning Capitalists Go Blazing Into Biofuels ; A very boosterish, adjective-strewn piece on bold market forays by venturesome entrepreneurs. This is a column of tips for investors. It is of some interest for having no implied or directly snide comments on the truth of global warming or on the wisdom of governmental regulation and incentive, as is the tendency at this pub. 

Grist for the Mill (Trade mag division):

• Ethanol Producer Magazine – Kris Bevill: Refiners display increasing interest in ethanol ;

- Charlie Petit

When science goes wrong and papers are retracted and, worst of all, fabrication of data is the reason, a common pattern is that a senior author is directly the culprit and whistle-blowing comes from students, post-docs, or colleagues. That’s what seems to have happened at Harvard recently that led psychologist Marc Hauser to take sudden leave.

But this week two episodes not only have work by post-doctoral junior authors under the investigations’ microscopes, but both suspects are not to be found.

The more prominent case stems from work at Harvard Medical School. Nobel laureate Linda B. Buck – now in Seattle at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, added two more papers to her list (with co-authors) of recent retractions. They are in Science and PNAS. The follow one at Nature two years ago. In all cases the finger of suspicion is directed at the lead, if junior, author, a postdoc who is no longer at Harvard.

Stories:

• NYTimes – Kenneth Chang: Nobel Laureate Retracts Two Papers Unrelated to Her Prize ; An entirely sober, uninflected, declarative and riveting account. It ends with an evocative, deep toll ringing over a career’s tragic turn – the suspected fabricator not only lost his most recent known academic job in the wake of Hurricane Ike in Galveston, but cannot now be located. The hed with the link has the important info that her Nobel-winning work and publications on the olfactory system are not in question – in at least some print editions, that’s not in the hed. Too bad. It means one must read the story to learn the answer to the first question most readers would have. One also reads here that the flawed research was  incremental to the overall field and the retractions won’t change things much.
• Bloomberg – Elizabeth Lopatto: Nobel Laureate Linda Buck Retracts Two Studies on Sense of Smell in Brain ; Lopatta reports that the postdoc has apparently returned to his homeland, China, with his exact whereabouts unknown.
• NatureNews – Alla Katsnelson: Nobel-winning brain researcher retracts two papers /… has now withdrawn three articles in two years ; More info on the papers’ citation activity, and reinforcement that no major views will change on how odor detection works.
• The Scientist – Vanessa Schipani: More retractions from Nobelist ;

Coincidentally, another post-doc in trouble:

• The Scientist – Cristina Luiggi (Sept 22): Postdoc fudged epigenetic data ; Based on a report from HHS’s Office of Research Integrity, on a post-doc at Washington State who gave a lot of wrong reasons for a finding declared by him and co-authors, and ironically that turned out to be confirmed via different mechanisms in subsequent tests. At last report, this says, the post-doc left science and was working in Taiwan on the family farm and out of contact.

One cannot, if the evidence holds up, forgive these young researchers. But the accounts leave one nonetheless with a twinge,  if not of sympathy, of sorrow. Next time any science reporter reading this is circulating around a lab or other research site looking for info from the sometimes-amazingly cheerful grad students and post-docs who work crazy long hours repeatedly pursuing oft-stultifying procedures, keep in mind the pressures that may beset them. Most, one must believe, are honorable and take no shortcuts that they lie about. But you never know which ones are not …

- Charlie Petit

A story of of generally good quality catches the eye in the San Francisco Chronicle this morning – enterprising, pretty thorough if uncertain in conclusion – but that brushes only lightly against its main angle: iron-eating bugs and their ilk.

Jaxon Van Derbeken has it under a banner p. 1 head: Bacteria a culprit in explosion? The writer is on the newspaper’s large team that reported the explosion of a gas pipeline in the nearby city of San Bruno last month, and remains hard at work on the aftermath. After a mention of microbiologically influenced corrosion in recent coverage, Van Berkeen bores in here. The hed has a question mark for a reason. It says here there is no direct evidence this is why a 30-inch, entrenched gas pipeline blew out and incinerated a neighborhood. But it’s on the list of plausibilities.

But what is the process, shortened to MIC in the article and in technical literature alike? We learn here only that bacteria, given pooled water in such pipes, can form a biofilm. The slimy outer layer provides a cozy den while the buggers “release gases that attack the pipe wall,” a source tells him. Got it? Most of the story is about how to detect such infestations of pipelines, to clean them out, and to protect against recurrence – and about what the utility company did or didn’t do to stay on top of the pipe’s integrity.

Scant attention to the microbiology of the story’s prime angle is a justified editorial call – readers more likely want to know whether the company was responsible or not, an issue the story raises while recognizing direct evidence is scant, so far.

But it only took a moment to Google around and find that, just as the writer says, MIC (aka biocorrosion) is a huge and fairly recently-recognized problem, can vastly multiply the rate of corrosion above what ordinary electrochemistry would induce, and remains riddled with scientific questions. Few general interest newspapers would go deeply into all that – maybe the NYTimes ScienceTimes. But a few smaller and specialty outlets might be eager for writers wanting to dive in.

The microbes, one learns, often work by metabolizing iron and other metals, reducing sulfur. Many cannot be cultured in vitro, leaving to DNA tests of biofilms to learn how many of these creatures may be accelerating a pipe’s rot. Many release methane (ie, are methanogens). Speaking of iron, isn’t that an irony? The bad news is that they can wreck a natural gas pipeline. The good news is that until such failure, they add a smidge to the flow of fuel going past.

A few of the references that whet the appetite, and these were pretty randomly and dumbly uncovered in a few minutes, are the preface to a whole technical treatise, a manual on the topic,  and a press release (issued before the California explosion) from the University of Oklahoma on a new, ConocoPhillips-assisted program for biocorrosion research. Numerous paper abstracts also pop up in searches.

By the way, I was happy to see that the Chron, my local paper and one-time employer, has a stack of front page stories today that twitch the nerves of  readers – including science writers – who appreciate technical and research savvy. Kelly Zito writes on the challenges of boring a new aqueduct tunnel under the bay (he doesn’t get into biocorrosion fears, if any exist), and Wyatt Buchanan reports the state’s clean air regulators are pushing forward, despite conservative headwinds, on ambitious plans to get a third of the state’s electricity from renewable sources within ten years. Related to that is another piece inside, by Joe Garofoli, on California’s tight governor race in which a prime issue is whether to suspend an existing law mandating reductions in greenhouse emissions.

- Charlie Petit

A human powered ornithopter little like Leonardo’s 15th c. imagining, but in this case real, may be a grandiose stunt but it is a terrific story – much better than equally useless solar-powered cars. In Canada yesterday news broke that a student at the University of Toronto had climbed into the spindly framework around a seat, start pedaling, and keep a set of wings about 100 feet tip to tip wriggling with sufficient power to travel 145 meters in a little under 20 seconds. The flight was in August, but only now is the team getting around to telling the world.

Looking at datelines, it looks like, at PostMedia,  Linda Nguyen got the story out first and with the right quote in the fourth paragraph (taken from the press release): the feat is not to lead to practical human powered airplanes but “to act as an inspiration to others to … follow their dreams.”

Videos show a tow rope and a small car in front. One presumes that’s hooked up only long enough to get it up to takeoff speed, with the pilot providing the power to sustain the flight. Still, that boosted start takes some of the fun out of this news.

Other stories:

• Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (blog) Mark Johnson: Man imitates bird for almost 20 seconds in first sustained flight to feature flapping wings ;  With links to a video.
• LiveScience – Charles Q. Choi: Human-Powered Aircraft Flaps Wings in Flying First ; As an aid to us American readers, he gives all units in both metric and English versions. And Charles Q. tipped the tracker off to this aeronautical news too, thank you very much.
• Toronto Star – Debra Black, Kate Allen: Bird-plane a flying first ;

Grist for the Mill: U. of Toronto Press Release (via ScienceDaily) ;

- Charlie Petit

.... photo by AquaBounty Technologies

Shortly after a blizzard of news (previous post) on the FDA’s hearings regarding proposed  salmon modified for fast growth with genes from other species, two veteran  AP science reporters, Seth Borenstein and Malcolm Ritter, whipped out a big piece to put the pharmed salmon in perspective. Their hed: Genetically altered salmon? It doesn’t stop there.

The core of it – with experts consulted to argue over whether these salmon and their rejiggered genomes represent anything distinctly new or challenging to health – is that we already eat organisms far removed from their natural ancestors. We do so thanks to selective breeding, hybridization, and the like. To be sure, this would be the first meat for the plate derived from creatures with deliberately added genes from distant species. But as their lede says, “We’ve always played with our food.” And it declares without shilly shally that the primary issue is labeling and whether salmon husbandry is harmful to the environment, not danger from eating them. “Scientists have already determined that it’s safe to eat,” they write. A small journalistic equivalent to an error bar might be warranted there – a hint of uncertainty – but there does seem no reason to think we’d be eating anything that’s not in a the seafood market in one form or another already.

It’s a worthy effort. It takes professional discipline to write something like this – there isn’t much adventure for the reporter. It is a backgrounder. It breaks nothing new. For the same reason,  it’s not obvious that a lot of outlets will actually print it. But many news outlets and news aggregators presumably will have it in easy view at their websites.

Incidentally, the AP piece quotes noted nutritionist Marion Nestle on her reservations about genetically modified produce and meat on general principles. At the Atlantic, Nestle has a blog post laying out her worries, and does a good job sampling the news coverage the hearing got.

Other transgenic food news:

• Reuters: Researchers develop protein-packed potato in India ; Wish I’d seen this when doing the earlier post. Dunno when or if this will reach the FDA, but these researchers added amaranth genes to regular taters, and got a more nutritious spud. The unnamed reporter, filing from Shanghai, did not find out how many regulatory hurdles these potatoes must pass to reach market.
• Hindustan Times – Anika Gupta: Get set for potatoes high on protein ; Gupta does what the Rueters reporter did not: seek out more detail, including hints that this is already into the regulatory maze.

- Charlie Petit

At Yale University’s environment360 web-based site one finds a story with the sort of lede that makes one envious – an account from an exotic locale where few tourists go, and a quote right off the bat letting the reader know the reporter got to go there and see things for him or herself.

In this case the enterprising writer is Ed Struzik, a veteran outdoors writer and photographer, and the opening setting is the shore of an island in the archipelago of arctic Canada. There he visits a few Inuit hunters and quickly gets around to listing a whole lot of other traditional arctic peoples – Eskimos, Komi, Evenks – who share their predicament. Caribou, a significant contributor to their cultures and larders, are having a tough time as temperatures rise and the rhythms of snow, ice, and rain change.

No sense capsulizing it. Just read it for all that.

But I can tell you it is a  heavily-reported, smoothly-written, not overly long dispatch on events that, reported from afar, would lack immediacy and muscle. Such stories have gotten harder to find in old line media but are cropping up regularly in so-called new media outlets, including e360. I

A question is whether this fine piece has much impact or circulation. I’ve dropped a line to e360′s editor to learn what the audience is.  If we get the answer this post will get an update. One does notice that one new outlet, the AlaskaDispatch, points out the e360 piece to its audience.

- Charlie Petit