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| Science Forum Index » Miscelaneous » [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday Aug 7, 2009... |
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 Posted: Mon Aug 24, 2009 1:12 pm |
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WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 21 Aug 09 Washington, DC
1. NIH: TO THOSE WHO HAVE MUCH, MORE SHALL BE GIVEN.
With an annual budget of $30 billion, NIH was already the world's top
funded research agency; now throw in another $10.4 billion from this
year's stimulus package and you should have an organization that can
respond to every challenge. The new director, Francis Collins, outlined
his priorities this week, including health-care reform and the translation
of research into medicine. Collins also addressed concerns that his
evangelical Christian interests might influence the operation of NIH. He
resigned from BioLogos, the foundation he created to explore science and
faith, and insists that his "personal interests" will not interfere with
his judgments as director of NIH.
2. GHOST RESEARCHERS: THIS SHOULD NOT BE GOING ON.
An article by Natasha Singer in the business section of Wednesday's New
York Times calls attention to ghostwritten scientific papers. Singer
alleges that faculty at major medical schools routinely allow their names
to be added to scientific papers that are ghostwritten for them by
pharmaceutical companies, thus fattening their resume even if no money
changes hands. As you might expect, the papers report that some drug
produced by the company is beneficial. They are not even written by
scientists at the drug company; a medical-writing company is hired to
crank them out. This practice won't stop until the NIH, which controls
most of the grant money, penalizes participating faculty.
3. CLIMATE: OCEAN TEMPERATURES RISE TO A RECORD.
I still have global warming deniers sending me stories about how cold it
is this summer in East Cupcake, Nebraska or someplace. But they didn't
send me the Associated Press story this week on ocean
temperatures. Because of its high specific heat, water temperature changes
slowly. The National Climatic Data Center reported this week that the
average global ocean temperature in July was 62.6 degrees F, the hottest
since record-keeping began in 1880. Another record: there are actually
people in the water at beaches in Maine.
4. FREE ENERGY: NEVER PAY ANOTHER ELECTRIC BILL.
An alert reader sent me the URL for Magniwork. It's an
assemble-it-yourself home generator that "powers itself" -
http://www.magniwork.com
Joe Newman made the same claim -
http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN89/wn081889.html
So did Steorn just recently -
http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN09/wn062609.html
5. PELAGRA: IT'S SHOWING UP AGAIN IN AFRICA.
In the final stages it leads to dementia and finally death. Last seen in
the United States during the Great Depression, it continues to show up in
Africa. Ironically, it is linked to a World Food Program that supplied
Maize to stave off starvation. Unfortunately, Maize lacks vitamin B3,
causing Pelagra. Starvation is officially blamed on crop failures, but
crops fail because productive farms were divided into tiny parcels that
cannot support a family.
THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND.
Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of
Maryland, but they should be.
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