news sciences

Talk about a ray of sunshine. I was near Sentinel Peak [southwest of Tucson, Arizona] when the sun was about to set, and decided to take a brief detour before the end of my day. It was a cloudy evening but the horizon was clear, so I knew it had to be promising. I took the chance, and I was fortunate to have a rare sighting of a sun pillar!

Sun pillars, or light pillars, are shafts of light extending from the sun or other bright light source. They’re caused by ice crystals drifting in Earth’s air. More info (and pics!) here.

Here’s another April 2016 sun pillar. This one was taken in southwest England by Jacquie Russell.

Photo credit: Jacquie Russell

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from EarthSky http://ift.tt/1r51ivg

View larger. | Photo credit; Jesse Jackson

Jesse Jackson shared his photo with us. Jesse wrote:

Talk about a ray of sunshine. I was near Sentinel Peak [southwest of Tucson, Arizona] when the sun was about to set, and decided to take a brief detour before the end of my day. It was a cloudy evening but the horizon was clear, so I knew it had to be promising. I took the chance, and I was fortunate to have a rare sighting of a sun pillar!

Sun pillars, or light pillars, are shafts of light extending from the sun or other bright light source. They’re caused by ice crystals drifting in Earth’s air. More info (and pics!) here.

Here’s another April 2016 sun pillar. This one was taken in southwest England by Jacquie Russell.

Photo credit: Jacquie Russell

Enjoying EarthSky? Sign up for our free daily newsletter today!

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/1r51ivg

News digest – e-cigarettes, Chernobyl, ‘moonshots’ and… canned food?

The big news this week was the Royal College of Physicians’ report, which concluded that smokers would be better off switching to e-cigarettes as a safer source of nicotine. The BBC, Guardian and Wired were among the many media outlets to cover this, and we blogged about the potential e-cigarettes have as part of the solution to tobacco-related harm.
This week marked 30 years since the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. We blogged about what’s been learnt since, to try to put radiation risks into perspective.
A new over-the-counter cancer gene test launched in the US this week. Wired took a closer look, concluding that just because you can test for a gene fault doesn’t mean it will tell you much. We’ve also blogged about a similar type of test available in the UK.
Measuring the levels and changes in a molecule in the blood could help indicate whether breast cancer has come back or spread, reports the Express. But, as the researchers point out, larger studies will be needed before this could be developed into any kind of routine test (and it certainly can’t be ‘done at home’).
Profiling a person’s gut bacteria could identify those at risk of blood infections after chemotherapy, write two scientists for the BioMed Central blog. But as they make clear, larger studies in more types of cancer will be needed to pin down how reliable the link is.

Number of the week

30

The number of years since the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Find out more in this blog post.

With the recent US launch of several high-profile (and high-value) efforts to tackle cancer – aka ‘moonshots’ – Nature asked whether the money is going to be spent efficiently.
Scientists at Hong Kong University have engineered a non-infectious form of salmonella bacteria that can deliver cancer drugs to tumours in mice, reports International Business Times.
This thought-provoking Huffington Post article questioned the language used when talking and writing about cancer, something we’ve discussed here.
The Express reported on a study linking irregular periods and an increased risk of ovarian cancer. But while it’s known that other hormonal factors (such as HRT and the Pill) can influence a woman’s risk, it’s still not clear from this study exactly what role irregular periods might play – more research will be needed to find out.
Can manipulating electric currents inside cells stop them developing into cancer? US researchers engineered frog embryos so that they could fiddle with the electrical signals inside their cells by shining a flashing blue light at them. Those that carried a cancer-causing gene were prevented from developing into cancer. It’s really early-stage but fascinating research – Reuters has the details.

And finally

The Telegraph asked ‘Does canned food cause cancer?’, in a report focusing on a chemical found in some food packaging called Bisphenol A (BPA). But in short, the answer is no – there’s no good evidence that BPA increases cancer risk in humans.

Nick

from Cancer Research UK - Science blog http://ift.tt/1O2uUyu

The big news this week was the Royal College of Physicians’ report, which concluded that smokers would be better off switching to e-cigarettes as a safer source of nicotine. The BBC, Guardian and Wired were among the many media outlets to cover this, and we blogged about the potential e-cigarettes have as part of the solution to tobacco-related harm.
This week marked 30 years since the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. We blogged about what’s been learnt since, to try to put radiation risks into perspective.
A new over-the-counter cancer gene test launched in the US this week. Wired took a closer look, concluding that just because you can test for a gene fault doesn’t mean it will tell you much. We’ve also blogged about a similar type of test available in the UK.
Measuring the levels and changes in a molecule in the blood could help indicate whether breast cancer has come back or spread, reports the Express. But, as the researchers point out, larger studies will be needed before this could be developed into any kind of routine test (and it certainly can’t be ‘done at home’).
Profiling a person’s gut bacteria could identify those at risk of blood infections after chemotherapy, write two scientists for the BioMed Central blog. But as they make clear, larger studies in more types of cancer will be needed to pin down how reliable the link is.

Number of the week

30

The number of years since the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Find out more in this blog post.

With the recent US launch of several high-profile (and high-value) efforts to tackle cancer – aka ‘moonshots’ – Nature asked whether the money is going to be spent efficiently.
Scientists at Hong Kong University have engineered a non-infectious form of salmonella bacteria that can deliver cancer drugs to tumours in mice, reports International Business Times.
This thought-provoking Huffington Post article questioned the language used when talking and writing about cancer, something we’ve discussed here.
The Express reported on a study linking irregular periods and an increased risk of ovarian cancer. But while it’s known that other hormonal factors (such as HRT and the Pill) can influence a woman’s risk, it’s still not clear from this study exactly what role irregular periods might play – more research will be needed to find out.
Can manipulating electric currents inside cells stop them developing into cancer? US researchers engineered frog embryos so that they could fiddle with the electrical signals inside their cells by shining a flashing blue light at them. Those that carried a cancer-causing gene were prevented from developing into cancer. It’s really early-stage but fascinating research – Reuters has the details.

And finally

The Telegraph asked ‘Does canned food cause cancer?’, in a report focusing on a chemical found in some food packaging called Bisphenol A (BPA). But in short, the answer is no – there’s no good evidence that BPA increases cancer risk in humans.

Nick

from Cancer Research UK - Science blog http://ift.tt/1O2uUyu

Shareholders push DuPont on worker safety, not $130 billion merger [The Pump Handle]

There was an amazing scene this week at the annual meeting of DuPont shareholders. The reporting by Jeff Mordock of the The News-Journal made me feel like I was in the room witnessing it for myself.

Mordock writes:

“DuPont Co.’s safety record – not its upcoming $130 billion merger with The Dow Chemical Co. – was the focus of shareholder’s ire at the company’s annual meeting in New York City Wednesday. Not one shareholder asked DuPont CEO Ed Breen a question about the merger…Instead, shareholders grilled Breen about recent deaths at DuPont plants, including that of four workers killed at its LaPorte, Texas, facility in November 2014.”

The shareholders included Roy Reed an employee at that DuPont LaPorte plant. He held photos of Wade Baker, 60, Manuel Tisnado, 48, Robert Tisnado, 39, and Crystle Wise, 53 who were the victims of the company’s defective safety program. Reed is also president of Local 900 of the International Chemical Workers Union Council (ICWUC) in LaPorte, TX.

Ken Henley, an attorney representing the International Brotherhood of DuPont Workers (IBDW) also addressed the DuPont CEO and board of directors. Mordock reports what Henley told the Board about its distorted priorities:

“The [Board’s] safety committee met a grand total of two times in 2015. In contrast, the [Board’s] compensation program met 11 times.”

At least two shareholder groups had more than just talk planned for the meeting. The IBDW introduced a resolution to create an employee advisory position. The person’s role would be bringing safety concerns directly to the DuPont board of directors. The United Steelworkers had a more modest proposal. They wanted the board to report back to shareholders at the next annual meeting on specific steps taken by the company to address safety hazards at its facilities. Both proposals were defeated.

John Morawetz with the ICWUC told Mordock why he was at the shareholders’ meeting. Mordock writes:

“… to represent those who couldn’t be here,’ a reference to the four deceased. LaPorte workers. He said he was not surprised the proposals were defeated, but hoped the company would revisit the ideas at a later date.”

Roy Reed, John Morawetz, and the others representing DuPont workers were participating in company’s shareholder meeting at the most opportune time. Across the globe and in cities throughout the U.S., workers, labor unions, health professionals, and safety advocates were commemorating Worker Memorial Day. More than a hundred events that took place this week in the US are listed here and at least another hundred are listed here. The DuPont shareholder’s meeting was every bit a Worker Memorial Day event.

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1pQyTIv

Mordock writes:

“DuPont Co.’s safety record – not its upcoming $130 billion merger with The Dow Chemical Co. – was the focus of shareholder’s ire at the company’s annual meeting in New York City Wednesday. Not one shareholder asked DuPont CEO Ed Breen a question about the merger…Instead, shareholders grilled Breen about recent deaths at DuPont plants, including that of four workers killed at its LaPorte, Texas, facility in November 2014.”

“The [Board’s] safety committee met a grand total of two times in 2015. In contrast, the [Board’s] compensation program met 11 times.”

John Morawetz with the ICWUC told Mordock why he was at the shareholders’ meeting. Mordock writes:

“… to represent those who couldn’t be here,’ a reference to the four deceased. LaPorte workers. He said he was not surprised the proposals were defeated, but hoped the company would revisit the ideas at a later date.”

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1pQyTIv

Should Teens Be Allowed to Buy E-Cigarettes?

Featured Media Resource [VIDEO]: “Are Electronic Cigarettes Safe?” (BBC News)
As e-cigarettes and vaping grow in popularity among teens, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has yet to regulate their distribution. Researchers are still determining the health risks associated with the popular product. In Read More …

Source:: DoNow Science

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Source:: DoNow Science

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This Week in EPA Science

By Kacey Fitzpatrick

Today is Arbor Day—a day to plant, care for, and celebrate trees! Don’t have a shovel handy? Well you can still read about the latest in EPA science to get your environmental fix.

Visualize Your Water Challenge
The winners of the Visualize Your Water challenge were announced last week! High school students were challenged to use open government data sources to create compelling, innovative, and comprehensible visualizations that inform individuals and communities about nutrient pollution. Read about it all straight from the teachers of the winning students in the blog Recognizing Winners of EPA’s Visualize Your Water Challenge.

Doing it for the Kids: Engaging Students on Energy and Climate Change
Got a minute to listen to EPA’s latest Science Bite podcast? EPA scientist Dr. Rebecca Dodder describes her research on climate change and why engaging students on energy issues is important to her. Listen to the Science Bite podcasts.

New Way to Track Everyday Exposure
EPA scientists are excited about the flurry of research under way using silicone wristbands for monitoring everyday exposures to chemicals. This research could complement EPA’s ongoing effort to develop computer models that generate high-throughput exposure predictions for thousands of chemicals. Read more about this wristband research in the article A Simple Way to Track Your Everyday Exposure to Chemicals.

Don’t Flush! Why Your Drug Disposal Method Matters
April 30^th is National Drug Take-Back Day. What do you usually do with your unwanted or expired pharmaceuticals? If you flush them down the toilet or throw them in the trash, they can end up in our coastal ecosystems and negatively impact aquatic animals. Read more about what happens and how you can safely discard your pharmaceuticals in the blog Don’t Flush! Why Your Drug Disposal Method Matters.

Next Week is Air Quality Awareness Week!
EPA will be hosting a Twitter Chat with CDC on air quality issues on May 5^th, from 1-2 p.m. ET. This chat will talk about topics like the impacts of air pollution on human health and how you can use air quality tools to reduce your exposure to pollution. Join the conversation at #AirQualityChat.

About the Author: Kacey Fitzpatrick is a student contractor and writer working with the science communication team in EPA’s Office of Research and Development.

from The EPA Blog http://ift.tt/1TayV5d

By Kacey Fitzpatrick

Today is Arbor Day—a day to plant, care for, and celebrate trees! Don’t have a shovel handy? Well you can still read about the latest in EPA science to get your environmental fix.

About the Author: Kacey Fitzpatrick is a student contractor and writer working with the science communication team in EPA’s Office of Research and Development.

from The EPA Blog http://ift.tt/1TayV5d

Who’s to blame for Sci-Hub? Librarians, of course! [Confessions of a Science Librarian]

And by blame, I mean “blame.”

Yesterday the flagship journal of the AAAS, Science, published a series of feature and editorial articles on Sci-Hub, the unauthorized article sharing site.

Overall, the articles are pretty good descriptions of the Sci-Hub phenomenon and relatively even-handed, especially coming from one of the big society publishers like AAAS.

There was one bit in the main article, Who’s downloading pirated papers? Everyone, that really stuck in my craw. Basically, Sci-Hub — and all that article piracy — is librarians’ fault.

And for all the researchers at Western universities who use Sci-Hub instead, the anonymous publisher lays the blame on librarians for not making their online systems easier to use and educating their researchers. “I don’t think the issue is access—it’s the perception that access is difficult,” he says.

Fortunately it was countered, in the true “give both sides of the story” style of mainstream journalism, by another quote, this time from a librarian.

“I don’t agree,” says Ivy Anderson, the director of collections for the California Digital Library in Oakland, which provides journal access to the 240,000 researchers of the University of California system. The authentication systems that university researchers must use to read subscription journals from off campus, and even sometimes on campus with personal computers, “are there to enforce publisher restrictions,” she says.

But of course, I couldn’t let it go. Anderson’s response is perfectly fine but somehow there just wasn’t enough rage and exasperation in it. So I stewed about it over night and tweeted up a tweetstorm of rage this morning, with the idea that if the rant was well-received I would capture the text as part of a blog post.

For what it’s worth, the tweets did go viral, or at least “viral” in the sense that anything in the library/scholarly communications world can go viral. At last check, there were several hundred Twitter notifications generated by the tweets and Twitter Analytics tells me that my day’s tweeting has generated well over 100,000 impressions.

So, here it is, cleaned up a bit for readability.

Twitter rant on Sci-Hub article “Who’s downloading pirated papers? Everyone” in recent @sciencemagazine initiating in 3…2…1…

Do you want to know who’s my Worst Person in the World right now? (OK, not really worst person in the world, that would be Donald Trump, but schol comm/libraries microcosm worst person)?

It’s the Anonymous Publisher quoted in this Science article by John Bohannon: Who’s downloading pirated papers? Everyone.

The problem? They basically blame the Sci-Hub debacle (or at least debacle from the publishers’ perspective) on librarians. Yes, librarians are causing massive piracy of paywalled articles.

Let me quote:

And for all the researchers at Western universities who use Sci-Hub instead, the anonymous publisher lays the blame on librarians for not making their online systems easier to use and educating their researchers “I don’t think the issue is access—it’s the perception that access is difficult,” he says.

What an Anonymous Coward. If you’re going to piss all over the people who sign the checks that keep your business running, you should at least have the guts to sign your name and take some responsibility.

Are our systems difficult? Aren’t you publishers the ones that “break” the hyperlink ethos of the web by creating the paywalls in the first place? And aren’t you the ones who have a different interface created by each company that people have to learn?

Google and Google Scholars are the tools most scholars use to find papers and they bypass searching systems. What those researchers are finding hard to deal with is YOUR set of barriers and Tower of Babel systems across publishers. We’re trying to make it better, you’re trying to make it worse because that’s how you make your money.

As for educating our researchers — we do, or at least we try to. You try explaining to a young researcher how the one thing that doesn’t work like the rest of the web is finding journals. Proxy servers, VPNs, Interlibrary Loans systems, content aggregators, library discovery systems, one hack or barrier after another imposed by YOU.

No wonder they use Sci-Hub, which does work like the rest of the web.

And let’s talk about, “it’s the perception that access is difficult.” No, the perception isn’t that access is difficult, it’s the reality that the friction your exploitative business model imposes on the scientific enterprise is what makes access more difficult than it should be.

Do librarians share some of the blame for the mess that is scholarly communications? Of course we do. All the stakeholder groups share some of the blame. But targeting librarians, easily the least powerful stakeholder group, as the main cause of piracy is the pinnacle of hubris and a classic blame-deflection strategy.

“Look, it’s the fault of the people least able to defend themselves or actually effect change!”

Bullshit.

Dear Anonymous Coward, please reveal yourself so we can discuss when academia put librarians in charge.

By the way, my more complete thoughts on Sci-Hub and a list of links here: The Sci-Hub story so far: Main event or sideshow?

Unhinged rant ended.

I would like to re-iterate that my beef here isn’t so much with the set of articles in Science as a whole, but rather with the Anonymous Publisher themselves. While the Anonymous Publisher is perhaps not representative of anything or anyone other than themselves, the spirit of their remarks has certainly struck a chord with librarians and scholars and seems to be at least somewhat indicative of how librarians see their relationships with publishers.

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/24asL0r

And by blame, I mean “blame.”

Yesterday the flagship journal of the AAAS, Science, published a series of feature and editorial articles on Sci-Hub, the unauthorized article sharing site.

Overall, the articles are pretty good descriptions of the Sci-Hub phenomenon and relatively even-handed, especially coming from one of the big society publishers like AAAS.

There was one bit in the main article, Who’s downloading pirated papers? Everyone, that really stuck in my craw. Basically, Sci-Hub — and all that article piracy — is librarians’ fault.

And for all the researchers at Western universities who use Sci-Hub instead, the anonymous publisher lays the blame on librarians for not making their online systems easier to use and educating their researchers. “I don’t think the issue is access—it’s the perception that access is difficult,” he says.

Fortunately it was countered, in the true “give both sides of the story” style of mainstream journalism, by another quote, this time from a librarian.

“I don’t agree,” says Ivy Anderson, the director of collections for the California Digital Library in Oakland, which provides journal access to the 240,000 researchers of the University of California system. The authentication systems that university researchers must use to read subscription journals from off campus, and even sometimes on campus with personal computers, “are there to enforce publisher restrictions,” she says.

So, here it is, cleaned up a bit for readability.

Twitter rant on Sci-Hub article “Who’s downloading pirated papers? Everyone” in recent @sciencemagazine initiating in 3…2…1…

Do you want to know who’s my Worst Person in the World right now? (OK, not really worst person in the world, that would be Donald Trump, but schol comm/libraries microcosm worst person)?

It’s the Anonymous Publisher quoted in this Science article by John Bohannon: Who’s downloading pirated papers? Everyone.

The problem? They basically blame the Sci-Hub debacle (or at least debacle from the publishers’ perspective) on librarians. Yes, librarians are causing massive piracy of paywalled articles.

Let me quote:

And for all the researchers at Western universities who use Sci-Hub instead, the anonymous publisher lays the blame on librarians for not making their online systems easier to use and educating their researchers “I don’t think the issue is access—it’s the perception that access is difficult,” he says.

What an Anonymous Coward. If you’re going to piss all over the people who sign the checks that keep your business running, you should at least have the guts to sign your name and take some responsibility.

Are our systems difficult? Aren’t you publishers the ones that “break” the hyperlink ethos of the web by creating the paywalls in the first place? And aren’t you the ones who have a different interface created by each company that people have to learn?

Google and Google Scholars are the tools most scholars use to find papers and they bypass searching systems. What those researchers are finding hard to deal with is YOUR set of barriers and Tower of Babel systems across publishers. We’re trying to make it better, you’re trying to make it worse because that’s how you make your money.

As for educating our researchers — we do, or at least we try to. You try explaining to a young researcher how the one thing that doesn’t work like the rest of the web is finding journals. Proxy servers, VPNs, Interlibrary Loans systems, content aggregators, library discovery systems, one hack or barrier after another imposed by YOU.

No wonder they use Sci-Hub, which does work like the rest of the web.

And let’s talk about, “it’s the perception that access is difficult.” No, the perception isn’t that access is difficult, it’s the reality that the friction your exploitative business model imposes on the scientific enterprise is what makes access more difficult than it should be.

Do librarians share some of the blame for the mess that is scholarly communications? Of course we do. All the stakeholder groups share some of the blame. But targeting librarians, easily the least powerful stakeholder group, as the main cause of piracy is the pinnacle of hubris and a classic blame-deflection strategy.

“Look, it’s the fault of the people least able to defend themselves or actually effect change!”

Bullshit.

Dear Anonymous Coward, please reveal yourself so we can discuss when academia put librarians in charge.

By the way, my more complete thoughts on Sci-Hub and a list of links here: The Sci-Hub story so far: Main event or sideshow?

Unhinged rant ended.

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/24asL0r

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2016 SkS Weekly News Roundup #18

Late April sun pillar

News digest – e-cigarettes, Chernobyl, ‘moonshots’ and… canned food?

Number of the week

30

And finally

Number of the week

30

And finally

Shareholders push DuPont on worker safety, not $130 billion merger [The Pump Handle]

Should Teens Be Allowed to Buy E-Cigarettes?

This Week in EPA Science

Who’s to blame for Sci-Hub? Librarians, of course! [Confessions of a Science Librarian]

adds 2