Laura Newman of the Patient POV blog weighed in this week with an unusual post out of a National Institutes of Health consensus meeting on Wednesday. (Newman’s post also appeared on the  Reporting on Health blog yesterday.)

The panel decided that men who have PSAs of 10 or less and Gleason scores 6 or less “should no longer be told they have ‘cancer’” Newman writes. More than 100,000 men fit those criteria, and they are candidates not for treatment, but for “active monitoring.”

Newman

If they don’t have cancer, what exactly do they have? “The Panel declined to say what term should replace “cancer,” instead leaving it to expert pathologists and urologists  to sort out the science and meaningful language,” Newman writes. Newman doesn’t call that a cop-out, but I do. If pathologists and urologists decide what language to use, it’s likely to be some orthographic monster derived from classical Greek. I’m going to call it a prostate alert.

But this story isn’t really about language; it’s about what that language signifies. People with cancer need treatment; people without it don’t. And this story is about whether or not a prostate alert should be treated. If we don’t call it cancer, maybe more of those folks will be put on what’s called “active surveillance.”

Active surveillance is like the weather–everybody talks about it, but nobody does much about it. Newman recalls an earlier post in which she talked about a New York man who tried five doctors and finally had to go out of town to find one who was willing to follow his case with active surveillance.

Here’s the problem, Newman points out: Prostate surgery is very lucrative; active surveillance is not.

Maybe doctors need a wake-up call. Maybe they can find a way to make a living, without throwing radiation or the knife at every patient with a prostate alert. They could take a lesson from Newman, who, I’m guessing, did not get paid to write this post for her personal blog. If she can make a living while doing important work without pay, so (I’m guessing) can doctors.

- Paul Raeburn

A small news confection is getting huge play today. In Science is a report that lab rats seem to display genuine empathy for other rats. Best of all, the experiment, by a group at the University of Chicago, has the narrative arc of a touching children’s story. Basically, a hungry rat follows the aroma of yummy treats, walks into a room, and hears the whimpering of a captive the rat it already knew but now wrapped in ropes tied to a chair. Actually the captive is a rat jammed into a snug plastic sock with a door on it but the parallel is there. The hungry rats – the girls are better at this than the boys but all are pretty affected by what they find – tend to free the trapped rat before finishing off the chocolate. They save some for the sap in the sock. Sometimes they don’t take a nibble before messing with the door and getting it open and then share the goodies. Such nice rats. Just like people.

The intuition by people to empathize, and the tendency by many of us to anthropomorphically ascribe to animals the emotional world of H. sapiens, is a pretty good tool for getting readers to zero in on a news outlet’s goods. It’s the underlying reason people keep pets. Even the reporters and editors fall for the lure. So did I. One does wonder of course whether selection for traits that keep fellow members of one’s species alive, a presumed survival advantage, come in rats with the same inner sensation for rats as it does in people. Do they have a primitive, ratty “awww, lemme help you out, buddy” pang, or is it more like an ant hanging a left when the pheromone trail or whatever it is it’s following changes course?

Stories:

• AP – Seth Borenstein: Rats’ bad rap: Study shows them nice, not naughty ; Says they demonstrate compassion and one supposes that’s true enough. We can’t be sure they feel it, but they demonstrate what to us would be compassion. Is there a difference? One source, unconnected with the study, tells Seth they’re not really like people – they’re so consistent that it’s too bad people are not more like these rats.
• Time Magazine – Maia Szalavitz: Rats Show Empathy and Free Their Trapped Companions ;
• Irish Times – Dick Ahlstrom : Rats resist chocolate to help friends in first evidence of rodent ‘empathy’ ;
• NYTimes – Sindya N. Bhanoo: Rats to the Rescue ;
• NPR – Nell Greenfieldboyce: Cagebreak! Rats will work to free a trapped pal ;
• Science News – Laura Sanders: He’s no rat, he’s my brother ; First quote from an outsider – in praise – an effective adn reporterly way to say it’s legit without just quoting a member of the team (and far better than those reports that lift such off a press release rather than get it for themselves).
• New Scientist – Wendy Zukerman: Rats free each other from traps, then share chocolate ; Antoher one with initiative, extra sources…
• NatureNews – Virginia Gewin: Rats free each other from cages / Altruistic acts raise questions whether the rodents feel empathy ; The rare story on this that, while relating the news in an overall positive fashion, inserts a sharp rebuke that includes the quote: ‘This is yet another example of a definitional assault that has the goal of blurring the distinction between cognitive and emotional processes in humans and animals.’ The news writer for the general public might not select that rather high-brow riposte, but it does have some sharp elbows. Nature’s readers will lap it up.
• AFP - Study shows rats help pals escape ;
• LiveScience – Joseph Castro: Empathetic rats step up and help others in a bind ;
• Wired – Brandon Keim: Rats Free Trapped Friends, Hint at Universal Empathy ; Keim does not say it is empathy, but only that the study “raised anew the possibility” of it, and includes a round of history. With only a few such caveats he keeps his story interesting and, as a bonus: true.
• Cosmos (Australia): Helen Albert: Social rats trade chocolate for cagemates ;
• … Lots of others, apologies to those missed.

Grist for the Mill: Univ. Chicago Press Release ; Washington State Univ. Press Release ;

- Charlie Petit

(English intro to Spanish lang post) This is excellent reporting on health. The National Children’s Hospital in San Jose (Costa Rica) accounts for 6 times more deaths of infants after cardiovascular surgery than world’s average data. An independent report concluded that this is not due to wrong diagnoses, neither inadequate postoperative cares, but due to systematic malpractices during the surgeries. This is serious stuff. The story began internally in 2005 when some medical doctors denounced an apparent increase in mortality after surgery. Then in 2006 an Argentinean specialist detected failures in some surgical techniques. And in 2009, a group of experts from the US visited the hospital and prepared a report that confirmed the use of “inappropriate techniques in cardiovascular surgeries in infants”, and even recommended “to change the leading surgeon in order to improve results”.

Luis Eduardo Díaz, a reporter from La Nación has been following the case since last summer. He has been extremely persistent asking for more data and responsibilities. Initially, the managers of the hospital assumed some problems but said that the numbers of deaths were smaller than reported, and that they had already changed things to improve the situation. The health minister of Costa Rica declared too that the situation was improving. La Nación published more data showing that high indexes of child mortality still persisted (for example 3-4 times more than Uruguay or Colombia), and that some procedures were more critical than others. Reporters Luis E. Díaz and Debbie Ponchnner interviewed the director of the hospital and used one of his sentences as title of the story: “We all die some time”. It was a harsh interview were the director showed criticism to the role of journalists and reluctance to assume responsibilities. Luis E. Díaz followed up the case with more stories including new sources, plenty of data, and infographics explaining the different kinds of heart surgeries. In his last story, he reports that an investigation performed by the ministry of health confirms that in 2010 the numbers of deaths were still 6 times higher than the worlds average. 

Wow… esto sí es periodismo en el ámbito sanitario: Una serie de artículos publicados en La Nación (Costa Rica), denuncia que una cantidad desproporcionada de menores están falleciendo en el costarricense Hospital Nacional de Niños debido a errores sistemáticos de los cirujanos en las salas de operaciones cardíacas. La acusación es muy, pero que muy grave.

Según el primer artículo de la serie, publicado el pasado junio po Luis Eduardo Díaz “Fallas de cirujanos elevan muertes de niños cardiópatas”, la historia empezó en 2005 cuando un grupo de médicos intensivistas del Hospital Nacional de Niños (HNN) denunció un aumento de muertes de pacientes cardiópatas. Al año siguiente un especialista argentino visitó el hospital y detectó fallas en técnicas quirúrgicas, y se encargó un informe más completo a un grupo de especialistas estadounidenses que en 2009 elaboraron un informe concluyendo que (según texto del artículo): “la alta mortalidad estaba vinculada al uso de técnicas inapropiadas en las cirugías cardiovasculares. Incluso, recomendaron que el cirujano principal del área de cardiología del HNN no siguiera operando si se querían ver resultados satisfactorios”.

El encabezado del arículo de Eduardo dice: “En 2009 murieron aquí 31 de cada 100 operados (esta cifra se corrigió en artículo postrior a 16.7); promedio mundial es de 3”, y en el primer párrafo: “La aplicación inadecuada de técnicas quirúrgicas, de anestesia y del procedimiento de perfusión son parte de los yerros señalados por e informe de la Auditoría. El documento detalla que los médicos del HNN están cometiendo estos errores en operaciones cardíacas consideradas como de menor complejidad, las cuales tienen mayor probabilidad de sobrevivencia.”

Esto es serio. Según el informe no se trata de diagnósticos incorrectos ni inadecuados cuidados posoperatorios, sino eventos en el quirófano. En la nota la ministra de salud “reconoce que hay un problema pero ha habido mejoras” y directivos del hospital dicen que las cifras reales no son tan altas y que desde 2009 han tomado medidas y la situación está mejorando. Según el artículo de Eduardo la Gerencia Médica del HNN dice que “el tema debe ser resuelto por el hospital”; algo que evidentemente un buen periodista no va a tolerar tan fácilmente. Y empiezan las tensiones entre la prensa y el hospital.

En una corta entrevista al coordinador de la unidad de cirugía cardiaca, éste desacredita el informe, acusa al periodista de querer distorsionar la realidad, y dice que siguen trabajando pero que “algunos colegas quisieran extrapolar resultados de Europa o EUA en un medio como el costarricense. Eso no es posible”. Depende cuales sean las causas de los problemas, no? Ningún periodista puede quedarse pasivo ante tal situación.

En agosto, Luis Eduardo Díaz publicó “Muertes en cirugía cardiaca enfrentan a médicos del HNN”. Según el texto –que cuanta con datos actualizados-, las autoridades del centro dicen que las muertes han disminuido en los dos últimos años, y médicos intensivistas que continúan duplicando índices mundiales (15,4% de mortalidad por CC en Costa Rica frente-por ejemplo- al 7% en Uruguay o 7.7% en Colombia). Además, depende de la patología tratada la cifra sube escandalosamente (33,3% de mortalidad en 2009 en tetralogía de Fallot frente al 3,6 europeo). Son cifras que disecciona la jefa de redacción de La Nación Debbie Ponchnner en una columna, y que el jefe de cirugía valora como “no satisfactorios”, y parece achacar a la poca frecuencia de casos. Debbie y Luis titulan “Todos nos morimos” su agria entrevista al director del RNN Rodolfo Hernández, que muestra su descontento con la labor periodística con frases como “Bueno, la cifra puede ser 16 o puede ser lo que ustedes quieran. Eventualmente todos nos morimos. Si sacamos mortalidad, en Costa Rica es el 100%” o “yo podría llamar a Cristóbal Colón a ver cómo encuentra la mortalidad aquí”. Se refería a la pregunta de porqué los intensivistas que denunciaron no estaban presentes en las citas para analizar el problema. El director del hospital insiste en que la situación está en proceso de mejora, y que no mira al pasado sino al presente y el futuro. Familiares sí miran al pasado. Y periodistas también. Gran labor de los reporteros de La Nación, incluyendo también infografía describiendo los diferentes trastornos cardíacos tratados con cirugía. En página separada Luís Eduardo Díaz explica el precedente del “caso Bristol”, donde en 1998 dos cirujanos fueron acusados de la muerte de 29 niños operados del corazón, y fueron inhabilitados por tres años. También explica que la defensoría de Habitantes empezaba a investigar al HNN, y que el brazo científico del Ministerio de Salud, el Inciensa (Instituto Costarricense de Investigación y Enseñanza en Nutrición y Salud), estaba elaborando un informe, que La Nación tenía una copia preliminar, pero que la investigadora principal desautorizaba la divulgación de los resultados porque la investigación no había terminado todavía.

En octubre Luís E. Díaz reportó “Incensa ratifica alta mortalidad de niños en cirugías cardiacas”. El informe eleva la mortalidad hasta el 26,2%, seis veces superior a la media mundial. La nota detalla muy bien tanto las cifras como la metodología seguida por el informe y el porqué del baile de números. Además, Luís resalta que el “Hospital solo operó a mitad de menores que urgían cirugía”.

Estas son hasta el momento las últimas noticias presentadas por La Nación, pero seguro el caso dará mucho más que hablar, tanto en temas estrictamente técnicos y sanitarios como en legales. A riesgo de parecer demagógicos, la presión ejercida por el periodismo crítico La Nación podría haber acelerado las alertas e investigaciones, y en última instancia quizás habrá contribuido a salvar vidas.

- Pere Estupinyà 

Science journalism certainly has a dollop of investigative reporting, the sort that embarrasses people, or worse, caught skating at the edge of ethical behavior, cheating, exaggerating, conning, and so on. But not, truly, very much of that kind of reporting outside of the enviro and big pharma beats. Mostly it is explanation of new discovery and its policy impacts, if any, producing accounts that in general reflect pretty well on the subjects in the story. Today on the general science front we have one of the exceptions to the usual.

In Science this week staff reporter Yudhijit Bhattacharjee has one with the clear odor of muckraking to it. In journalism that takes itself seriously that is a good aroma. He doesn’t quite accuse any particular person of selling his name to a foreign university without really doing much except to list it among his affiliations, for an annual parttime salary of considerable size. But the story does note that an awful lot of these part time gigs have led ranking agencies to abruptly catapult several Saudi Arabia universities to a place among the world’s significant centers of research. Just a short time ago all were in the pits. And he gathers up the statistics and samples in a way that leaves no alternative conclusion than that something has to be rotten here. It’s a bit like a small venture making itself attractive to investors by paying celebrated people to let it put them on its letterhead without doing anything.

At the same time, again, Bhattacharjee has not followed anybody around to see whether his (all are men so far) declared association with such places as King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah included much cause and effect in recently published research. Some of them, surely, really do spend a few weeks at such places, working with grad students and faculty there, using equipment, and thus giving the university due credit. And as the story says, some Saudi institutes appear to be making an honest, and well-funded, run toward academic distinction. But boy, there is a definite crowd that has signed contracts for decent money obligating its members to list these new employers in a distant desert as part of the process in nearly every paper they write from here on out.

As one of his sources tells him, “they are simply buying names.”

The world’s largest citation service, the Institute for Scientific Information, a Thomson Reuters operation, comes up repeatedly in the story. The implication is clear that a more thorough investigation than is possible by one reporter making some inquiries is in order. Then we might know which of these instant Saudi-based scholars are working for the money. That ISI has the resources to get to the bottom of the practice seems very likely. Whether it has the will to do that is the question now. Perhaps the legitimate primary places of academic employment involved need to look harder at their faculty members’ other affiliations. They might want to know whether their stars are selling some of their twinkle to places that are competitors in the rankings game. But if they clamp down, will their big shots simply decamp to somewhere more tolerant? Plus, they might look at such shady deals as a plus. After all, if a professor is getting outside money he or she is less likely to gripe about base pay. So easily do things go foul. Such outlets as the Chronicle of Higher Education might take a good look, and perhaps they have. But Bhattacharjee’s story is the first I’ve seen. It shows the way.

-Charlie Petit

There are a lot of things one could say about today’s stories on the decision by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to overturn–apparently for the first time ever–a regulatory decision by the FDA.

But here’s what I’m interested in: FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg says in a statement that she has concluded that the scientific evidence supports wider availability of the morning-after pill known as Plan B. Sebelius, in her statement and in a letter to Hamburg, says she has concluded the evidence is insufficient.

One of them is right. Or maybe each has a reasonable argument, even if they disagree.The obvious political implications of this story demand, in my view, that reporters try to figure that out. If all of the evidence is on Hamburg’s side, then it’s apparent that Sebelius’s action was questionable–and perhaps politically motivated. If Sebelius has a valid argument, then perhaps this was not a political move on her part. If reporters don’t try to look at the evidence, they cannot fairly report whether Sebelius acted appropriately or not.

Gardner Harris‘s story for The New York Times is disappointing. He gives us predictable quotes, signify nothing:

Jeanne Monahan of the Family Research Council, a conservative advocacy group, said that making Plan B available to young women without a prescription would mean fewer chances that doctors would be able to save them from sexual exploitation, abuse and related diseases. “Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was right to reject the F.D.A. recommendation to make this potent drug available over the counter to young girls,” she said.

Kirsten Moore, president of the Reproductive Health Technologies Project, said Ms. Sebelius had no credible scientific rationale for her decision. “We are outraged that this administration has let politics trump science,” she said.

Harris’s best stuff comes at the very end of his story. He recaps the history of Plan B, noting that an expert advisory committee recommended approval of over-the-counter sales of Plan B, and that FDA scientists supported that recommendation unanimously. That speaks to the question I raised: Apparently the FDA has substantial evidence on its side in this brawl. Why did Harris save that until the end? Why not drop the two grafs above and move up the history that says something about the justification for the FDA’s action.

At the AP, medical writer Lauran Neergaard follows her clever lede–”It’s the morning after and the controversy over how to sell emergency contraception still looms”–with a thorough story that quotes Hamburg’s statement saying there is evidence to support making Plan B available over the counter. And she quotes Sebelius’s skepticism. The way Neergaard pairs the two, it begins to seem obvious that the research favors Hamburg’s position. Sebelius didn’t claim to do research; she simply rejected the FDA’s research.That gets at the heart of my question. Neergaard does include some of the same meaningless, predictable quotes from advocates on each side, as was the case with Harris. I’m shocked, shocked to discover that Rep. Sen. Chuck Grassley thinks there is “a lack of scientific evidence” to support the FDA’s proposed action.

The Washington Post’s Rob Stein also quotes the predictable advocates, but provides this important background:

President Obama pledged in 2009 to prevent politics from interfering with scientific decisions. The Bush administration had been accused of censoring federal scientists on climate change and other hot-button issues.

But Wednesday’s decision was not the first time the Obama administration has overruled the scientific advice of senior officials. In September, Obama pulled back smog standardsproposed by Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa P. Jackson, saying they would impose too heavy an economic burden.

This, again, speaks to the question of whether Sebelius’s decision was a political one.

WebMD managed to write an entire story without quoting a religious conservative, which seems to deserve an award. Reporter Daniel J. DeNoon also takes the radical step of getting away from the Washington speak by (brace yourself) calling up an actual scientist. He would have done better to have called two or three of them, but he deserves a second award for trying to get to the bottom of the scientific question, rather than relying solely on the Washington players and the predictable advocates.

I was disappointed in a few of the other science news outlets I checked, which either did not do a story, or did not explore the scientific questions in greater depth, as I’d hoped they would.

It’s difficult to argue, based on the coverage, that Sebelius had a scientific justification for her decision. Hamburg clearly did have evidence to support her position. That doesn’t mean Sebelius’s decision was political–that it was intended to help with President Obama’s re-election. Some reporters, while being careful not to say that, seemed comfortable implying it.

I don’t know whether making Plan B available over the counter would be damaging to young girls, or whether it would prevent a substantial number of unwanted pregnancies.

Today’s coverage didn’t help me with that.

- Paul Raeburn

An artist's impression -University of Adelaide

Fortunately, it’s extinct, maybe for half a billion years. It was, as several science writers put it without quotes, “the world’s first superpredator.” Hm.

Anomalocaris, known for some years from fossil deposits in the Burgess Shale in British Columbia, it has also been found in China and Australia. But until now, the remains of this meter-long carnivore had no known eyes. The news peg is that Australian scientists have found fossils of the eyes–huge, insectlike compound eyes on stalks. The art shown here helped land it on the cover of today’s Nature.

Ian Sample of the Guardian in the U.K., who puts the doubly superlative phrase in his lede, writes: “Anomalocaris sits near the foot of the arthropod family tree, making it a primitive ancestor of modern insects and crustaceans.”

Jennifer Viegas of Discovery News, who uses the same phrase in her lede, says that the beast’s huge peepers are the biggest compound eyes known from any era at more than an inch across. She says they would have given it better vision than any arthropod known except for today’s dragonflies.

Wired‘s British Web site has a piece by Mark Brown that also uses the same phrase. So did UPI in an unbylined piece.

So, how did so many professional journalists come up with the identical phrase? They lifted it from the hed on the news release from the South Australian Museum. How convenient. So much for the journalism pros.

JohnThomas Didymus of Digital Journal explained that the phrase often used by paleontologists was “world’s first apex predator.” Sounds more like a scientist talking, doesn’t it? Digital Journal is a Toronto-based site that takes user-generated content and has a sprinkling of professional journalists keeping tabs on its output. Didymus, apparently an unpaid journalist, writes from Nigeria.

Over at Nature, Michael Marshall, thankfully, avoided the phrase and came up with one of his own: “a gigantic primordial shrimp.” The genus name means “strange shrimp.”

-Boyce Rensberger

Maybe science pundits have it wrong. Maybe Americans aren’t as science illiterate as has been fashionable to claim for generations. I found a ray of hope in an online blog post on the Washington Post‘s site today. The column, by Alexandra Petri, is called ComPost.

Here’s her lede: “Like the Higgs Boson, Rick Perry’s latest ad must be seen to be believed. But I’m somewhat relieved that the Higgs Boson might exist.”

Yes, it’s a bit of a non sequitur, but that’s not my point. Nor is my point the reference to Rick Perry, who is the subject of the rest of the post. As exPosties know, you almost always have to have politics in any story.

It’s Petri’s reference to the Higgs boson (no need to cap the boson). It suggests that Petri and her editors think Post readers know what a Higgs is. And they might even be aware that rumbles of Higgs rumors are rising above background noise again.

Yes, this probably is grasping at straws. Petri is a Harvard grad and comfortable with intellectual stuff. She hasn’t been in Washington very long. But, still.

Oh, and as for the Higgs rumbles, they’re based on the expectation that two teams of Higgs hunters will present papers on their results next Tuesday. Watch this space.

-Boyce Rensberger

One of life’s little mysteries, but an enduring one that has fascinated almost everyone is why yawns are catching. Relatively few scientists have studied it. And still there is no agreed explanation.

But from the latest PLoS ONE comes a modest study suggesting that the link that transmits the yawn impulse varies with how close two people are. According to Italian researchers who observed free living humans in various settings, the power of the yawn signal (whether visual or auditory) is strongest between family members and close friends. It is weakest between strangers. And intermediate between acquaintances. The researchers say this implies that yawning is a display of empathy, much like smiling when somebody else smiles.

The study got a sprinkling of attention.

In a brief story, Nick Collins of Britain’s Telegraph says the time lapse between yawn 1 and yawn 2 was also shorter the closer the tie between the two people. What’s best about the Telegraph’s page is that it gives links to two previous stories. A story in 2010 says the purpose of yawning has been “confirmed” to be communicating social empathy. It notes that autistic people are less likely to yawn in response. Au contraire: A story last September, also by Collins, says yawning’s purpose is to cool the brain. That one carries a link to another Telegraph story that says we yawn to convey sexual attraction.

If you don’t find your favorite yawning hypothesis confirmed in any of these stories, check back with the Telegraph from time to time. It may eventually show up.

A more measured account of the Italian research is in Jeanna Bryner‘s account at MSNBC. She actually gives a few details of how the research was done.

The New Zealand Herald has this hed: “Yawning is no insult….it shows someone really cares”

The Tracker could not find any current story that noted that the empathy hypothesis was laid out in BBC News in 1997.

-Boyce Rensberger

Vesta in False Color, Revealing Mineral Distribution

Yesterday your tracker managed to make an annual pilgrimage to the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union, where thousands of Earth scientists gather in San Francisco early each December. They attract a bevy of reporters to Moscone Center’s press room, and many more who attend press conferences via phone link and streaming video.

Here are a few samples of coverage of the meeting:

1) Asteroid Vesta’s Multicolored Coat. The Dawn spacecraft, which has gotten extensive breaking coverage in media as it orbits this large, main-belt body, reveals it to be far more than just another asteroid. Some news has already circulated on its distinct composition including an apparent iron core, but the meeting presented more detail and a lovely photo-map image. It appears to have undergone structural evolution of a planet-like sort, and while beat-up has mysteriously survived nearly intact the collisions that have made most of the belt a wrecking yard of debris and loose parts. Some say it should therefore be considered a separate class of object. After its long pause at Vesta, the craft is to give larger Ceres a similar inspection starting in 2015.

• Discovery News – Irene Klotz: Asteroid Vesta Not An Asteroid After All ; One source tells her several impacts almost broke Vesta apart, and that perhaps a distinctive structure, if not sheer luck, kept it together.
  
• Register (UK) Brid-Aine Parnell: Secrets of the asteroid belt: Vesta actually more like a planet
• AP – Alicia Chang: New views of giant asteroid Vesta revealed ; Smartly, she mentions that NASA harbors hope to send explorers – astronauts – to an asteroid in the coming decade or two. She doesn’t mention that main-belt asteroid are too far for that foray, with the mission considering the ones with orbits that already bring them into Earth’s neighborhood.
• Space.com – Asteroid Vesta’s”Rainbow’ Ingredients Shine in New Image ;
• Universe Today – Ken Kremer: Rainbow of Colors Reveal Vesta as More Like a Planet ; With detail on the minerals that Kremer got via interview with the principal investigator, a UCLA researcher. And while some call Vesta’s shape to be like a potato, Kremer learns it’s more avocado. (Buy California Avocados! Um, my mother’s side of the family grows’em in Santa Paula. They’re delish. – cp)
• Wired News – Mark Brown: Rainbow Map of Giant Asteroid Shows Planet-Like Features ;

Grist for the Mill: NASA JPL Press Release ;

2) Jim Hansen at press conference, weighs in on Earth’s climate event horizon.

• Scientific American – Mark Fischetti: Two-Degree Global Warming LImit Is Called a ‘Prescription for Disaster’ ;
• KQED Climate Watch (SF PBS/NPR) – Kimberly Ayers: NASA: Climate Changes Coming Faster Than We Thought;
• LiveScience – Wynne Parry: 2 Degrees of Warming a Recipe for Disaster, NASA Scientist Says ;
• The Daily Climate – Douglas Fischer: New perils seen to even modest warming ; Fischer has another, related story from AGU: Hotter, drier, meaner: Trends point to a planet increasingly hostile to agriculture;
• plus an example of how the certainly-right-and-don’t-tell-me-otherwise crowd received this news – Wizbang – Rick Rice: NASA’s Hansen, vicar of the Church of Chicken Littler, doubles down;

3) Dead Sea has dried up before, could again

• Science News – Devin Powell: Dead Sea once went dry ;
• Independent – Steve Connor: Water shortages in Dead Sea could increase tensions in Middle East; Nice job of covering the science and wrapping it in why-it-matters.
• BBC – Jonathan Amos: Cores reveal when Dead Sea ‘died’ ;
• Telegraph (UK) Phoebe Greenwood: The date the Dead Sea died ;
• ScienceNOW – Carolyn Gramling: Dead Sea Dried Up in Past ;
• LiveScience – Stephanie Pappas: Could the Dead Sea Completely Vanish?

Grist for the Mill: University of Minnesota Press Release ;

4) Japan Tsunami, Earthquake

• Time Mag – Bryan Walsh: Tsunami Revelations: Scientists Discover that the Japanese Tidal Wave Was a “Merged Tsunami” , the First Ever Observed ;
• AFP – Japan quake caused rare double-wave tsunami: NASA ;
• Guardian (UK) Justin McCurry:  Japan was hit by ‘double tsunami’ ;
• LiveScience/Our Amazing Planet – Stephanie Pappas: Huge Japanese earthquake cracked open seafloor ;

Grist for the Mill: NASA Press Release ;

There are more to find, too, but time is short. Backup, stalwart tracker (and site founder) Boyce Rensberger is doing much of the tracking today and tomorrow (and for part of next week). A conflict of interest lies, partly, sort of, behind this post.

The falseness of my modesty compels mention that tonight I’m receiving the AGU’s Robert C. Cowen Award for sustained achievement in science journalism, named for the Massachusetts-based and still there and feisty, old time science writer and former Christian Science Monitor science editor & columnist, and that’s a lot of science. I covered the meeting avidly for more than 30 years. It’s a good’un for both pure gee whiz as well as societally impactful news on what’s up with Mother Earth. I’ll be there at the awards ceremony tonight in tuxedo with one other newsman, Steve Connor of the Independent in the UK, winner of the David Perlman Award for Excellence in Sci. J. for his coverage of climate change’s contrary impact on his home land. We two story tellers of science will join a parade of researchers getting medals and other awards for their actual practice of hardcore science – and who are assembling the grand and real story of our world.

- Charlie Petit

Seems we’ve been doing something about the weather after all. We’ve been making it worse.

As a result 2011 has just taken the record as having the worst weather–measured as billion-dollar calamities–on record. And, confirming what many have suspected, NOAA is attributing it–at least in part–to climate change.

In the current calendar year, the U.S. has seen twelve weather disasters costing more than $1 billion each. In total they have cost about $52 billion. And more than a thousand people have been killed. Also, there are two more weather incidents costing around $750 million each, and total costs of those have not been tallied.

With nearly a month to go, AP‘s Seth Borenstein quotes the National Weather Service director already calling this  ”the deadly, destructive and relentless 2011.” Borenstein cites scientists blaming global warming and “freak chance.”

Doyle Rice at USA Today notes that while the number of billion-dollar disasters is a record, the total cost so far is only third in the record book, topped by Hurricane Katrina and a 1988 drought and heat wave.

-Boyce Rensberger

(English intro to Spanish lang post) When Ollanta Humala was still a candidate for the Peruvian presidential elections, he visited Cajamarca region and asked in a meeting: “Do you want to sell your water?”. All the attendants shouted “Nooooo!!!”. He continued: “Water is more important than gold, because you don’t drink gold. Your cows drink water to produce milk and cheese. And it’s needed for agriculture. I commit to respect your will regarding the mining industry”. He was referring to the project that aims to empty four lakes in Cajamarca region and to open mines to extract the gold residing in their subsoil.

Now the president, Humala has changed a bit. He declared that both gold and water are important, and that mining revenues could help develop the area.  Two weeks of bitter protests in the area have led him to declare state of emergency.

It’s a extremely delicate matter that has occupied all the national media for the last 2 weeks. Protesters don’t seem to want to accept any kind of negotiation or compromise. As for official scientific or environmental information, a highly relevant factor is that an Environmental Impact Report in 2010 seems to be completely misleading, and it omits some of the severe consequences that drying the lakes would have in the area. Even the Environmental minister has criticized it harshly. The companies involved paid for it. A local reporter did a great job gathering up the criticism to the study. Another reporter who tackled the topic argues that the system of funding impact evaluations is obsolete.

Another aspect of the project is to divert water from the lakes to artificial reservoirs. Some sources defend it, saying this would be even better that the current situation. Others foresee serious threat to wildlife. Reporters of La Republica are covering this issue very well, and preparing beautiful infographics. In one story they show the problems that mining industry has already caused in the area. Hi Def version of image below here.

Cuando el ahora presidente de Perú Ollanta Humala llegó todavía como candidato a la región de Cajamarca dijo a los asistentes a su meeting que “la minería es una cicatriz en la región” y les preguntó “¿ustedes quieren vender su agua?”. La gente gritaba: “nooooo!”. Humala insistía: ”¿Qué es más importante, el agua o el oro?”. Gritos: “el agua!”. Humala continuaba: “porque ustedes no toman oro, toman agua. Nuestro ganado toma agua. De allí sale la leche, los quesos… la riqueza, la agricultura… por lo tanto yo me comprometo a respetar la voluntad de Bambamarca respecto a la minería”. (se estaba refiriendo al proyecto minero de secar 4 lagunas de la región para extraer el abundante oro que esconde el subsuelo).

Meses después, ya como presidente, Humala dijo: “Querramos o no, la principal actividad económica es la minería. Pero también ha abusado y generado pobreza extrema. Déjenme proponerles una nueva relación con la minería. Se puede tener el agua y el oro a la vez”. La voluntad del gobierno es avanzar en el proyecto Conga en Cajamarca, y utilizar los beneficios económicos para avanzar en el desarrollo de la región. Este cambio de posición no ha gustado a la población local, que en las últimas semanas se ha movilizado, causado alteraciones, y forzado que el presidente declarara el estado de emergencia.

Aquí desde luego no vamos a valorar si Humala está sacrificando el entorno natural o si la oposición más radical es demasiado intransigente. Ni por supuesto cual es la mejor política para Perú. Aquí contrastamos las posiciones de periodistas científicos o medioambientales, y pedimos que la ciencia aporte su objetividad a la polémica. Los extremos desvirtúan el debate y suelen manipular la información. Aislándonos de toda la cuantiosa e importantísima información sobre las protestas y repercusiones sociales del estado de emergencia, ¿Cuál sería el verdadero efecto medioambiental del proyecto Conga?

Si nos fijamos en la nota de Gustavo Gorriti “De lagunas a desmontes” en IDL-reporteros, profundamente negativo. Gustavo tiene acceso al informe preparado por el ministerio de medioambiente, que afirma “el Proyecto Conga transformará de manera significativa e irreversible la cabecera de cuenca, desapareciendo varios ecosistemas y fragmentando los restantes, de tal manera que los procesos, funciones, interacciones y servicios ambientales serán afectados de manera irreversible”. El ministro de ambiente declara que el anterior Estudio de Impacto Ambiental presentado por la minera no considera los daños en el ecosistema, y que “deshacernos de las lagunas y los bofedales es como meterle dinamita a los glaciares”. Pieza extensa e imprescindible la de Gustavo, que debería estar presente en todo el resto de referencias periodísticas al asunto.

De hecho, en El Comercio el artículo de R Zuzunaga “Un mal informe ambiental es delito” opina que el ministro de medioambiente debería haber sido mucho más crítico con el nefasto informe ambiental que se preparó, y en clave técnica se dice que sustituir las lagunas por reservorios podría ser viable, pero falta información. Son dos puntos importantes.

También en El Comercio, interesante pieza de Martha Meier “Estudios de impacto ambiental, un círculo vicioso que debe romperse”, en que se denuncia la consecuencia de que las empresas paguen por los estudios que van a evaluar el impacto de un proyecto ambiental. Lo define como un sistema obsoleto, y reclama un nuevo enfoque.

En La República amplían información con el extenso texto de Elizabeth Prado y Roberto Ochoa “Cajamarca: Otras seis concesiones mineras esperan su licencia social”. Titular suave para un artículo que muestra los efectos que en la zona ya han tenido actividades mineras a cielo abierto, y refleja un panorama desolador desde el aspecto medioambiental. Artículo recomendable también, que además cuenta con una informativa infografía (arriba en este post)

Respecto el movimiento de aguas, Elisabeth Prado obtiene buen enfoque contrastando la opinión de la compañía diciendo que las represas a las que se trasladarían las aguas de las lagunas serían más beneficiosas, con las autoridades locales que lo niegan. También para La República Jorge Loayza “Conga dice que con repertorios habrá más agua; cajamarquinos no le creen” produce una nota parecida, que enlaza con una excelente infografía sobre los proyectos de reservorios.

La información sobre el proyecto Conga es amplísima desde otros aspectos no estrictamente científicos o medioambientales. Es difícil seguirle la pista, además porque parece que la información sobre consecuencias no es nada clara. Seguiremos ampliando notas a medida que los reporteros peruanos saquen más datos técnicos o busquen la apagada voz de científicos e ingenieros locales. Destaquemos también que en España, el diario Público (quizás el que cuenta con mayor vocación de informar sobre medioambiente), publica una extensa nota de Manuel Asende “Ustedes no comen oro”, muy crítica con el proyecto recuperando temas de corrupción, hablando de vertidos de tóxicos y de servidumbre a las multinacionales estadounidenses.

- Pere Estupinyà

Newsworthiness is not a level playing field.

Some topics merit coverage only when something really big happens. Others get into the news media on the merest of incremental developments.

Dinosaurs are a good example of the low-threshold category. So many people love to read about them that just about any claim relating to these extinct reptiles gets into the paper or on the air or–especially–onto the Web. Today’s example is a previously unknown species found in a museum cabinet. (News release here.)

In the medical realm the lowest standards for newsworthiness probably are for claims and opinions about breast cancer. A search for “breast cancer” in Google News yielded the following stories published in the past few days, listed here by their headlines:

–Mammograms cut risk of breast cancer death by half

–Study faults partial radiation for breast cancer

–Diabetes, obesity after 60 may up breast cancer risk

–Study supports mammograms for women in their 40s

–Pfizer jury awards $72 million after finding Prempro caused breast cancer

–Breast cancer planner helps in treatment and recovery

–Federal Breast Density Inform solution sought (informing women about their breast density which can mask tumors)

–Family history not a factor in rates of invasive disease, nodal development

You get the idea.  All kinds of claims and counterclaims are pretty much always flying. Some stories were okay. Almost none gave significant background or context. A few medical writers were gulled into parroting thin claims as conclusive findings.

Lung cancer kills almost twice as many women as does breast cancer, and heart disease kills six times as many women as breast cancer. Why don’t we see similar attention to these much more important threats to women’s health in the mass media?

-Boyce Rensberger