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Good stuff to know if you are interested in the course of science under the Obama administration at ScienceInsider.

This is the first I’ve heard about asking the Chinese to shuttle our astronauts to space. I wonder where this came from…or if Holdren was just speaking off the top of his head. But why the Chinese when we have a number of home grown outfits, like SpaceX, looking to do the job? Why the Chinese over the Russians, who are particularly good at getting people safely to orbit?

The other question I have is about nukes. I don’t believe we necessarily need new nuclear weapons, but is that the job of the science advisor to decide and not, say, the military? Of course, as Holdren points out, our national labs have a broad research portfolio, not just nukes.

But that’s just one bit of the interview, its fairly in-depth and well worth the read.

And, in other Holdren news, AP is reporting that he has an interest in geoengineering .

I’m a little nervous about fiddling with the global climate, especially before we know exactly how everything plays out. What if we make matters worse? Why not wait until the damage is done? I don’t believe in irreversibility, that just doesn’t make sense…not on a geological scale, at least, but maybe that’s only irreversible on a human scale.

Here’s my plan, millions of acres of space solar panels. We’ll block out a fraction of the sunlight reaching Earth and generate safe, clean power. Sure, you say, we’d never be able to build the x gazillion solar panels we’d need to block the sun. Maybe they don’t have to all be solar panels, maybe its just a few gazillion acres of some sort of dimming fabric…in addition to the solar panels. Think of all the stimulus money that could be spent on the solar/space industry!

If the ISS-near miss last week was any indication, space debris is becoming more of a hazard to orbital navigation. If it isn’t the Chinese blowing up satellites, its the Americans blowing up satellites, or the Russians crashing into satellite*s (“crashing” for the cynically-minded).

The latter event — where a Russian satellite took out an Iridium satellite — is what supposedly caused the debris that made for a dramatic Friday morning for twitterers and ISS crew alike. Especially the crew, of course.

So, this article in Russia Today, says that the Japanese are developing microsatellites to grab debris, presumably, some of the medium-sized pieces, and fall back to earth. The tether idea sounds neat (but the headline sounds vaguely inappropriate).

Japan’s space agency (JAXA) is planning to use microsatellites to clear orbits from space junk. The robotic cleaner grabs debris with a robotic arm and then lunges down to force the dangerous pieces back into atmosphere.

The 140-kilogram device uses electrodynamics tethers to drag down the debris. The tethers are conductive wires with lengths of up to several kilometres, which can be used to generate propulsion.

The Japanese cleaner approaches debris, attaches itself to it with a robotic arm, and then moves to a lower orbit, unwinding the tether from a reel. An electric current is generated in the tether, which interacts with Earth’s magnetic field to create drag, which slows down the debris making it re-enter the atmosphere and subsequently burn up. The satellite, of course, is destroyed in the process as well.

*OK, how cool is it that Iridium had backups parked in orbit already?

Stop. Wait, reverse that. OK…

Another neat Eurekalert! feed story, one that offers tips for catching flies:

Caltech scientists discover mechanism for wind detection in fruit flies

Tiny, lightweight fruit flies need to know when it’s windy out so they can steady themselves and avoid being knocked off their feet or blown off course. But how do they figure out that it’s time to hunker down? According to a team led by California Institute of Technology (Caltech) scientists reporting in this week’s issue of the journal Nature, the flies have evolved a specialized population of neurons in their antennae that let them know not only when the wind is blowing, but also the direction from which it is coming.

The behavior of fruit flies in the face of a stiff breeze is remarkable in and of itself, notes David J. Anderson, the Roger W. Sperry Professor of Biology at Caltech, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Investigator. “We discovered that you can stop a fly dead in its tracks by blowing a gentle stream of air over it,” he explains, adding that the flies’ immobility is so complete, you could pick one up with a pair of chopsticks as long as a steady stream of wind was passing over the insect. Once the wind stops blowing, however, the flies immediately start walking around again.

Here’s a link to the video.

While I’m thinking of The Franklin Institute, I’d like to reiterate my plea for a Maker Faire of our own. The Science Museum of Minnesota is having a little one this weekend.

The Franklin Institute was lucky enough to have a pair of Red-tailed Hawks take up residence in a webcam-friendly spot.

I think they might be reading the Philadelphia Metro, judging by the current view. More bad news for the Inquirer, I fear. They could be losing the bird of prey demographic, who are probably looking for a just a quick peck at the news.

Two Red-tailed Hawks have built a nest on a window ledge at The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. The nest sits just outside a window where a camera has been positioned to create this video stream. The camera looks through the glass window pane which is 24 inches wide (~61 cm). No artificial lighting has been added, so the nest is only visible during daylight hours.

I believe they’re monogamous, so there might be some hawk chicks in the near future. Or they could just be roommates and we’ll have to see about emerging sexual tensions later on in the season. Worth keeping an eye on, I’m sure.

The Red-tailed Hawk (aka chickenhawk, I think) is becoming a common sight around here. A few years back you’d only see these guys on occasion, but out here in the inner burbs, they’ve become a regular sight. (We caught them fishing in my neighbor’s goldfish pond last summer.) Now you can’t drive down an interstate without seeing one on a lightpost.

Cornell’s Ornithology Lab has a good site for bird browsing, in general. Here’s their Red-tailed Hawk entry.

… actually it is advice from Paul Orselli’s ExhibiTricks blog. This might make a nice follow-up to my previous post on unsolicited advice for The Franklin, and it touches on similar themes…

A science museum, indeed every type of museum, is all about stories (human interaction) and stuff (interesting objects and materials.) Working with cool items or seeing interesting objects or devices while having an opportunity to interact with other people is what makes museums special, and incidentally different and more marketable, than on-line experiences or other types of for-profit entertainment centers.

At the end of the day, providing interesting opportunities for visitors and museum staff to interact with “stuff” (and each other) is a sure way for visitors to leave your museum NOT feeling stupid.

And that’s just a smart way to run a museum.

It reminds me of two rules I learned in grad school: 1) if your reader doesn’t understand something, you were probably unclear; and 2) you can please more than one type of reader at a time.

The first is obvious, to me at any rate. Anything that can be said, can be said simply enough to appeal to a person of reasonable intelligence. It really depends on being able to get a concept across without piling on confusing terminology, whether that concept is evolution or celestial physics. I don’t believe you can get someone to completely grok quantum physics in five seconds, but they might get the gist that regular old physics doesn’t work so well in explaining how things atom-sized and smaller behave, which is where quantum mechanics comes in. People tend to understand things when you break them down into digestible chunks (or quanta — ha!) of information.

The second, I think, applies to science museums, in particular. I’m not an exhibit designer — and I know nothing about museum pedagogy — but I would think a good exhibit is like a an old Warner Bros. cartoon: the kids don’t get the dirtier jokes, but the adults do. (Good example here in “An Itch In Time,” at the seven minute mark below. It went over my head as kid.) Likewise, I can see where it would be necessary to design an exhibit — to create an “experience” — that appeals kids, adults and science geeks alike. I think you would do that by engaging people in the process. Like Paul, I was impressed with how interactive the recent Star Wars exhibit was. Even my three year-old got into creating LEGO landspeeders.

Transparent heads. Macropinna microstoma, a.k.a barreleyes or, more appropriately IMO, the spookfish: a marvel of evolution, a metric ton of horror in a two-inch package. (by way of Neatorama)

And will it keep postdocs for asking my advice about careers in science writing? Crom, I hope so.

The NIH is slated to get $10 Billion. That’s American dollars and, roughly, three times what they were originally slated to get in the stimulus bill. Thanks to Arlen Specter, that’s not a problem anymore. (Go Arlen, I told all my hyper-Dem friends that he was worth keeping around, for the sake of Pennsyltucky, at least!)

The NIH famously doubled its budget a few years back, but then the budget stabilized and, in fact, failed to keep up with inflation. I have heard said that it would have been better if the doubling hadn’t happened, since so many institutions invested heavily in new programs and infrastructure that a level NIH budget just couldn’t sustain.

So now the question is, I guess, what the hell will they do with all this money? How much of this will go to fulfilling research grants? How sustainable will this be…or should the scientific community just take this and run with it best they can knowing that this will be a one-time respite from their regularly scheduled budget woes?

For my non-Facebook friends, I present:

25 Random Things About Pat Benatar

Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note of 25 random things. At the end, you choose 25 people to be tagged. You are to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you it is because I want you to know more about Pat Benatar.

1. Born Patrick Andrzejewski, soon after Patricia Mae Andrzejewski following a coin flip.

2. Was accepted to the Julliard school.

3. Wrote “Love is a Battlefield” after she broke up with her Argentinian boyfriend, at the Battle of Goose Green during the Falklands conflict.

4. Her mother was a beautician who once sang opera at the Met.

5. Her father was a sheet metal worker once tossed out of Shea for spitting on a Met.

6. She once recorded jingles for Pepsi, which inspired her chart topping “Hit Me with Your Best Shot,” a stirring anthem for the Cola Wars of the ’80s.

7. Once got with Roy Orbison until he started “Crying.”

8. Got her first break at an open mic night at Catch a Rising Star comedy club.

9. Can be recognized from Olivia Newton John and Juice Newton by her lack of Newton.

10. Reluctantly took on her husband’s last name Benatar after John Cougar reclaimed her first stage name “Mellencamp”

11. Her first hit was 1979′s “Heartbreaker,” which she wrote after disguising herself as a surgeon and intentionally botching John Cougar’s heart valve replacement.

12. Intentionally recorded a crummy cover of “I Need a Lover” to further spite John.

13. “You Better Run” was the second video played on MTV ever. Rocketing her to stardom among the three people who had cable at the time.

14. Turns out she never really wanted her MTV

15. Her live album, “Live from Earth” was ironically recorded on the surface of a large c-type asteroid

16. After divorcing Dennis Benatar, she married her guitarist Neil Giraldo in 1982.

17. In 1989, she appeared in an ABC Afterschool Special “Torn Between Two Fathers” where she played the wise old owl.

18. A 33rd degree Freemason, the subject of her last big hit “We Belong.”

19. Released three albums in the 1990s, for no apparent reason.

20. Spent fifteen years mastering the Hanzo sword bequeathed to her by her sensei.

21. Invented the thin keyboard tie in 1981.

22. Qualified in the biathlon for the Nagano Olympics. She didn’t compete, feigning injury so she could avenge the death of her sensei.

23. Bernie Madoff lost money to HER.

24. Her 2007 song, “Passion,” could be downloaded, for a time, from a Jell-O sponsored website.

25. Never responded to decades of correspondence with Greg Lester, unless you consider a restraining order a “response.”

Last week I took Benny to the doctor’s for his nine month checkup. He’s doing well, thanks, but he needed his HepB jab.  I’ve met Baruch Blumberg — and see him often around work — so I’ll have to thank him personally. Benny was decidedly less enthusiastic about it at the time. But when he doesn’t die of liver cancer, I’ll give him an I-told-you-so.

I’ve been following the vaccine/autism fretfest from a distance, so I chatted the topic up with Ben’s doc, who mentioned how Hib cases, of all things, were on the rise. (One unvaccinated infant in Minnesota recently died. Tragically preventable.)

If you haven’t heard of Hib, that doesn’t surprise me. It causes a form of meningitis. You, and your parents, probably never encountered it. Chances are fairly good that your grandmother, however, might have lost a sibling or a cousin to the disease…or one of the many other illnesses that used to routinely rob us of our children.

As you might know, the current anti-vaccination nonsense that’s spreading through the land began in the UK in ’98 when a Dr. Andrew Wakefield published a study suggesting a link between the MMR vaccine and Autism. (We gave the world Intelligent Design, the UK gave us anti-vacs…as much as I detest ID, at least it doesn’t have a body count.)

I haven’t really followed the career of Wakefield. We have our own anti-vac proponents in the US to worry about. UK Journalist Brian Deer suggests Wakefield might have some ulterior motives, this makes for interesting reading.

Of course many controlled, reputable studies since then has cast that link in doubt. If you don’t believe me, I can’t help you more than to suggest some reading, WebMD has a nice lay-friendly FAQ that spells out the depth of research on the topic. You can also read the take of pro-science skepticsyou can read the take of pro-science skeptics here. At this point you are either merely ignorant or actively in denial.

Like I said, this really began in the UK, so it isn’t surprising that we’re seeing a return of preventable diseases like measles.

Confirmed cases increased from 990 in 2007 to 1,348 last year – the highest figure since the monitoring scheme was introduced in 1995.

Health Protection Agency experts said most of the cases had been in children not fully vaccinated with combined MMR and so could have been prevented.

Immunisation expert Dr Mary Ramsay said the rise was “very worrying”, adding measles “should not be taken lightly”.

More than 600 of the 2008 measles cases occurred in London, where uptake of the vaccine for MMR – measles, mumps and rubella – is particularly low.

We’re not immune (heh!), in the US. As I mentioned, there was a Hib outbreak in Minnesota recently, but also pertussis in Philly and measles in California last January. In the latter case, an unvaccinated seven year-old brought the disease back from vacation in Switzerland and spread it around his private school. The scary part is, as you can see in the Cali case, these kids aren’t from poor families without access to healthcare.

Supposedly educated adults, concerned enough with their children’s welfare to send them to private school, were scared into NOT vaccinating their kids. In the 21st century, they made a choice against the medical technology that created an unprecedented wave of good health in the 20th century.

Likely, they believed the autism fearmongering and figured they’d place a safe bet and let “herd immunity” cover their kids. That only works when everyone else plays along. So, it won’t be surprising to see clusters of outbreaks in some of our wealthiest communities as well as among under-served populations.

That doesn’t take away from the essentially parasitic (Amanda Peet took it back, but I think it is apt) practice. Herd immunity protects kids who can’t get immunized (for a variety of health-related reasons) and a small minority of those who did get vaccinated, but for whom it didn’t take.

While all this is going on, there is a huge kerfluffle involving Bad Science columnist extraordinaire, Ben Goldacre, is boiling over across the interwebs. (Quackometer has a nice round-up.) A radio host is trying to use the UK’s anti-free speech libel laws to silence Goldacre. Toss him a couple of quid, if you can. The first time I ever used paypal in pounds. How global of me.

2/8 UPDATE: Wakefield doctored his results, says Brian Deer in today’s Sunday Times.

2/9 UPDATE: The Bad Astronomer has more on recent outbreaks in Australia and Switzerland, where a 12 year-old girl died of measles-related encephalitis.

That reminds me a bit of my own childhood experience regarding opportunistic infections. I contracted osteomyelitis after a bout of chicken pox when I was about four or five. I really ought to corroborate my memories with my mom, I could be wrong…and a doctor, for that matter, I could totally be wrong on this. Soon after getting over chicken pox, my dad found me on the floor one night, crying hysterically because I couldn’t walk. I spent two months in a wheelchair at Abington Memorial. Again, my memories of early childhood are anything are perfect, but I remember spending my fifth birthday — got a landspeeder — at the hospital.

Anyway, I know people think chicken pox aren’t a Big Deal, but I’m getting my kids vaccinated anyway.