Not Even Wrong. Peter Woit's view of superstring "theory"

From the book blurb: Wolfgang Pauli coined the phrase "not even wrong" to describe scientific theories or ideas that are "so incomplete that they could not even be used to make predictions to compare with observations to see whether they were wrong or not." Peter Woit, lecturer in the mathematics department of Columbia University, puts forth the view that superstring theory is such an idea, not a theory at all, because it offers no predictions and this "very lack of falsifiability is what has allowed the subject to survive and flourish."

Now on the new book shelf. Not Even Wrong.

See also Peter Woit's blog by the same title, which gives a handy link to book reviews.

Subject searches in OBIS on string models and superstring result in a number of relevant titles.

Dialogue, Not Diatribe: Collaboration in Science in Environment and BioScience

The January 2007 issues of Environment and BioScience, both on display in the science library, consider the essential need to dialogue in order to "advance cross-displinary research" (Eigenbrode, S.D., et al., BioScience 57(1): 55) and effectively integrate science and policy through "joint fact finding" (Karl, H.A., L.E. Susskind and K.H. Wallace, Environment 49(1): 20).

The critical need to refine communication among scientists in different disciplines and between scientists and policy makers, as well as scientists and the general public, and is further examined by AIBS President Douglas Futuyma in his editorial Science's Greatest Challenge (also in the January issue). Futuyma states, "The challenge that matters now is to make sure that science is taken seriously... can a pragmatic people not see that a scientific consensus is more trustworthy than the pronouncements of an industry-sponsored naysayer or a president untrained in biology or physics?" Toward this end, the AIBS will work with the National Academy of Sciences to make 2009 the "Year of Public Understanding of Science."

image: Environment 49(1): 20.

New Light on Ancient Worlds Through Geological Research

The January 2007 issues of Geotimes and Geology each feature icons of ancient civilizations on their covers. Odysseus, as memorialized in a museum located in the Villa of Tiberius, Sperlonga, Italy, draws the reader to the Geotimes report on "Finding Ithaca," the story of how geologists are helping to locate the possible real-world sites in Homer's epic poem Odyssey.

Geology pictures Pueblo Bonito, "the largest ruin at Chaco Canyon, New Mexico... The abandonment of dwellings by ancestral Americans, such as those at Chaco, may have been caused by sudden shifts in climate. Asmerom et al.* suggest that solar variability, via modulation of the tropical Pacific, may be the cause of Holocene climate change." Both journal issues are on the new journal display rack today.

*Asmerom, Y. V.Polyak, S.Burns, J.Rassmussen. Solar forcing of Holocene climate: new insights from a speleothem record, southwestern United States. Geology 35 (1): 1-4.

Novel Neuropeptides, Mass Spectrometry and Peptidomics in Analytical Chemistry, Jan. 1, 2007

Now on the science library's current journal display, and at the American Chemical Society publications site: Analytical Chemistry, Jan. 1, 2007:

MS applied to the discovery of novel peptides from the brain. Marcus Svensson, Karl Skold, Anna Nilson, Maria Falth, Katarina Nydahl, Per Svenningsson, and Per E. Andren.

"Per E. Andren and colleagues at Uppsala University and the Karolinska Institutet describe neuropeptidomics approaches in brain lysates and tissue section to study peptide expression in disease models and to identify potentially biological active neuropeptides."

The authors provide a helpful overview of neuropeptides (smallish proteins present throughout the nervous system) and the technology of visualizing and analyzing proteins with mass spectrometry. Wikipedia gives a handy definition of one of the techniques used by the researchers: MALDI MS.

Reverse Panspermia Considered in Sky & Telescope

In the January issue of Sky & Telescope, now on the science library's current journals display, Selby Cull describes the hypothetical journey of a bacteria-laden rock hurtling from Earth through space, propelled by a mighty asteroid-earth collision on the scale of the Chicxulub impact.

Speculation that endospores from bacteria billions of years old might survive such a journey and successfully colonize inhospitable surfaces found on Europa, Titon and Mars is not so far-fetched, says Cull. Take a break from your Winter Term activities and check out this issue, which also considers how black holes helped build the universe and includes marvelous photographs from the land rovers on Mars, Opportunity and Spirit. Selby Cull, editorial intern for Sky & Telescope in the summer of 2006, wrote the text accompanying the "Martian photo opportunity" in addition to the story of bacteria launched by asteroid impact.

The Power of Plagues - on the new book shelf

Our most recent shipment of new books includes The Power of Plagues by University of California, Riverside, biologist Irwin W. Sherman (ASM Press, Washington, DC, 2006). Sherman's book has been reviewed by several authors, notably Stephen Greenberg in JAMA: Journal of the American Medical Association July 5, 2006, vol. 296, p. 101 (available in print in the science library), and by J. G. Rigau-Pérez in Emerging Infectious Diseases, online October 2006.

Dr. Greenberg notes that the strength of the book is the historical discussion of specific diseases, and that it should appeal to a "broad lay audience" as well as graduate students and advanced undergraduates in biology. Related works in the college library:

• Rats, Lice and History
• Plagues and Peoples
• The Coming Plague.

A Bit of Chemistry for Christmas

Thanks to a posting in Stephanie Bianchi's Sci-Tech Library Newsletter (National Science Foundation).

Kids may enjoy using chemistry to solve the “Christmas Cookie Mystery”

If you weary of the traditional, try caroling with song lyrics by chemists and physicists:

• Science Jokes: Chemistry Poetry
• Iona Prep Physics Christmas Carols
  
• Chemistry Carols
• Physics Carols
  

Michael Faraday started a series of Christmas lectures on chemistry in 1827. These lectures show that the relationship chemists have with Christmas is timeless. The Royal Institution still hosts Christmas lectures today.

Fossil Helps to Redraw the Mammalian Family Tree

From the current issue of Nature:

"Distant relatives of today's flying squirrels probably existed at least 135 million years ago; much earlier than anyone had suspected. That is the conclusion of a team of researchers led by Jin Meng, who have found the fossilized remains of a new species of mammal" (see Nature 14 December, p. 889).

Read the story behind the discovery of this ancient glider in inner Mongolia.

Undermining Science... in the Bush Administration

Seth Shulman's book on the "suppression and distortion" of science in the (G. W. ) Bush administration is now on the new book shelf. The first quotation in the book comes from an editorial in Scientific American:

"It is increasingly impossible to ignore that this White House disdains research that inconveniences it."

(Bush-League Lysenkoism. Scientific American, May 2004, Vol. 290 Issue 5, p10; full-text available through EBSCOhost).

More documentation of the misrepresentation of scientific data and research findings is available from the Union of Concerned Scientists and Bush Greenwatch.

Optogenetics: Optics & Genetics Combine to Stimulate and Visualize the Nervous System

From Science news this week:
Shining New Light on Neural Circuits
by Greg Mille

"When researchers from Yale University reported last year that they'd used a laser to activate neurons in fruit flies and in turn control the insects' behavior, even Jay Leno thought it was cool. In a skit, the Tonight Show host pretended to use a remote-controlled fly to harass President George W. Bush during a speech. "I thought it was actually quite funny," says Gero Miesenböck, the neuroscientist who led the study. A video clip of Leno's skit elicited chuckles when Miesenböck played it during a presentation at October's meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in Atlanta, Georgia." [more from Science]

IMAGE: An optical fiber delivers light to stimulate photosensitive neurons deep in a mouse's brain. (from Science 15 December 2006: Vol. 314. no. 5806, pp. 1674 - 1676)

CREDIT: ALEX ARAVANIS AND KARL DEISSEROTH/STANFORD

To read abstracts from the Mini Symposium on Optogenetics at the Society for Neurocience, October 2006, go to the Society's annual meeting website http://www.sfn.org/am2006/, select the neuroscience meeting planner, then search for Miesenbock as author in the advanced search.

Goodbye Baiji (Lipotes vexillifer, Yangtze River Dolphin)

The Chinese River Dolphin, or Baiji (Lipotes vexillifer), found only in the Yangtze River, was declared "functionally extinct" after a 6-week expedition failed to find even one dolphin still living in the river. The Three Gorges Dam project, pollution and over hunting were cited as causes for extinction, giving the Baiji the unwelcome designation as the first large aquatic mammal driven to extinction by human activity since the 1950s.

Learn more about the Baiji's biology and conservation attempts in Conservation Biology, vol. 20, no. 3 June 2006, on the OhioLINK Electronic Journal Center.
image from the BBC.

Evolution, Creationism and Intelligent Design: news from Nature, Science, and a book by Michael Shermer

Why Darwin Matters: the Case Against Intelligent Design, by Michael Shermer, just arrived in the science library, nicely provides in depth context for recent items in Nature and Science:

Anti-evolutionists raise their profile in Europe Nature vol. 444: 406-407 (23 November 2006)

Public Acceptance of Evolution Science vol. 313: 765-766 (11 August 2006). Erratum, Sep 22: 1739.

An Obstacle to the Acceptance of Evolution Science Science 12 Oct 2006 [eletters]

image from the publisher's Web site, Henry Holt and Co., Times Books.

On the New Book Shelf: Voices from Chernobyl

Among the new books received today is the winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, Voices from Chernobyl: an Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster by Svetlana Alexievich. Read excerpts from the book at NPR.org - part of a twenty-year retrospective on the explosion of a nuclear reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in northern Ukraine.

• more book info from Powells.com
• more stories on Chernobyl, then and now, from NPR.

U.S. Study Finds Slower Breakdown of Plutonium in Stockpiled Weapons

From Science news of the week
by Eli Kintisch
A new U.S. government analysis has found that the plutonium at the heart of the country's nearly 10,000 stockpiled nuclear weapons could last twice as long as previously thought. That conclusion is likely to escalate the debate over the Bush Administration's campaign to build a new generation of weapons. (Read more.)

Full story at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/314/5805/1526?etoc

The Day Oberlin College Went Climate Neutral

Join the activities in the Adam Joseph Lewis Environmental Center today and celebrate the college's commitment to develop a plan for becoming climate neutral. See the Oberlin events calendar for details, including:

• noon - Lecture by Karen Florini, OC '79
• 2 pm - National Wildlife Federation Teleconference
• 4:30 pm - Lecture by Kris Petersen and Greg Berger
• 7:30 pm - Reception and art installation

The art installation will reveal what became of all those incandescent light bulbs replaced with energy efficient compact fluorescent bulbs campus-wide (including bulbs at the science library reading tables).

[More info on Oberlin's climate neutrality pledge from the Oberlin Review.]

Take the Holiday Song Challenge!

Environmental Defense invites you to join the Holiday Song Challenge, and create a video of you and your friends singing a holiday song with a global warming theme. View their staff video for inspiration, or other entries on the YouTube Holiday Song Challenge group, then submit your own production to YouTube.

While you're at the Environmental Defense site, take time to read their Five Big Ideas for the Environment for 2007.

Supreme Court Considers Auto Carbon Emissions and the Clean Air Act

Listen to ScienceFriday for Dec. 1, as host Ira Flatow reviews with guests the arguments presented last week to the Supreme Court, in its first case ever to deal with global warming.

From ScienceFriday.com: "How might the court's ruling might affect what we drive in the future? We'll also take a look at the upcoming session of Congress. With Democrats poised to take over leadership of both houses of Congress next month, how will the new Congress tackle the issue of climate change?" Listen to the broadcast.

More on this case is posted on the Natural Resources Defense Council web site, with frequently updated links to numerous news sources.

Books for Holiday Giving

Bruce Barcott, a contributing editor for Outside magazine, offered this list of favorite books for 2006 during a recent interview on Living on Earth (LOE). You'll find all of them in the college library, either in science or main, so you can review them yourself before buying a copy for a friend!

• Field Notes from a Catastrophe: man, nature, and climate change.
• The Weather Makers: how man is changing the climate and what it means for life on earth.
• An Inconvenient Truth: the planetary emergency of global warming and what we can do about it.
• The Reluctant Mr. Darwin: an intimate portrait for Charles Darwin and the making of his theory of evolution.
• The Worst Hard Time: the untold story of those who survived the great American dust bowl.
• The Omnivore's Dilemma: a natural history of four meals.

Every LOE show can be downloaded for your MP3 player, read, or listened to online. LOE's careful analysis of environmental issues worldwide, with policy makers, scientists and science writers, make this one of the most enlightening programs on public radio. The "Emerging Science" segment is especially noteworthy each week. So lend an ear! [More at LOE].

Searching for the Origin of Altruism

Among the new books received this week is The altruism equation : seven scientists search for the origins of goodness / Lee Alan Dugatkin. Princeton : Princeton University Press, c2006.

It was reviewed by Jason Rosenhouse in his EvolutionBlog on Sept. 19. Publishers Weekly, as reported on the Princeton University Press site, had this to offer:
"Biologist Lee Dugatkin splendidly narrates a fast-paced tale of scientific breakthrough, genius and intellectual history as he examines the lives of seven scientists . . . whose groundbreaking work attempts to answer this question. . . . This superb tale of scientific discovery is required reading for everyone interested in the nature of human morality."

Lake Victoria's Ecological Decline Linked to Climate Change

From Science News of the Week, November 24:
U.N. Conference Puts Spotlight on Reducing Impact of Climate Change.
by Richard Stone and John Bohannon

NAIROBI--For the past 6 years, Louis Verchot has had a ringside seat for Lake Victoria's ecological decline. Intense rainstorms pounding down on degraded land have swept in millions of tons of phosphorus-laden sediments from the Nyando River, transforming the lake from a nutrient-limited ecosystem into one with a gross excess of nutrients. On a visit last spring, says Verchot, a soil specialist at the World Agroforestry Centre in Nairobi, the water was so choked with an algal bloom that a glass of it "looked like spinach soup." [more]