All these news stories, and more, are available at: news.sciencemag.org Today's news from Science Thursday, 29 July 2010 EPA to Virginia: What Climate Conspiracy? A group of critics of the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) decision to regulate greenhouse gases as a public health hazard were rebuffed today in an administrative move by the... http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/07/epa-to-virginia-what-climate-conspiracy.html?etoc Deadly Viruses Have Been Part of Us for Millions of Years Humans, zebrafish, and other vertebrates host viral fossils in their DNA http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/07/deadly-viruses-have-been-part-of.html?etoc Island Monkeys Give Clues to Origins of HIV's Ancestor Virus passed from monkeys to chimps about 22,000 years ago http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/07/island-monkeys-give-clues-to-ori.html?etoc Science Shot: Why Are Male Whales Humping Each Other? Researchers examine a curious case at a Canadian aquarium http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/07/scienceshot-why-are-male-whales.html?etoc Tough Food Makes Coyotes Better Biters Pups who gnaw on bones develop shorter and thicker skulls http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/07/tough-food-makes-coyotes-better-.html?etoc After Carbon Cap Funeral, Renewables Mandate Probably Dead in Senate, Too With the cap-and-trade option for carbon reduction buried in the U.S. Senate at least until 2011, yesterday Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (DNV) began to drive nails into the... http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/07/after-carbon-cap-funeral-renewables.html?etoc Scientists Balk at BP Recruitment Efforts, Restrictive Contracts Last Thursday, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) blasted BP for its chilling practice of slapping restrictive confidentiality agreements on the university scientists it has hired to study... http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/07/scientists-balk-at-bp-recruitment.html?etoc Report: U.S. Ill Prepared to Trace Exploded Nukes If a terrorist group were to strike the United States with a nuclear weapon or a dirty bomb, one of the first things authorities would have to do is... http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/07/report-us-ill-prepared-to-trace.html?etoc NOAA Has 10 Answers to Allegations That 'Climategate' Disproves Warming The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released a report today on 2009's climate, which says the decade of the 2000s was the warmest since readings were first kept.... http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/07/noaa-has-10-answers-to-allegatio.html?etoc Bat Caves Closed by Feds To stop the possible western spread of white-nose syndrome, the U.S. Forest Service has issued an order to temporarily shut all caves and abandoned mines on federal lands in... http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/07/bat-caves-closed-by-feds.html?etoc
All these news stories, and more, are available at: news.sciencemag.org Today's news from Science Wednesday, 28 July 2010 The Physics of a Rolling Rubber Band Researchers model what happens when a rubber band rolls downhill http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/07/the-physics-of-a-rolling-rubber-.html?etoc How to Alleviate an Orbital Traffic Jam Solar sails could push satellites into previously impossible orbits http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/07/how-to-alleviate-an-orbital-traf.html?etoc International Fusion Effort Finally Gets Go-Ahead, and a New Leader As expected, the governing council of the ITER fusion effort today finally approved the project's so-called Baseline, the document outlining its design, schedule, and costs and confirmed Japanese fusion-scientist... http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/07/international-fusion-effort.html?etoc Critical Ocean Organisms Are Disappearing Phytoplankton decline could spell trouble for climate and marine food webs http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/07/critical-ocean-organisms-are-dis.html?etoc This Is Your Brain Off Drugs: Why Pharma May Be Cooling on Psychiatry Drugs Earlier this year, pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca announced it was ceasing drug-discovery research for psychiatric disorders such as depression and schizophrenia. The move, along with cutbacks at other companies, has... http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/07/this-is-your-brain-off-drugs-why.html?etoc
All these news stories, and more, are available at: news.sciencemag.org Today's news from Science Tuesday, 27 July 2010 Jumping Genes Shed Light on Marsupial Migration Genetic footprint reveals pouched mammals' relationships http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/07/jumping-genes-shed-light-on-mars.html?etoc Senate Spending Panel Approves $1 Billion Boost for NIH Like its House of Representatives counterpart 2 weeks ago, a Senate subcommittee today matched President Barack Obama's request for a $1 billion increase in 2011 for the National Institutes... http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/07/senate-spending-panel-approves-1.html?etoc Unsubscribe or edit your subscriptions for this service at: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/alerts/main Written requests to unsubscribe may be sent to: AAAS / Science, 1200 New York Avenue NW, Washington DC 20005, U.S.A.
All these news stories, and more, are available at: news.sciencemag.org Today's news from Science Monday, 26 July 2010 'Locked-In' Patients Can Follow Their Noses New technology could allow paralyzed patients to type and move a wheelchair by sniffing http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/07/locked-in-patients-can-follow-th.html?etoc 'Mind Meld' Enables Good Conversation When two people talk, similar areas of their brain activate http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/07/mind-meld-enables-good-conversat.html?etoc Obscure Immune Cells Thwart Ticks New technique for deleting cells allows researchers to pin down their function http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/07/obscure-immune-cells-thwart-tick.html?etoc Data Leak: Galaxy Rich in Earth-Like Planets NASA didn't plan it this way, but earlier this month a co-investigator on the Kepler satellite mission in the hunt for other Earth-like planets announced to a conference in... http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/07/data-leak-galaxy-rich-in-earth.html?etoc No Sighting of Higgs, But Fermilab Physicists Say They May Be Close Spurred by new limits on prized particle's mass, scientists push to run their atom smasher three more years http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/07/no-sighting-of-higgs-but-fermila.html?etoc World's Biggest Particle Physics Lab May Idle All Accelerators in 2012 PARISParticle physicists and science fans everywhere knew that the European particle physics laboratory, CERN, near Geneva, Switzerland, would shut down the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world's largest atom... http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/07/worlds-biggest-particle-physics-.html?etoc
All these news stories, and more, are available at: news.sciencemag.org Today's news from Science Friday, 23 July 2010 Podcast: IVF Roulette, Cells with Good Memories, and the Biggest Stars Ever Listen to a roundup of some of our favorite stories from the week http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/07/podcast.html?etoc Bacteria Bring Leaves Back From the Dead Microbes in moths resurrect leaves so that the insects can feast upon them http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/07/bacteria-bring-leaves-back-from-.html?etoc Senate COMPETES With House on Priorities for NSF A key Senate panel yesterday approved its version of a bill to reauthorize programs at the National Science Foundation (NSF). The America COMPETES Reauthorization Act (S.3605) reflects the interests... http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/07/senate-competes-with-house.html?etoc With Cap and Trade Sidelined, Obama and States Can Still Cut a Lot On the day after hopes for a mandatory U.S. cap on greenhouse gases evaporated, a new report by the World Resources Institute delivers a timely message: Using existing federal,... http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/07/with-cap-and-trade-sidelined-oba.html?etoc Earth as an Extrasolar Planet Astronomers successfully test a technique that could be used to find life beyond our solar system http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/07/earth-as-an-extrasolar-planet.html?etoc Qualified Good News on Subsea Dispersed Oil Plumes: Continued Low Oil Concentrations, No Dead Zones A second report by a multiagency team of government and academic scientists, working on five research vessels between 19 May and 19 June finds the distribution of the plumes... http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/07/qualified-good-news-on-subsea.html?etoc New Chief for Child Health Institute The nation's lead research institute devoted to child development and reproductive health has a new director. Alan Guttmacher, 60, who had been acting director of the National Institute of... http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/07/new-chief-for-child-health.html?etoc As Climate Bill Falters, Steve Schneider Might Have Counseled Optimism Seeing the official downfall for the year of any climate legislation in Congressa development so depressing to manyI thought of climatologist Steve Schneider, who passed away on Monday at... http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/07/as-climate-bill-falters-steve.html?etoc Good News in Gulf: Government Reduces Area Closed to Fishing by One-Third For the first time in months, the government has good news for Gulf of Mexico fishermen: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has decided to reopen a 68,345... http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/07/good-news-in-gulf-government.html?etoc Senate Panel Tells NSF to Train More Cyber-Security Personnel A Senate spending panel wants the National Science Foundation (NSF) to triple its investment in training the next generation of cyber-security professionals. But pleading poverty, it's trimmed in half... http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/07/senate-panel-tells-nsf-to-train.html?etoc Unsubscribe or edit your subscriptions for this service at: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/alerts/main
All these news stories, and more, are available at: news.sciencemag.org Today's news from Science Wednesday, 21 July 2010 Science Shot: Anti-Malaria Drug Bleaches Hair Woman who overdoses on chloroquine gets a surprising new doo http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/07/scienceshot-anti-malaria-drug.html?etoc U.S. Energy Research 2011 Funding Outlook Decent as ARPA-E Cashes In The Senate spending panel that oversees science at the Department of Energy (DOE) has released a few details about a draft 2011 appropriations bill that passed out of subcommittee... http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/07/us-energy-research-2011-funding.html?etoc Planned Trial of Diabetes Drug Avandia Runs Aground A large study to test the safety of the controversial diabetes drug Avandia has been put on partial hold by the Food and Drug Administration. The FDA held a... http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/07/planned-trial-of-diabetes-drug.html?etoc Video: Airplane Perches Like a Bird Glider could come in for a landing on a telephone wire without stalling http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/07/video-airplane-perches-like.html?etoc Senate Panel Backs Budget Increases for NSF, NASA A Senate panel largely supported President Barack Obama's requested budget increases for several research agencies today as part of its markup of a $60 billion spending bill. In a... http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/07/senate-panel-backs-budget.html?etoc NIH Asks for Input on Closing Loophole in Conflict-of-Interest Rule Responding to yet another flap about the influence of drug companies on biomedical research, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has decided it needs more time to revise its... http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/07/nih-asks-for-input-on-closing.html?etoc Science Shot: Presenting the Little Folks of the Solar System Montage captures every visited asteroid and comet http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/07/scienceshot-presenting-the-littl.html?etoc A New Way to Map the Universe Approach could trace as much as 50% of the observable universe far faster and cheaper than current surveys can http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/07/a-new-way-to-map-the-universe.html?etoc Science Shot: Marmots Thrive on Climate Change Warming world is causing rodents to grow bigger and produce more offspring http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/07/scienceshot-marmots-thrive-on-cl.html?etoc Stellar Heavyweight Breaks the Scales One supergiant smashes prevailing theory about star mass http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/07/stellar-heavyweight-breaks-the-s.html?etoc Science Shot: Tiny Amphibian, Long Life Human fish can live up to 100 years--much longer than expected for its size http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/07/scienceshot-tiny-amphibian-long-.html?etoc Duke Suspends Clinical Trials After Scandal Over Padded Resum Duke University has suspended three cancer clinical trials in response to allegations that a key researcher on the studies embellished his resum. The uproar began last week when The... http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/07/duke-suspends-clinical-trials-af.html?etoc
All these news stories, and more, are available at: news.sciencemag.org Today's news from Science Tuesday, 20 July 2010 Duke Suspends Clinical Trials After Scandal Over Padded Resum Duke University has suspended three cancer clinical trials in response to allegations that a key researcher on the studies embellished his resum. The uproar began last week when The... http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/07/duke-suspends-clinical-trials-af.html?etoc Zooming In on Future Water Shortages A new analysis suggests that by 2050 climate change will raise the risk of water shortages in one-third of U.S. counties. The report was commissioned by the Natural Resources... http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/07/zooming-in-on-future-water-short.html?etoc Anti-HIV Gel Also Effective Against Herpesvirus Double-hit microbicide could be a powerful tool in fighting epidemic http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/07/anti-hiv-gel-also-effective-agai.html?etoc Science Shot: A Moon-Maker Among Saturn's Rings Tiny Prometheus causes F Ring particles to clump http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/07/scienceshot-a-moon-maker-among.html?etoc House Joins Senate in Rebuffing Obama on Crewed Space Flight In yet another sign that Congress and the White House are a long way off from agreeing on NASA's fate, the House science committee is considering an authorization bill... http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/07/house-joins-senate-in-rebuffing.html?etoc European Bureaucrats Raid Research, Ag Funds to Pay for Fusion Reactor The European Commission, the E.U.'s executive body, revealed today how it intends to pay for the ballooning cost of the international ITER fusion reactor, which is due to begin... http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/07/european-bureaucrats-raid-resear.html?etoc
All these news stories, and more, are available at: news.sciencemag.org Today's news from Science Monday, 19 July 2010 Should Smuggled Madagascar Frogs Be Returned Home? Conservation biologists are celebrating last week's bust of Madagascar animal smugglers at the airport in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. But in an ironic twist, they're now scrambling to ensure that... http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/07/should-smuggled-madagascar-frogs.html?etoc Obama's National Ocean Policy It wouldn't have prevented the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, but a new national ocean policy, announced today by the White House, was welcomed by environmentalists. The... http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/07/obamas-national-ocean-policy.html?etoc Science Shot: Burrowing Moles Breathe Easy Molecular quirk helps mammals survive in limited oxygen environments http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/07/scienceshot-burrowing-moles-brea.html?etoc Prominent Duke Cancer Researcher Put On Leave Over Allegedly Embellishing Credentials A cancer genomics researcher at Duke University has been put on leave after administrators learned that he falsely claimed to have been a Rhodes scholar. The school took the... http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/07/prominent-duke-cancer-researcher.html?etoc Climate Scientist-Activist Stephen Schneider Has Died Stephen Schneider, 65, died today as his flight to London from a science meeting in Stockholm was landinga sad but fitting end for a busy climate scientist who rarely... http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/07/stephen-schneider.html?etoc Will IVF Work for You? New model attempts to calculate the odds of in vitro fertilization success http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/07/will-ivf-work-for-you.html?etoc At Last, Vaginal Gel Scores Victory Against HIV Women who used gel had a 39% lower chance of becoming infected by the virus than those who received a placebo http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/07/at-last-vaginal-gel-scores-victo.html?etoc The Persistence of Memory ... in Reprogrammed Cells Researchers can turn an adult cell embryonic, but they can't make it forget where it came from http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/07/the-persistence-of-memory-in-rep.html?etoc
All these news stories, and more, are available at: news.sciencemag.org Today's news from Science Friday, 16 July 2010 Energy Research Takes a Hit in House Spending Bill for 2011 Not-so-happy days may be here again for scientists supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). In a mark-up of the budget for 2011, a spending panel in the... http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/07/energy-research-takes-a-hit-in.html?etoc Science Shot: A Quasi-Stellar Looking Glass The distorting power of gravity helps scientists stare down the universe's brightest objects http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/07/scienceshot-a-quasi-stellar-look.html?etoc The Case of the Poisoned Fuel Cell New catalysts could revive efforts to power fuel cells with gasoline and other liquid fuels http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/07/the-case-of-the-poisoned-fuel-ce.html?etoc Paul Nurse to Midwife Birth of London Super Lab The man with the plan now has to make it a reality while moonlighting as the president of the world's most famous science academy. Nobel laureate and Rockefeller University... http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/07/paul-nurse-to-midwife-birth-of.html?etoc Podcast: Arctic-Inspired Vaccines, Your 'Viral Fingerprint,' and Gorillas Playing Tag Listen to a roundup of some of our favorite stories from the week http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/07/podcast-arctic-inspired-vaccine.html?etoc Ireland Keeps Light Shining on Science With New Spending DUBLINIn a surprise move, the Irish government (which is tottering on the brink of bankruptcy) announced today that it would inject 359 million into research. It's the largest single... http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/07/ireland-keeps-light-shining-on.html?etoc Official Reminder: A Hotter Millennium Is a Bad Thing A committee of the National Research Council (NRC) weighed in today with the latest and most quantitative estimates yet of how the coming global warming could affect the world.... http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/07/official-reminder-a-hotter-mille.html?etoc 'Game Over' for British Science? The Royal Society and the British Academy today strongly warned the British government that looming cuts to science funding could be irreversibly catastrophic for the future of U.K. science... http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/07/game-over-for-british-science.html?etoc House Panel Approves 3.2% Raise for NIH in 2011 A House of Representatives spending panel yesterday approved a $1 billion increase, to $32 billion, in the 2011 budget for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). That 3.2% hike... http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/07/house-panel-approves-32-raise.html?etoc Russian Researchers Call for Better Coordination of Science More than 2200 researchers sent an open letter to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev last week asking the government to set Russian science in order and to consult with the... http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/07/russian-researchers-call-for-bet.html?etoc Science Shot: High Heels Come With a Price Study reveals why women's feet hurt after they toss off their fancy shoes http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/07/scienceshot-high-heels-come-with.html?etoc Illegal Logging Has Dropped DramaticallyOr Has It? A new analysis suggests that illegal logging has declined 22% worldwide since 2002, thanks to stricter government policies and enforcement. The progress has spared some 17 million hectares of... http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/07/illegal-logging-has-dropped.html?etoc
Today's news from Science Thursday, 15 July 2010 Illegal Logging Has Dropped DramaticallyOr Has It? A new analysis suggests that illegal logging has declined 22% worldwide since 2002, thanks to stricter government policies and enforcement. The progress has spared some 17 million hectares of... http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/07/illegal-logging-has-dropped.html?etoc A New Engine for Plate Tectonics Sinking slabs may set the pace of plate motion http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/07/a-new-engine-for-plate-tectonics.html?etoc USAID Looking for Science-Based Grand Challenges During his brief stint as chief scientist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Rajiv Shah helped focus and highlight research at the agency. This week he led a 2-day... http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/07/usaid-looking-for-science-based.html?etoc Science Shot: How to Get a Roller Coaster Rider to Give to Charity Consumers are more likely to donate when they can name their own price http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/07/scienceshot-how-to-get-a-roller.html?etoc Headcount of Sea Turtles Proves Elusive Government agencies don't have the data they need to accurately count populations of the six species of endangered and threatened sea turtles in the United States, says a report... http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/07/headcount-of-sea-turtles-proves-.html?etoc Science Shot: A Jupiter-Sized 'Comet' Gusts of stellar winds give distant planet a tail http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/07/scienceshot-a-jupiter-sized-come.html?etoc FDA Panel Gives Avandia a Qualified Thumbs-Down Two days of complicated and sometimes convoluted statistical debate about the diabetes drug Avandia ended today but left its ultimate fate still unclear. A joint committee of endocrinology, drug... http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/07/fda-panel-gives-avandia.html?etoc Diamonds May Unlock Secrets of Hot-Spot Volcanoes Carbon crystals offer clues to what's brewing beneath Earth's surface http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/07/diamonds-may-unlock-secrets-of-h.html?etoc Unsubscribe or edit your subscriptions for this service at: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/alerts/main Written requests to unsubscribe may be sent to: AAAS / Science, 1200 New York Avenue NW, Washington DC 20005, U.S.A.
All these news stories, and more, are available at: news.sciencemag.org Today's news from Science Wednesday, 14 July 2010 Diamonds May Unlock Secrets of Hot-Spot Volcanoes Carbon crystals offer clues to what's brewing beneath Earth's surface http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/07/diamonds-may-unlock-secrets-of-h.html?etoc Science Shot: Blinded by the X-ray Light Swift observatory is overwhelmed by super-intense gamma-ray burst http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/07/scienceshot-blinded-by-the-x-ray.html?etoc New Diagnostic Criteria for Alzheimer's Include Brain Scans and Spinal Taps Most Alzheimer's disease (AD) researchers agree that the disease starts ravaging the brain years, if not decades, before the first symptoms of forgetfulness appear. New criteria, proposed yesterday at... http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/07/new-diagnostic-criteria-for.html?etoc Science Shot: How Ugly Finches Get the Girls Finches with undesirable colors join groups of other unattractive males http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/07/scienceshot-how-ugly-finches-get.html?etoc Judge Throws Out Case Against California Animal-Rights Activists A federal judge in San Jose has dismissed charges against four animal-rights activists accused of harassing researchers at the University of California campuses at Berkeley and Santa Cruz in... http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/07/judge-throws-out-case-against.html?etoc Drugs + Mosquitoes = Malaria Vaccine? A dose of antibiotics can support natural immunity http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/07/drugs-mosquitoes-malaria-vaccine.html?etoc A Viral Wonderland in the Human Gut Poop reveals that each person harbors a unique community of viruses http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/07/a-viral-wonderland-in-the-human-.html?etoc A New Place to Send Your Wild Ideas Have an unpublished manuscript about the nature of navel fluff or a possible cure for death lying around? Now, there's a new journal where you can submit your ground-breaking,... http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/07/a-new-place-to-send-your-wild.html?etoc Why Gorillas Play Tag Low-status apes may use game as ego boost http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/07/why-gorillas-play-tag.html?etoc Getting More Bang for the HIV/AIDS Buck? How do you ramp up HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment efforts when you have no extra money to spare? The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the Obama... http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/07/getting-more-bang-for-the-hivaid.html?etoc Top Engineers to Investigate Cause of Oil Spill Investigations into the gulf oil disaster are multiplying. The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the National Research Council announced yesterday that they are assembling an expert committee of... http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/07/top-engineers-to-investigate.html?etoc
All these news stories, and more, are available at: news.sciencemag.org Fish and Wildlife Service Names Science Adviser Gabriela Chavarria of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has been picked as the science adviser for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Trained as an entomologist, Chavarria studied... http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/07/fish-and-wildlife-service-names.html?etoc Varmus Targets 'Dysfunction,' Scientific Barriers in Cancer Research Harold Varmus, the new but familiar leader of the National Cancer Institute, spent part of his first day yesterday describing some of the ideas percolating through my cerebrum before... http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/07/varmus-targets-dysfunction.html?etoc Tighten Those Purse Strings, Scientists Tell NASA A committee of the National Research Council warned today that steps recently taken by NASA to contain spiraling costs of future space missions won't be enough. The committee's report... http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/07/tighten-those-purse-strings.html?etoc European Union Ministers: No New Money for Giant Fusion Reactor In a decision that may threaten funding for other European science efforts, the European Union's 27 member states look set this week to formally decline a request from the... http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/07/european-union-ministers-no-new.html?etoc Why the Oil Spill Didn't Change the Climate Game: Author Says Blame Obama The Senate climate/energy bill expected to emerge this week is likely to lack a cap on greenhouse gases. Even a much-discussed, watered-down version to impose restrictions on the power... http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/07/why-the-oil-spill-didnt-change.html?etoc Amazon Hit by Its Own Katrina Severe storm mowed down vast swaths of rainforest http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/07/amazon-hit-by-its-own-katrina.html?etoc
A Letter from the Editor Beyond X 2.0: Where Should We Go? Fei-Yue Wang I believe data mining methods are critical to both the era of Web 2.0 and beyond it; where everyone is either acting as a data-mining-driven agent or conducting agent-driven data mining. Our special issue on Agents and Data Mining covers key research topics, applications, and resources of agent mining research and development. This emerging field could make Web 2.0 even more effective and useful. The special issue reminds me of an essay I read some time ago in Computer World (the Chinese version) which stated that Web 2.0 is a great lie in the course of web history. The author claimed that: 1) Web 2.0 is an empty concept; 2) Web 2.0 is misleading; 3) Web 2.0 is unscientific; and 4) Web 2.0 takes credit for many past and emerging web innovations without justification. I was surprised by this essay, not by the authors accusations, but by his seriousness about the academic merit and logic of Web 2.0. While I was writing this letter on my flight across the Pacific, I happened upon an article in The Economist titled Six years in the Valley, which explained the conceptualization and motivation behind Web 2.0. Towards the end of 2003, two conference organizers Dale Dougherty and Tim OReilly coined the term in an effort to rally Silicon Valley from its nuclear winter after the dotcom burst. The first Web 2.0 Conference took place October 2004 in San Francisco and created a stir. Since then Web 2.0 has become a wildly popular phrase, so much so that Mr. OReilly started fretting that it become a clich, and was being applied to so many things that it was in danger of becoming meaningless. Even worse some have started to fear that behind the Web 2.0 totem of collective intelligence an insidious digital Maoism that suppressed individuality. Others have observed an unhealthy trend towards continuous partial attention, as people spent less time focusing on a single thing or person because they were constantly scanning so many other thingsfrom Facebook to e-mail and their phonesfor fear of missing out on some social opportunity. The most dangerous aspect is that Web 2.0 derives its principal economic support from advertising, but with todays world financial crisis, advertisement is collapsing. Thus, Web 2.0 could send the Valley to yet another nuclear winter. So where do we go from here? From Web 2.0 to X 2.0 Fortunately, the main value of Web 2.0 is not its economic worth, but its social and cultural contributions, not in just Silicon Valley , but in Cyberspace. In terms of technology or science, there is nothing new or innovative in Web 2.0. It is neither reasonable nor fair to ask two conference organizers to provide a technical breakthrough in web technology. However, Web 2.0 is indeed a breakthrough in inspiring a new attitude towards interacting and sharing through the internet, cultivating a new lifestyle in cyberspace. We have witnessed the impact of Web 2.0 by watching X 2.0 mushrooming everywhere: Politics 2.0, Government 2.0, Education 2.0, Science 2.0, Business 2.0, Publishing 2.0, Entertainment 2.0, Emergency 2.0, you name it! Mr. BarackObama was dubbed the President 2.0, elected in the first real Campaign 2.0. Last year, I myself wrote an article about Management 2.0 and gave a presentation on Control 2.0 to graduate students at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. With X 2.0 all over the place, our life is now even more closely intertwined with the Web, changing our lifestyle forever. As a business model, Web 2.0 may continue to sell negligible advertising, but its grander vision emerges from a rapid and interactive social dynamic process governed by Mertons self-fulfilling prophecy . With the semantic web dubbed Web 3.0, and perhaps social computing as Web 4.0, the future of the Web is getting to be more and more fascinating. Soon, Cyberspace, the so-called virtual space, will be as real to us as our familiar physical space. Like the mathematical concept of complex numbers, which includes both real and imagery numbers, with each taking 50% of the total, our future living environments should be called complex spaces, half physical and half virtual. If you think this is simply a far-reached fantasy, then think back to 400 years ago, when imagery numbers were thought not to exist. Today, they are half of all numbers. As the concept of numbers has changed, the concept of spaces will evolve as well. I am sure this time that it will take us less than 400 years to realize that cyberspace is as real as anything and will be half of our future world, no more, no less, just half. Although the progression from Web 2.0 to X 2.0 and beyond is driven by technology, it is essentially a social and cultural phenomenon. Web 2.0 is not a great lie in the Webs history; rather its social dimension simply makes a purely academic judgment invalid. Why X 2.0 Matters: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly X 2.0 is the first step towards a new world in an open and primitive complex space that intertwines real and virtual. However, this is not the reason why it matters: X 2.0 matters because of the unprecedented level of scale and speed of its social impact and consequence . A vivid example is the Human Flesh Search Engine, a new phenomenon that has swept China in recent years: unexpected digital witch hunts of common people with uncommon behaviors. Ordinary Chinese netizens can become cyber-vigilantes and online communities can turn into the worlds largest lynch mobs, sometimes for the good, sometimes for the bad and sometimes just plain ugly. Wielding the vast human power behind the web, the every detail of targeted victims, from their private information to their social networks, were combed through, dug up and published on hundreds of forums and chat rooms. With close to 300 million Chinese citizens wired up to the Internet, a large number of netizens can be easily mobilized to participate in such a search; the vb results are fearful and uniquely Chinese! Thus far, a few local government officials were arrested for corruptions uncovered by the human flesh search, initiated by their exorbitant use of luxury items. Their crimes, such as smoking expensive cigarettes or wearing expensive watches, were spotted in public meetings by netizens. However, the few who dare to be outspoken or behave eccentrically have to face, unjustified, the wrath of an online mob; a few, including a college girl and an actress, were murdered or committed suicide as a direct result of tremendous anger or peer pressure launched by the human fresh search, all for insignificant or unproved wrongdoings! Some local Chinese legislators have passed bills seeking toban the human flesh search engine. Their actions have sparked a nationwide controversy over an individual's right to privacy versus the public's right to the truth. On a lighter note, the Internet has produced many web versions of a modern Cinderella story, as witnessed recently by Scottish singer Susan Boyles instant rise to fame, which was possible only with the facilitation of Web 2.0 applications such as YouTube, Facebook , and Twitter . Boyles story has an earlier Chinese version, called Lotus Sister, where an average girl was able to achieve sudden fame by posting her weird poses on campus forums, and subsequently made a living off her phenomenal Internet success. While I am happy for these instant Web 2.0 stars, I am worried about the potential use of such tools by criminals or terrorists for insidious purposes. To them, true or false, good or bad, does not matter; it is the result that matters. This is why I have called such phenomena web tumors, so far they have been benign, but we must be prepared in case they become malignant to web cancers. All of this convinces me that the Tower of Babel story has an important point. Some times, we must curb our ability and slow our desires and pride. Beyond X 2.0 I believe there must be a balance between the capacities of technology, humanitys adaptability, and natures sustainability, but we must move forward. The first thing we need is a new framework for computational sociology suitable for complex analysis in complex spaces and real-time computable when dealing with issues of cyber/physical interactions. A century ago, studies of particles, the universe, and the speed of light led to such modern theories in physics as relativity, cosmology, and quantum mechanics, it has since developed into the basis of our current technology, including web technology. Social studies face the same problem now: while the web is able to link all individuals (social particles) to the whole population (social universe) through instant information change at the speed of light, to move forward safely and effectively as a society, we must find the modern physics counterpart of sociology for social studies. Another important thing is that we need to think about the bigger picture and change our attitude toward web technology and X 2.0 applications. The industrial age was built upon natural resources (coal, ore, crude oils, etc), and extended our physical space and capacity greatly. From those resources, we have developed steel, energy, chemical and other industries. Now we are at the edge of the knowledge age and our intellectual space and capacity can be extended significantly, but where and what are the natural resources and industries for this new age? I believe data in cyberspace must be one of major resources for the construction of this new age and search engines are one example of its corresponding new industries. More knowledge industries can come out of Web 2.0 and X 2.0; this is where we should go next. C omputers started as simple computing devices and developed into computer sciences and information technology, now the Internet created for a platform for easier communication is developing into new web technology and sciences. As a result, I hope our intellectual space and capacity will be enhanced greatly and that the knowledge age will soon be as mature as the industrial or information age. The road to this destination may be uncertain and cloudy, but luckily, we now have cloud computing and fuzzy logic to help. For our readers, one thing is very clear, AI and intelligent systems will be critical to our final success . A Letter from Editor (From IEEE Intelligent Systems)
A Letter from the Editor Is Culture Computable? Fei-Yue Wang I enjoyed reading the articles in this special issue on AI Cultural Heritage , thanks to the great effort of our guest editors. The issue summaries the state of the art in this area with interesting and successful results. Clearly, AI has played and will continue to play a vital role in preserving, enhancing, and presenting our cultural heritage. Here I would like to discuss a related topic: the emerging field of social and cultural computing, which is a natural extension of the research work described in this issue. The demand is urgent for effective computing methods to deal with various social and cultural problems such as homeland security and the world financial crisis. AI should and must play the key role in addressing these issues. However, this begs the question, is culture really computable? At this point, I have no definitive answer; it all depends on the answer to the follow-up question, In what sense? To a large degree, I believe that if we can solve the problem of reasoning or computing with common senses, then we should be able to conduct culture or social computing effectively. But common senses is currently out of question because the topic itself still reminds one of the most difficulty challenges in AI research. Although the answer to the fundamental computability of culture is not clear, we must forge ahead because we simply cannot afford the consequence of avoiding cultural computing now. Over the past three years, our magazine has been leading the effort in promoting this new field by publishing important articles and dedicating a related special issue to this emerging field. Many similar activities have been launched recently around the world, for examples, ACM Beijing Chapters Workshop on Societal Security Informatics in 2006, Chinas 299 th Xiang Shan Scientific Conference on Social Computing in April 2007 (Figure 1), Harvards Workshop on Computational Social Sciences in December 2007, International Conference on Social Computing (SoCo 2008) (in conjunction with the 2008 IEEE Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics), and Beijings Seminar on Social Computing, a regular academic salon series for open scientific discussion funded by the Chinese Association of Science and Technology (Figure 2). Since last May, AAAS Science has also published at least four articles directly related to social and cultural computing, and I am glad to see that some articles are based on research reported earlier in Intelligent Systems . Will those activities bring us hope or hype towards a solid scientific foundation for social and cultural computing? I am hopeful and optimistic, and believe this could be the beginning of a new era in computing that would seamlessly integrate information technology with social sciences in a connected world. Of course, this is far from futurist Ray Kurzweils singularity, the point where the functionality of the human brain is quantifiable in terms of technology that we can build (some also claim that, at the singularity, machine intelligence will surpass our human intelligence, for good or bad), but I do hope the final success of social and cultural computing will bring us close to statistician I. J. Goods intelligence explosion . To this end, our RD effort for social or cultural computing must incorporate concepts and methods from several other related emerging areas. Computational Thinking Computer scientist Jeannette M. Wing, in her essay Computational Thinking published in the Communication of ACM , argued that computational thinking represents a universally applicable attitude and skill set everyone, not just computer scientists, would be eager to learn and use. She also advocated that to reading, writing, and arithmetic, we should add computational thinking to every childs analytical ability. When this vision becomes realty, or at least a reality among social and cultural researchers, then a solid discipline of social and cultural computing will be created and utilized everywhere and by everyone. This will require a long term project of tremendous effort, but the concept of computational thinking could bring both instant help and long term benefit to research and education of social and cultural computing. With computational thinking, descriptive hypotheses and processes in social sciences and cultural studies can be reformulated into computational procedures for quantitative analysis. Furthermore, various derivatives of social laws, such as Mertons self-fulfilling prophecy , might be used as governing laws for social dynamic systems, similar to governing laws, like Newtons laws, for natural or physical processes. For example, in social-technological areas, Moores Law has been quite helpful in facilitating business planning and product development for semiconductor related industries. Other eponymous laws, such as Metcalfes, Reeds, Sarnoffs laws, might also be valuable for social computing and cultural modeling. Russell and Popper If you think sociologist Merton is too ambiguous for scientific computing, lets delve even further into the teachings of philosopher s Bertrand Russell and Karp Popper. In his famous lecture Why I Am Not A Christian , delivered more than 80 years ago in London, Russell stated that a great many things we thought were natural laws are really human conventions, the laws at which you arrive are statistical averages of just the sort that would emerge from chance, and the whole idea that natural laws imply a lawgiver is due to a confusion between natural and human laws. For many, his statements and arguments made this whole business of natural law much less impressive than it formerly was, as a result, I hope it has also justified the use of generalized Mertons laws in scientific computing. If you have little confidence in Russells idea, Poppers theory of reality may help you. His model of the universe includes three interacting worlds: World 1 the physical world, World 2 the mental world, and World 3 the artificial world of products from the human mind . World 3 is home to abstract objects such as theories , stories , myths , tools , social institutions , and works of art . It contains the objective knowledge upon which all scientific theories are formed, which enables them to be criticized and potentially falsified . Therefore, World 3 provides a nurturing environment for social and cultural computing. The emergence of new modeling and analysis methods using artificial life and artificial societies testify to the usefulness of Poppers theory. For example, by modeling with artificial societies, many difficult technical issues in social sciences, such as the counterfactual effects in unobserved heterogeneity and the causes of effects in identification problems, can be easily addressed. Cultural Learning and Social Learning Computationally or philosophically, we cannot just thinking, we need real and more actions. From my ACP-based mechanism that promotes modeling with artificial societies, analysis by computational experiments, decision support and making through parallel execution, to the Cultural Reasoning Architecture for socio-cultural analysis, many approaches have been proposed so far. However, we still havent fully and systematically investigated machine learning and data mining techniques for social and cultural computing. For more than a decade, machine learning has transformed statistics. It is now a common practice for statistics departments to hire computer scientists and computer science departments to embrace statistics programs. The success of machine learning in statistical learning suggests that social learning and cultural learning are also promising directions for social computing and cultural modeling. After all, statistics is the most important tool of modeling and analysis in social sciences and cultural studies. With machine learning, we can proceed in a unified fashion for analysis of social and cultural issues, from individual conditions and behaviors, social activities and processes, to organizational states and behaviors, that is, from individual clustering to social stratification, and eventually to various functionalities of social organizations. Social and cultural learning would be even more powerful if it is combined with or embedded in construction of artificial societies, as well as Kathleen Carleys computational organization theory. A few years ago, I had discussed with some our Associate Editors about the choice between social computing and social learning for a special issue in IS , we ended up with a social computing issue in 2007. I am glad to inform you that, to continue our effort, we have already scheduled another special issue on social and cultural learning in 2010. Computational Culture To me, culture is embodied in how people interact with other individuals and with their environment. Therefore, its a way of life formed under specific historical, natural, and social conditions. Culture is not and will not be a science, no matter what we can accomplish with social and cultural computing. However, with the accelerated advancement of IT technology, we may arrive at an age of computational cultures in the near future, where digital natives with computational thinking are ordinary citizens. In many aspects, we have already witnessed new computer-based lifestyles and their impact on our society during the past decade. The establishment of a computational culture depends on the spread of computational thinking thoughout every fabric of our society. I believe, as Wing pointed out, just as the printing press facilitated the spread of the three Rs, computing and computers will greatly facilitate the spread of computational thinking. As we are entering a truly connected world, the speed and scale of this spreading process can be greatly enhanced through new developments and effective applications of social and cultural computing techniques. In many senses, we will be forced to enter the age of computational culture because survivability and sustainability might otherwise be at risk, owing to the unprecedented speed and scale of social changes caused by new scientific and technologic developments. From semantic web to web science to our last special issue on semantic scientific knowledge integration, IS has significantly contributed to promoting new research, development, and application towards this new digital age, and we will continue to be a leading force in this endeavor. B ack to my original question: Is culture computable ? My answer for now is, lets focus on the current tasks and potential consequence of social and cultural computing. Figure 1. Fei-Yue Wang co-organized and chaired the 299 th Xiangshan Scientific Conference on Social Computing at Fragrance Mountain, Beijing, China, in 2007. Figure 2. A discussion at the CAST Seminar on Social Computing at KuanGou, Beijing, China in 2008
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