Science & Society

Have a look at the figure on the left. It shows the number of visits to this site broken down in hours of the day -the time of the server used by the visitor. The statistics of each bar is sufficient that the uncertainty on their height is of the order of 2%, so almost indistinguishable by eye. What you can see, therefore, are real variations with time of the traffic to this site, and not random fluctuations up and down. You immediately note the night dip: people stop reading this blog after midnight, and resume after 8AM. Also note its asymmetric nature: the decrease is exponential, with a "…

Exclusive licenses to gene patents are supposed to spur development of new technologies for gauging disease risk but actually do more to block competition in the gene testing market, say researchers from the Duke Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy (IGSP). As single-gene tests give way to multi-gene or even whole-genome scans, exclusive patent rights could slow promising new technologies and business models for genetic testing even further, the Duke researchers say. The findings emerge from a series of case studies that examined genetic risk testing for 10 clinical conditions, including…

A while ago, I read an argument that understanding economics is more important than understanding evolution. The author's point is that evolutionary theory does not provide the layman with particularly useful information, whereas economic theory has many applications, particularly in public policy. Therefore, as concerned citizens interested in promoting good public policy, we should give priority to learning about and discussing economic theory. As much as it hurts my ego as an evolution researcher, the argument has a point. Evolutionary theories can seem pretty far removed from the general…

Lands Of The Midnight Sun This is a list of dates and latitudes where the sun doesn't set for days on end. It might be a useful resource for anyone interested in the Arctic or Antarctic. I've posted it under 'science and society' because these days a lot of people go on vacation to see the midnight sun.  Tourists + awesome spectacle = science education.  Because society needs it. 3 hour exposure, South Cape Spitzbergen, Björn DiërgPublic domain. Table of midnight sun start and end dates, duration and latitudes.dates as month-day latitude     start date …

Researchers from North Carolina State University are making an attempt to help academia lose its "ivory tower" reputation by connecting students to their local communities. The new research project lays out guidelines that can be used to develop and implement partnerships between academics and local communities to foster research efforts that address social problems. "The goal of the project was to take research out of our labs and offices and put it into the hands of communities in such a way that it could be used to address real world problems – such as addressing substance-abuse treatment…

Albert Laszlo Barabasi is a scientist who has long been studying networks and self-organization, and he's got a new book coming out: Bursts: The Hidden Patterns Behind Everything We Do He's setup an online experiment in networking, based on some of the ideas in the book, and he's looking for people to join: BuRSTS is a performance in human dynamics, a game of cooperation and prediction, that will gradually unveil the full text of Bursts. In a nutshell, if you register at http://bursts.com, you will be able to adopt one of the 84,245 words of the book. Once you adopt, the words adopted by…

A recent article in the Economist discusses the problem of deciding which geographic locations are actually countries or diplomatic states, and which ones are something less.  As the article points out, it's pretty hard to do.  You can't just buy some property by the highway, declare your independence from the motherland and enforce a toll at your diplomatic border.  There is a process of recognition, etc., and even then there is no clear path to national identity.  The reason people care is that people like having an identity.  Identities provide purpose and project…

One of my top 5 favorite TED talks from TED 2010, Michael Specter speaks about how society needs to embrace science. We shouldn't place more importance on ideology than scientific data, on politics over common sense. When we fight scientific progress because of our ideological wars, we run the risk of sending our world back into the dark ages, before we had any control over disease or famine. We can solve some of these problems now, if only we would let science be the unbiased method of innovation and progress to generate real solutions, instead of fighting it every step of the way. Watch it…

63 Years Old Solo Balloonist Reaches North Pole Jean-Louis Etienne has made the first solo balloon voyage to the North Pole, traveling 3,130 kilometers - 1,945 miles - in five days from Norway to the tundra of eastern Siberia. Jean-Louis Etienne has always liked rising to new challenges, especially when they combine adventure and scientific objectives. Adventures are the stuff that dreams are made of. They reveal a new way of looking at things, especially to young people, and can be a very effective means to convey scientific knowledge that in other forms sometimes falls on unreceptive ears…

If you live in London, then you could do worse than join a Westminster Skeptics night out getting paralytic about science. Westminster Skeptics promote an evidence-based approach and critical thinking in the areas of policy, media, and legal reform. They have packed and lively meetings once or twice a month in a big pub in Westminster, just by St James Tube station. And if you're in London this Monday, then you can join Simon Singh and his mates as they have a jolly good laugh at the expense of the British Chiropractic Association. The BCA haven't as yet formally dropped their case against…