Open Access Journal Wars

Open Access Launches Journal Wars

The $10 billion science publishing industry hasn’t heard the last of a bill that would make publicly funded studies available for free. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) has pledged this year to resurrect the Federal Research Public Access Act (S.2695), which would require federally funded research to become publicly available online within six months of being published.

“When it’s the taxpayers that are underwriting projects in the federal government, they deserve to access the very things they’re paying for,” said Cornyn spokesman Brian Walsh. “This research is funded by American taxpayers and conducted by researchers funded by public institutions. But it’s not widely available.”

Great. The idea that people will actually buy some crazy excuse like: “It’s inappropriate for the government (to interfere).” as a reason that publicly funded research should be kept from the public is frustrating. And even more so because some people actually might buy it. But for those that can think, I believe it confirms that they have no good arguments against proposal. If the best argument for opposition to open access requirements is trying to confuse people into thinking something that makes no logical sense they must not have any good reasons.

Is there any part of “you must make the research openly available” that is interfering with the science involved? Interfering with an outdated business model maybe, but that is all. And really not even that because you can retain that business model if you want. I can’t see how anyone can sensibly argue that it is in the interest of science to keep information inaccessible.

NCAA Basketball Tournament Challenge 2007

Once again I have created a group on the ESPN NCAA Basketball Tournament Challenge for curiouscat basketball fans. To participate, go to the curiouscat ESPN group and make your picks.

Go Badgers and Go Davidson,

Surfing a Wave for 12 km

via: Pororoca: Surfing the Amazon

Twice a year, between the months of February and March, the Atlantic Ocean waters roll up the Amazon river, in Brazil, generating the longest wave on the Earth. The phenomenon, known as the Pororoca, is caused by the tides of the Atlantic Ocean which meet the mouth of the river. This tidal bore generates waves up to 12 feet high which can last for over half an hour.

A Career in Computer Programming

Why a Career in Computer Programming Doesn’t Suck (A Response)

Programmers need to be lifelong learners. I’m not sure what else to tell you. Lots of people change their professions. It’s not too late for you. Alternatively, you could find a job using a stable technology that you enjoy. Maybe you should find somewhere that will let you use C or C++, both of which are unlikely to disappear anytime soon.

To the readers, pick a field that’s compatible with your own nature. You’ll be much happier. If you find that you’ve chosen the wrong field, change it. It’s just a job. Find something you actually enjoy, even if it means a massive career change. It’s better to be poorly-paid and happy than highly-paid and miserable.

Particles and Waves

Science team shows light is made of particles and waves:

Work completed by a visiting research professor at Rowan University, physics professors and a student from the institution shows that light is made of particles and waves, a finding that refutes a common belief held for about 80 years.

Shahriar S. Afshar, the visiting professor who is currently at Boston’s Institute for Radiation-Induced Mass Studies (IRIMS), led a team, including Rowan physics professors Drs. Eduardo Flores and Ernst Knoesel and student Keith McDonald, that proved Afshar’s original claims, which were based on a series of experiments he had conducted several years ago.

An article on the work titled “Paradox in Wave-Particle Duality” recently published in “Foundations of Physics,” a prestigious, refereed academic journal, supports Albert Einstein’s long-debated belief that quantum physics is incomplete. For eight decades the scientific community generally had supported Niels Bohr’s ideas commonly known as the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics.
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“The important new contribution is that light carries both wave and particle aspects at all times, and future experiments will further clarify the nature of each component.” Afshar said.

Open Source 3-D Printing

3-D Fabrication Goes Open Source

Hod Lipson and Evan Malone of Cornell University have cooked-up a cheap DIY 3-D printer – the Fab@Home – that they believe could lead to the widespread use of fabrication machines by hobbyists and experimenters. Fabrication machines, or fabbers, operate on the same principle as inkjet printers, but instead of squirting out ink onto paper, they squirt plastic or other materials into three-dimensional shapes. Commercial systems average around $100,000, but you can build Cornell’s Fab@Home for about US$2,300 worth of off-the-shelf parts.

Attacking Bacterial Walls

Bacterial Walls Come Tumbling Down:

Penicillin and many newer antibiotics work by blocking a piece of the machinery bacteria use to construct their durable outer walls. Without these tough, protective coatings, bacteria die. The enzymatic machinery (known as PBP2) studied by Strynadka’s group has two main parts: One end assembles long sugar fibers; the other end stitches them together with bits of protein to form a sturdy interlocking mesh shell.
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“This enzyme is an awesome target for antibiotics,” said Strynadka. “We have a totally new understanding of how the enzyme works and how a very good animal antibiotic inhibits the enzyme.” Although moenomycin is poorly absorbed by the human body, the new understanding of exactly how it interferes with bacterial enzyme function should help scientists design modified versions that are more suitable for use in people.

Understanding the structure of this enzyme should also speed up screening and design of new antibiotics, which are in constant demand as microbes continually evolve new ways to evade the drugs that researchers design to thwart them. The time it takes for bacteria to develop resistance to new antibiotics has been as short as one year for penicillin V and as long as 30 years for vancomycin.

Invasive Plants: Tamarisk

To Save the West, Kill a Plant by Josh McDaniel:

The tamarisk, an invasive species introduced to the United States from Eurasia, is a deep-rooted plant that aggressively obtains water from the soil and groundwater. A single mature tree can produce up to 500,000 seeds per year, crowding out native plants along rivers and creeks and reducing wildlife habitat. The species now infests all the major rivers, springs, ditches, and wetlands in ten states—including Texas, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, and California—and is rapidly expanding into others.

In the delicately dry ecosystems of the southwestern United States, that is a serious problem, adding up to over 800 billion gallons of lost water per year across the parched region. “That is equal to the water needs of 20 million people or one million acres of irrigated farmland,” said Tim Carlson, an environmental engineer and director of the Tamarisk Coalition, which aims to control the plant.

Living systems include risks for those that attempt to engineer improvement. The past is littered with examples of attempts to intervene that go wrong.

“One night, after I gave a presentation on tamarisk, an older gentleman came up to me and told me that he had earned his Eagle Scout rank by planting tamarisk to prevent soil erosion after the Dust Bowl era in the 1930s,” Carlson recalled. “He said he would gladly earn it again by helping me remove it.”

I don’t think there is a simple answer. We are going to have intentional and unintentional consequences results from our actions. To me the lesson is to learn from our past that we often have unintended consequences that are worse than we envisioned and we need to be careful. We can’t assume there are no risks that we don’t know about. There are risks we can’t predict.

Non-Newtonian Fluid Demo

via: A pool filled with non-newtonian fluid:

They filled a pool with a mix of cornstarch and water made on a concrete mixer truck. It becomes a non-newtonian fluid. When stress is applied to the liquid it exhibits properties of a solid. Video was recorded at Barcelona, Spain. A non-Newtonian fluid is a fluid in which the viscosity changes with the applied strain rate. As a result, non-Newtonian fluids may not have a well-defined viscosity.

USA Science and Engineering Degree Data – 2007

A huge amount of interesting data can be found in NSF’s report on the USA: Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering (pdf)

Since 2000 women have received more science and engineering bachelors degrees than men. Men still receive more master’s and doctoral degrees in science and engineering.

2004 bachelor’s degrees	Female	Male
Engineering	13,257	51,418
Computer Science	14,406	42,999
Psychology	64,208	18,302
Science and engineering	227,813	224,525
Total non-S&E	583,004	371,667

200,000 more for bachelor’s degrees for women – wow. This is just a continuation of a trend but still is fairly amazing.

2004 Master’s degrees for US citizens	Female	Male
Engineering	7,135	26,737
Computer Science	6,195	13,658
Psychology	11,950	3,348
Science and engineering	51,420	66,631
Total non-S&E	276,782	160,704

2004 Doctoral degrees for US citizens	Female	Male
Engineering	1,014	4,353
Computer Science	195	690
Psychology	2,245	1,042
Science and engineering	9,819	15,728

Some more interesting data: 90% of Asian, 60% of Native Hawaiian/other Pacific Islander 40% of Hispanic doctoral S&E faculty were born outside the United States. Over 80 % of white, American Indian/Alaska Native, and multiple race doctoral S&E faculty were born in the United States.