Rick Perry Picks a Running Mate

Texas Governor Rick Perry used the occasion of the Republican Presidential Debate & Quiz Show to announce his running mate:

“The idea that we would put Americans’ economy at . . . jeopardy based on scientific theory that’s not settled yet, to me, is just nonsense I mean . . . and I tell somebody, I said, just because you have a group of scientists that have stood up and said here is the fact, Galileo got outvoted for a spell.”

– Rick Perry, via ABC News.

This is a controversial position for a Tea Party Republican in these sceptical times. It might even be taken to mean that Mr. Perry actually believes that the Earth revolves around the Sun, when anyone can plainly can see it’s the other way ’round. The Perry campaign has not responded to questions about those provocative implications.

It’s Like Full Disclosure, Only … Secret

The National Institutes of Health has released bold new ethics rules. All NIH grantees, recipients of tens of billions of dollars in public research funds, must reveal their financial ties to big medical and drug corporations to administrators of their institutions, who will then keep the information to themselves.

“The National Institutes of Health New Ethics Rules: A Swing and a Miss,” Paul Thacker and Ned Feder, Project On Government Oversight

“Worst Excuse Ever,” Matthew Yglesias, Think Progress

Short link: http://wp.me/p6sb6-aZT

Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Radioactive Recipe in Sweden

There’s nothing like Swedish home cooking (husmanskost). Kroppkakor (potato dumplings). Blåbärssoppa (blueberry soup). Kärnenergi (nuclear energy).

Richard Handl of Ängelholm in Skåne (home of the UFO Memorial) is 31 and unemployed, so he used his involuntary free time to exercise his joy of cooking. He tried to cook up a nuclear reactor in his kitchen. Not finding Americium, Radium and Beryllium in his local supermarket, Mr. Handl bought them on eBay. Simmering these ingredients in a 96% reduction of sulphuric acid was not entirely successful, and resulted in a stove-top explosion.

It’s Refreshing. It’s … Moon Water.

Moon water is back in the news:

“Evidence of Water Beneath Moon’s Stony Face,” Kenneth Chang, New York Times

“Moon Has More Water Than Previously Thought in Challenge to View of Origin,” Elizabeth Lopatto, Bloomberg News

“Another moon stunner: Its interior is wet, too,” Mike Wall, MSNBC

Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Squid In Space!

When NASA’s space shuttle Endeavour blasts off on mission STS-134 it will carry several non-human passengers. They are cephalopods, squid.

Calamari for cosmonauts? No.  This is part of a controlled experiment that will finally answer the vital scientific question “Hey, what would happen if we launched some squid into Outer Space?”

Whale Pop Songs

Humpback whale males sing. So, do whale daddies teach tunes to half-pint humpback sons? Think about it: how many hot babes wanna hear your ol’ man’s favorite music? Eeww! Stick it in your spout-hole, Dude!

New humpback whale songs spread through the ocean just like your fave tunes. Scientists call this horizontal cultural transmission. We call it Pop Music.

Yo humpbacks: Rave on, Dudes!

 More:

“Catchiest Mating Songs Spread Through Whale Populations Like Top 40 Hits,” Veronique Greenwood, Discover Magazine blog

Bonus: Golden Oldie Humpback Music Video

 

Top image (“Humpback Whale Wails”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Tea Party Brain

A scientific study at Britain’s University College London finds that conservative brains have a larger “fear center” and smaller center of courage and optimism. No wonder the Tea Party hates science and foreigners.

Brain scans found that political conservatives tend to have a larger amygdala,  often called  the “primitive brain,”  the structure responsible for emotions like fear. Conservatives also seem to have a smaller anterior cingulate,  the part of the brain responsible for courage and optimism.

If this news makes you want to check your own amygdala, you can’t miss it. It’s that almond-shaped mass in the temporal lobes adjacent to the hippocampus.

  

Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Mummified McDonald’s

New York photographer Sallie Davies put the hamburger from a McDonald’s Happy Meal® on her windowsill on April 10th and started taking pictures of it. After six months it was a little smaller and darker but it did not rot.

In the ensuing uproar, edibles archeologists discovered a 12-year-old McDonald’s hamburger and a 21-year-old burger. The implied or overt claims of the fossil fast food curators, that over-processing and drugs or preservatives halted the hamburgers’ decay, was emphatically denied by McDonald’s.

Mice With Human Brains!

 

Christine O’Donnell, Delaware Republican Senate candidate, meat-eater, and recovering witch, is also a scientific expert. In 2007 she reported on genetic engineering on Fox News:

“American scientific companies are cross-breeding humans and animals and coming up with mice with fully functioning human brains.”

Where the heck did that come from? Michael Fumento presents this hypothesis:

Ig Nobel Prizes 2009

The 2009 Ig Nobel Prizes were awarded by the Annals of Improbable Research  last week.  The prizes claim to feature “Research that makes people LAUGH and then THINK.” They are good at the first part, counterproductive on the last.

Headlines about “Goofy Science,” “Pointless Research” and “Silly Science” stop short of exploring the merit of the funny-sounding projects without stimulating real curiosity about science and engineering. This merely fuels the bonfires of anti-intellectual and anti-government-funded-research zealots. When  Sir Robert May claimed the Ig Nobels put continued funding of  genuine experiments at risk through shallow ridicule, he had a point, but he was ridiculed himself.

This anti-science comedic concept is firmly established in U.S. politics. The late Senator William Proxmire entertained the press with his annual “Golden Fleece” award, though one of these projects earned the  so-called “fleecers” the real Nobel Prize. In the last U.S. Presidential campaign, Senator John McCain identified federally-funded studies of grizzly bear DNA as frivolous pork instead of meaningful research. The Senator somehow forgot that he voted for the measure, and his running mate got Federal earmarks for Alaska seal and crab DNA research. Mrs. Palin ridiculed “French fruit fly” experiments, probably referring to USDA research on control of olive fruit flies, (Bactrocera oleae) which cost California farmers millions each year. That sounds a lot funnier from Alaska.

Legislators are clearly unqualified to judge the validity of scientific research. Since Newt Gingrich dissolved the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, they are informed by industry lobbyists and university researchers begging for earmarks. Federal agencies that support scientific research through peer-reviewed grants are woefully underfunded, and the superficial press coverage doesn’t help.

Which brings us back to the 2009 Ig Nobel Prize Awards: