A few stories that could broadly be interpreted as “science related” caught my eye today. Let’s do a quick run through them, with some additional commentary by me…
Let’s start with one of the borders between politics and science.
The unmatched vitality of the United States’ economy and science and technology enterprise has made this country a world leader for decades, allowing Americans to benefit from a high standard of living and national security. But in a world where advanced knowledge is widespread and low-cost labor is readily available, U.S. advantages in the marketplace and in science and technology have begun to erode. A comprehensive and coordinated federal effort is urgently needed to bolster U.S. competitiveness and pre-eminence in these areas so that the nation will consistently gain from the opportunities offered by rapid globalization, says a new report from the National Academies.
That’s from a press release announcing the availability of the report (free registration required to download report PDF). You can also stream the briefing, if you can handle a RealMedia stream.
Here’s some sample infobits, pulled from the press release–although there’s even better content in the report:
- U.S. 12th-graders recently performed below the international average for 21 countries on a test of general knowledge in mathematics and science. In addition, an advanced mathematics assessment was administered to students in 15 other countries who were taking or had taken advanced math courses, and to U.S. students who were taking or had taken pre-calculus, calculus, or Advanced Placement calculus. Eleven countries outperformed the United States, and four scored similarly. None scored significantly below the United States.
- In 1999 only 41 percent of U.S. eighth-graders had a math teacher who had majored in mathematics at the undergraduate or graduate level or studied the subject for teacher certification — a figure that was considerably lower than the international average of 71 percent.
- Last year more than 600,000 engineers graduated from institutions of higher education in China. In India, the figure was 350,000. In America, it was about 70,000.
- In 2001 U.S. industry spent more on tort litigation than on research and development.
The New York Times also has a piece on the report (which amusingly, pulls the same stuff out of the press release I did–makes you wonder how hard they’re researching these stories, doesn’t it?). Here’s a quote:
At a news conference in Washington, panel members estimated the cost of the new recommendations at $10 billion a year, a figure that may prove daunting to Congress in a time of tight budgets.
Nevertheless, two senators who helped initiate the effort – Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee, and Jeff Bingaman, Democrat of New Mexico – praised its findings.
“This report shines a spotlight on the fact our country is losing its competitive edge,” Mr. Bingaman said. “Clearly there are steps we can take to regain our competitiveness, and the recommendations outlined in this comprehensive report give us a good place to start.”
Increasingly, experts say, strides in Asia and Europe rival or exceed America’s in critical areas of science and innovation, often with little public awareness of the trend or its implications for jobs, industry, national security or the vigor of the nation’s intellectual and cultural life.
The winners of this year’s Ig Nobel prizes were announced.
Some favourites of mine:
CHEMISTRY: Edward Cussler of the University of Minnesota and Brian Gettelfinger of the University of Minnesota and the University of Wisconsin, for conducting a careful experiment to settle the longstanding scientific question: can people swim faster in syrup or in water?
REFERENCE: “Will Humans Swim Faster or Slower in Syrup?” American Institute of Chemical Engineers Journal, Brian Gettelfinger and E. L. Cussler, vol. 50, no. 11, October 2004, pp. 2646-7.
I would love to see the forms these guys had to fill out to get their permission to do experiments with human subjects–and I bet the office signing off on them got a chuckle out of it. Probably a lot more interesting than the hundreds of other forms from pysch experiments.
FLUID DYNAMICS: Victor Benno Meyer-Rochow of International University Bremen, Germany and the University of Oulu , Finland; and Jozsef Gal of Loránd Eötvös University, Hungary, for using basic principles of physics to calculate the pressure that builds up inside a penguin, as detailed in their report “Pressures Produced When Penguins Pooh — Calculations on Avian Defaecation.”
PUBLISHED IN: Polar Biology, vol. 27, 2003, pp. 56-8.
ACCEPTING: The winners were unable to attend the ceremony because they could not obtain United States visas to visit the United States. Dr. Meyer-Rochow sent an acceptance speech via videotape.
I can add no comedy to the topic of this study. However, I do wonder about the whole “could not obtain visas” thing–is penguin pooh technology now something the US associates with terrorists?
I know a lot of people who will be thrilled to hear that “It seems marijuana could be good for your brain.”
While other studies have shown that periodic use of marijuana can cause memory loss and impair learning and a host of other health problems down the road, new research suggests the drug could have some benefits when administered regularly in a highly potent form.
Most “drugs of abuse” such as alcohol, heroin, cocaine and nicotine suppress growth of new brain cells. However, researchers found that cannabinoids promoted generation of new neurons in rats’ hippocampuses.
Hippocampuses are the part of the brain responsible for learning and memory, and the study held true for either plant-derived or the synthetic version of cannabinoids.
I fully expect the actual results of this study to be misquoted to jam bands in university residence for decades to come.
