Looking for a SEA Change?

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SEA BannerI’ve previously mentioned examples of the manipulation or suppression of scientific information by organisations such as the Bush Administration. See for example a recent post on hurricanes and global warming. Various scientists have made it their business to speak out against these types of wrongs, either as individuals in the line of fire, as individuals noticing it in the news and blogging about it to as many as care to read, and as part of organisations here and abroad.

Well I’d like to point out a new organisation I heard about* called “Scientists and Engineers for America”, and I am pleased to share with you that their website says:

…a group of scientists and concerned citizens launch a new organization, Scientists and Engineers for America, dedicated to electing public officials who respect evidence and understand the importance of using scientific and engineering advice in making public policy.

The principal role of the science and technology community is to advance human understanding. But there are times when this is not enough. Scientists and engineers have a right, indeed an obligation, to enter the political debate when the nation’s leaders systematically ignore scientific evidence and analysis, put ideological interests ahead of scientific truths, suppress valid scientific evidence and harass and threaten scientists for speaking honestly about their research.

We ask every American who values scientific integrity in decision-making to join us in endorsing a basic Bill of Rights for Scientists and Engineers. Together we will elect new leadership beginning in 2006, and we will continue to work to elect reasonable leadership in federal, state and local elections for years to come.

America needs your help. Will you join us?

(Personally, I don’t see why it is necessary to be so America-centric about it, but there you have it. It’s their choice, of course.) Their Bill of Rights is linked here. Here are the points they list: Click to continue reading this post →

Green For Purple

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You’ve possibly read about my excitement about the long-awaited Expo line, connecting downtown to USC and the Science, Natural History (and other) Museums, and then connecting out to Culver City, and ultimately to Venice. I’ve blogged this here and here. They broke ground on the project two days ago. See here and here. Here’s a picture (yes, construction workers wear business suits in LA. They are very image-conscious here, and you never know when a casting director might be looking):

ground breaking on the Expo Line

I am truly amazed every day by the small percentage of people who live and work in LA who actually know about this major breakthrough – the very existence of the plans for the line, never mind its approval. It is as though I live in a different city…. Anyway, conversations are going on in the various direcly affected communities about the design of the tations, the business that will sprout up around them, the best way to include bike lanes along the projects, and the routing of the cars that will do doubt still have priority and therefore compromise the efficiency of the entire project as happened with the Gold Line. Join in these conversations if you live and/or work in the city.

expo line map

There are some significant new developments. The first is that the proposal to call the Expo line the “Aqua Line” did not succeed. Expo Line will be the name, it seems. Ok, that’s not so significant, I suppose. Meanwhile, the second branch of the Red Line, the one that stops for no good reason at Wilshire and Western, will be called the “Purple Line”. Yay. Not significant either, you say. Maybe, but the point here is that the Purple Line is actually being discussed! Not only has it been discussed, but there has been a breakthrough. That “no good reason” mentioned above was translated -back in the ’80s- into a legal blockade, making it illegal to tunnel further along that route for safely reasons. The claim was that the geological instability (that resulted in an explosion in a store) made it unsafe to pursue the goal of having a subway run down Wilshire Boulevard, and ultimately out to Santa Monica. This project would have acheived the wonderful goal of connecting Downtown to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Wiltern Theatre, The Superior Court, the Hammer Museum, and the whole of UCLA. But it was held up because (essentially) the greatest power in the history of the world could not simply look across the Atlantic or the Pacific to learn the tried and tested engineering solutions to this “safety issue”.

So the Good News: The same politician who sponsored the legislation that resulted in the ban on tunneling has how worked to (successfully) get it repealed! Click to continue reading this post →

Acting Up At Griffith Observatory

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griffiths observatory roofAs mentioned before, I am really excited about the re-opening of the Griffith Park Observatory. See this earlier post. [Update: See post about my viisit here.]


[Further Update: After reading the rest of the post, be sure to read the comments (starting here) for some commentary on the planetarium show since it was launched.]


[Yet another update: The discussion has continued to another post, with more contributions from various people concerned with the shows and the observatory, past and present. Link here.]

I’d noticed (on their site) the employment notice:

The Observatory will complete its four year renovation and expansion project in the Fall of 2006, with improvements including the new 200 seat Leonard Nimoy Event Horizon theater, doubling of the exhibit space to house more than 60 new and exciting exhibits, and new sound, lighting, interior dome and digital laser projection technology in the refurbished Samuel Oschin Planetarium theater. Employment opportunities will continue to increase as we approach our reopening date.

… and the job decriptions for the Museum Guide:

Job Qualifications
12 semester units or 18 quarter units in a recognized college or university in Architecture, History, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Astronomy, Zoology or related field. Six months experience working in the above fields may be substituted for education.

Job Description
Demonstrate and explain exhibits relating to astronomy and related sciences. Answer questions related to the observatory, astronomy and related sciences. May be asked to safeguard exhibits, and open or close
facility.

and thought it was ok (“may be substituted for education” was a bit worrying, but I think I know what they really meant), and assumed that the guides would be supplementary to more experienced staff who know more about the actual science, etc.

It seems I was wrong. A newspaper from the neighbourhood that the observatory is in, the Los Feliz Ledger, has a story (by Kimberly Gomez) entitled “Actors Get The Call Over Astronomers”. It seems that:

The traditional planetarium lecturers, who in the past led hour-long talks in the planetarium at Griffith Observatory, are upset that when the observatory re-opens this fall, they will be out of a job. According to four past lecturers, their position which traditionally required an education in astronomy, has been changed.

Continuing… Click to continue reading this post →

Hamiltonian Support

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In the continued public discussion of the treatment of Yau’s reputation by the New Yorker article (by Sylvia Nasar and David Gruber), to which I earlier referred (see here, and see the post about Yau’s response here), there has been a recent significant development. I don’t mean the press conference of last week, held by Yau’s entourage (…did anyone see that? I could not log on… there is archived video avaialble here. I still can’t view it…reports are welcome).

No, I’m talking about the public letter attributed to Richard Hamilton, the mathematician at Columbia University who is another major player in the story of proving the Poincare conjecture. He does a great job of supporting Yau, and setting the record straight about his numerous contributions to the field in general, and to the proof of the Poincare conjecture in particular. You can see the whole letter here.

It starts:

I am very disturbed by the unfair manner in which Yau Shing-Tung has been portrayed in the New Yorker article.

and there are detailed descriptions of Yau’s early recognition of the importance of Hamilton’s Ricci flow technique, ending in:

Without Yau’s guidance and support at this early stage, there would have been no Ricci Flow program for Perelman to finish.

He then goes on to describe Yau’s contributions to the field through his encouragement and support of several young researchers in the Ricci flow program, and other key work that he and Yau did in the area, in addition to other key Click to continue reading this post →

The War Continues

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hurricane katrinaThis is the Bush Administration’s war on science, I mean. There’s lots we don’t hear about, I’m sure, but there has been a new discussion ignited by an article in Nature yesterday. I found this article on Associated Press by Randolph E. Schmidt. Seems that there was a report being prepared at NOAA (National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration) about hurricanes:

In the new case, Nature said weather experts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — part of the
Commerce Department — in February set up a seven-member panel to prepare a consensus report on the views of agency scientists about global warming and hurricanes.

According to Nature, a draft of the statement said that warming may be having an effect.

In May, when the report was expected to be released, panel chair Ants Leetmaa received an e-mail from a Commerce official saying the report needed to be made less technical and was not to be released, Nature reported.

The point is that (and yes, that is a picture of hurricane Katrina, above right):

A series of studies over the past year or so have shown an increase in the power of hurricanes in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, a strengthening that many storm experts say is tied to rising sea-surface temperatures.

and this connects -it is believed- to our activities in this way:

Just two weeks ago, researchers said that most of the increase in ocean temperature that feeds more intense hurricanes is a result of human-induced global warming, a study one researcher said “closes the loop” between climate change and powerful storms like Katrina.

However, the official word from the Agency on this new apparent tinkering is as follows: Click to continue reading this post →

Good News About Pet Projects?

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catThis may well be the best news I’ll ever give on this blog – if you love cats (like I do), and if you are allergic to them (like many are). It seems that the first commercially available hypoallergenic cat is now being shipped (or whatever you do to get new pets to customers). I learned from the journal Nature that Allerca, a company based in San Diego, California, is selling the cats. They are already taking orders for deliveries next year. (They’re only $4000. Huh.)

Amusingly, these cats were discovered by accident. The company (among several others) were trying to make their fortune by trying to figure out how to modify the genes of more standard cats to suppress the production of the protein Feld1 that is responsible for the allergic reaction. While doing this, they stumbled upon a cat that already was not producing that protein, having a slightly different one in its place.

Sheldon Spector, a clinical allergy expert at the University of California, Los Angeles, recruited ten allergic volunteers, blindfolded them, and exposed them to Joshua, a regular cat named Tiki, or a furry dummy cat. Subsequent diaries of their symptoms suggest that Joshua was more allergy-friendly than Tiki.

(I have two questions here: Why did the dummy cat not get a name, and -more importantly- what self-respecting cat lover, even if blindfolded, cannot tell a furry dummy cat from a real one? They might as well have used a dog! 😉 )

In a section of the article predictably called “Cat Fight”, they also discuss the fact that there are rival researchers who have called this all into question. You see, Allerca have Click to continue reading this post →

Heretics Of Alexandria

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sidewalk studio theatreSaturday afternoon, I spent a pleasant couple of hours in Burbank. You can step off the street into the Sidewalk Studio Theatre, and there you are… in one of the tiniest of theatre spaces just behind the door to the street. Who knew?

The occasion was the reading of the new play “The Heretics of Alexandria”, by Jon Bastian. The players: Jennifer Pennington, William Salyers, John DiFusco, Marc Ewing, Sean Corvelle Christine Krench, and Michelle Flowers. It was part of a series of readings put on by the Syzygy Theatre Group and the Los Angeles Writer’s Center Project. It was directed by Che’Rae Adams.

heretics of alexandria reading

It was really excellent. It turned out to be a very well fleshed out examination of the ongoing (and everlasting) conflict between reason and faith, or, if you like (although this over-simplifies it), between science and religion. (It was not limited to the latter struggle, in fact. Far from it. There were some splendid internal reason/faith conflicts in a number of characters.) The synopsis:

This full length drama, set in Alexandria Egypt, 415 A.D. features the infamous Philosopher Hypatia, who has come into possession of a document that threatens the very basis of the new religion called Christianity; a document that some would do anything to destroy. Hypatia and a powerful Christian Bishop wage a fierce struggle for the soul of a young priest and for a document which tells a very different version of the life — and death — of Jesus. A true story.

The writing was excellent as was the cast, and Bastian should be extremely proud of himself. (It is a mistake to call it “a true story”, though. It is a story based around historical events, which should absolutely not be confused with being a “true story”. Writers of synopses should not encouarge people to mix up the two.) Jennifer Pennington really did a great job of bringing out the internal conflicts waging inside Hypatia as she the conflict between her and Cyril (the powerful bishop) threatens to continue the loss of reason, and the rejection of knowledge that had already destroyed the great library in Alexandria. (More on Hypatia here.) Marc Ewing’s Nestorius was played marvellously. He is the former student (and more) of Hypathia -now a Christian- who is called upon to act as an intermediary in the conflict. His own internal conflicts (he can see that Cyril is becoming blind with power as the Christians continue to rise and grow strong against the “pagans”, philosophers, and others) are well written and brilliantly acted. I’m very impressed with how well written and acted all the characters were, right down to the various members of Hypatia’s household, who play key roles in the elegant unfolding of the tale. I’m sure that the directing of Che’Rae Adams played a big part in how smoothly the various exchanges worked, creating an excellent illusion of the action, without the players doing much more than sitting (some key hand movements, and meaningful glances at various moments, for example, made a lot of it come to life).

After the reading, Click to continue reading this post →

Explaining Cosmic Rays

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gary zankWell, before disappearing into a long session of thinking about some funny behaviour my strings are up to (more later) I’d like to do a quick report on the departmental colloquium that I went to just now. We had Gary Zank, the Director of the Institute for Geophysics and Planetary Physics of the UC system (he’s based out of UCR) give us a talk entitled: “Particle Acceleration in Cosmic Plasmas”, and it was quite fascinating (and very well presented).

It is all about the physics of cosmic rays (here’s a NASA link called Cosmicopia for a little background on them). Here is a section of the abstract he sent to us prior to the talk:

An outstanding problem in astrophysics is to explain the origin of the almost featureless cosmic ray spectrum extending up to energies of some 1020 eV. A very small feature is apparent at between about 1013 – 1015 eV, the “knee.” In the late 1970’s, a suite of papers was published establishing the idea of diffusive shock acceleration for cosmic rays, essentially a first-order Fermi mechanism, which appeared to provide an explanation for the observed cosmic ray spectrum up to the knee. Diffusive shock acceleration is probably the most widely used particle acceleration mechanism in astrophysics and space physics, yet the theory is based on some stringent simplifications. The detailed [plasma] physics of the acceleration mechanism requires elucidation. We are fortunate in that very detailed observations of particle acceleration at shock waves, particularly in the guise of Space Weather, are providing considerable experimental insight into the basic physics of particle acceleration at a shock wave.

He gave us an overview of the remarkably detailed series of studies that his group has been carrying out (with the aid of an impressive multitude of computer simulations of the magnetohydrodynamics involved) in converting the various suggested acceleration mechanisms into detailed output that can be compared to experimental observations. Here’s a bit from their website:

The dynamical acceleration of particles at shocks waves propagating in the heliosphere is very poorly understood, yet shock waves are ubiquitous and almost all shocks are observed to energize ions and electrons. An understanding of particle acceleration at solar wind shocks has far reaching astrophysical implications. Furthermore, since energetic particles accelerated in either solar flares or in CME-driven shocks arrive at the Earth well before solar ejecta driven disturbances, an understanding of particle acceleration at interplanetary shocks is an integral part of the NSF and NASA Space Weather program.

He spoke quite a bit about shock wave mechanisms and how they work in supernovae Click to continue reading this post →

There’s Still Life in the Old Dog

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Did you catch Clinton on the Daily Show last week? It was nice. Good humoured. Nice to hear him chat about his initiatives, and nice to hear him still with enough footwork to avoid the “will Hilary run?” questions artfully.

But did you catch him on the weekend, interviewed by Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday? I did not, since I’ve largely given up on TV news and related programs. The signal to noise ratio is just terrible. But this was good! The news is running all around the web. Apparently he was full of fire in response to questions about the hunt for Bin Laden and others on his watch. Here’s part of a transcript from Crooks and Liars:

CW: Do you think you did enough, sir?

WJC: No, because I didn’t get him.

CW: Right…

WJC: But at least I tried. That’s the difference in me and some, including
all the right-wingers who are attacking me now. They ridiculed me for
trying. They had eight months to try and they didn’t. I tried. So I tried
and failed. When I failed, I left a comprehensive anti-terror strategy and
the best guy in the country: Dick Clarke.

So you did FOX’s bidding on this show. You did you nice little conservative hit job on me. But what I want to know..

CW: Now wait a minute, sir…

WJC: [..]

CW: I asked a question. You don’t think that’s a legitimate question?

WJC: It was a perfectly legitimate question. But I want to know how many
people in the Bush administration you’ve asked this question of. I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you asked ‘Why didn’t you do anything about the Cole?’ I want to know how many you asked ‘Why did you fire Dick Clarke?’ I want to know…

CW: We asked…

WJC: [..]

CW: Do you ever watch FOX News Sunday, sir?

WJC: I don’t believe you ask them that.

CW: We ask plenty of questions of…

WJC: You didn’t ask that, did you? Tell the truth.

CW: About the USS Cole?

WJC: Tell the truth…

CW: I…with Iraq and Afghanistan, there’s plenty of stuff to ask.

WJC: Did you ever ask that? You set this meeting up because you were going to get a lot of criticism from your viewers because Rupert Murdoch is going to get a lot of criticism from your viewers for supporting my work on Climate Change. And you came here under false pretenses and said that you’d spend half the time talking about…

CW: [laughs]

WJC: You said you’d spend half the time talking about what we did out there to raise $7 billion plus over three days from 215 different commitments. And you don’t care.

CW: But, President Clinton…

WJC: [..]

CW: We were going to ask half the [interview time] about it. I didn’t think this was going to set you off on such a tear.

WJC: It set me off on such a tear because you didn’t formulate it in an honest way and you people ask me questions you don’t ask the other side.

Wow….. actual unfiltered sense on TV! That’s pretty rare indeed. A bit more: Click to continue reading this post →

Southern California Strings Seminar

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Southern California String SeminarOn Friday and Saturday of next week (September 29th and 30th), the next Southern California Strings Seminar will be happening! It’s a regional meeting for people doing research in string theory and related topics, and as I’ve said before, I’d especially like to see more young people come out and take part. We make a special effort to ask the speakers to spend a little time at the beginning of their talk setting the scene (speaking about motivations, what has gone before, etc) so that the series can be of great value to people who are trying to learn what’s going on in a particular topic at research level (this can be students, postdocs, or faculty, in fact).

If you’re doing this kind of physics research anywhere in the Southern California region, and want to take part, please come. See the website for details, and try to let the hosts -this time it is USC- know that you’re coming so that we can arrange lunches, etc. (We’ll be asking for a contribution of about $5-$10 to help with lunches, cookies, coffee, and other goodies that will be on tap during the day.)

From the main page of the website, I wrote:

ken intriligator at scssJoin us as we (members of several of the local groups with interest in string theory and related topics) sit together to discuss new ideas and developments (both general and technical) in the field. The presentations will be accompanied by plenty of discussion and in the first part of each talk the speaker will take special care to set the scene and context of the work in a pedagogical manner so as to encourage participation by younger members of the field.

Also, here’s what I mention about the inaugural one, which was in May 2005, hosted Click to continue reading this post →

Branson’s On Board!

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In more news from the battle to get action on Global Warming, from Reuters a short while ago:

Billionaire Virgin Group Chairman Richard Branson on Thursday committed an estimated $3 billion over the next 10 years, or all of the profits from his airline and rail businesses, to combating global warming.

“We are very pleased today to be making a commitment to invest 100 percent of all future proceeds to the Virgin Group from our transportation interest, both our trains and airline businesses, into tackling global warming,” Branson told a news conference at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York.

Excellent news….

“We must not be the generation responsible for irreversibly damaging the environment. We must hand it over to our children in as near pristine condition as we were lent it from our parents,” Branson said.

Hmmm. It is already too late for that, my friend. We are that generation. However, we do need to stop ourselves from further sliding into the hole we’ve dug for ourselves. Your money will help. Please tell your friends. Start a new and useful trend amongst the super-wealthy, please.

-cvj