Posts

May 22, 2013

+

5:00 PM | 40 Years of Success Protecting Backyard and Endangered Species

2013 is the 40th anniversary of two important moments in wildlife conservation history. In 1973, Congress enacted and President Nixon sign into law the Endangered Species Act. The ESA has become the U.S.A.’s most important wildlife conservation law, helping rescue … Continue reading →

+

4:19 PM | Could sugar dumping push ethanol production up?

Pulling out an interesting little option from the 2008 Farm bill, the USDA is considering re-directing US produced sugar to ethanol production to drive up sugar prices. From what I understand, the US sugar industry is completely supported by farm … Continue reading →

May 21, 2013

+

3:43 PM | Rotterdam Convention members agree prior consent required for azinphos-menthyl trade

Contributed by Melanie Bateman, CABI Switzerland It is estimated that 2 million chemical preparations are for sale around the world[1]. Many of these chemicals have hazards associated with them. An estimated 200,000 people die each year of pesticide poisoning[2]. And yet, it is very difficult for any one country acting on its own to track all of […]

+

1:00 PM | Science, Racism and Political Correctness

Two weeks ago, the Heritage Foundation (a conservative think-tank) released a position paper based largely on the academic research of one Jason Richwine. The conclusion (roughly paraphrased): Hispanic people have lower IQ’s than white people, so an overly permissive immigration policy will drag down the US economy. Ethically, this conclusion is a deep affront to…

+

12:03 PM | Want to keep women in science? Pay postdocs more.

By Jennifer Bussell The message is loud, clear, and has reached cultural saturation: women are underrepresented at the top of highly-competitive professions because they cannot reconcile the amount of time needed for such careers with the time they want to spend raising children. Just acknowledging this point has been a recent watershed moment for feminism, [...]

May 20, 2013

+

2:33 PM | Whatcom's Rural Element III

Back in January the Growth Management Hearings Board ruled parts of Whatcom County's Rural Element Plan were invalid. The board also found other parts were just fine digesting-rural-element-ii-local-wonky. This ruling was a follow up after a previous ruling against the County Rural Plan digesting-lamirds-wonky-long-and-local. Since the January ruling, the County has been working on some fixes and has appealed one of the issues in question to Superior Court. The issues […]

May 19, 2013

+

4:22 PM | Whatcom County Mental Health - A Back Story

Anne Deacon provides an overview of mental health services in Whatcom County in the Bellingham Herald (Whatcom County Mental Health). Federal support, and certainly in recent years state support, for mental illness has slipped. Talk to the folks that run our jails and what you'll hear is that the largest mental health facilities are the jails. The back up plan for dealing with the mentally ill has become the local county jail. The jail costs are just one cost aspect of not dealing […]

+

3:14 PM | Alberta’s cattle industry sort of recovers a decade after mad cow outbreak

On March 20, 1996, British Health Secretary Stephen Dorrell rose in the House to inform colleagues that scientists had discovered a new variant of Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease (CJD) in 10 victims, and that they could not rule out a link with … Continue reading →

+

7:45 AM | Weekly Science Picks

Greetings one and all, and a very happy science Sunday to you! This week’s generally been quite interesting. We’ve had good news, bad news, a little heated discussion… All the kind of things which keep the science community vibrant and [...]testThe post Weekly Science Picks appeared first on Australian Science.

May 18, 2013

+

6:51 PM | EU to ban olive oil jugs from restaurants under guise of hygiene

The European Union is to ban olive oil jugs and dipping bowls from restaurant tables in a move described by one of Britain’s top cooks as authoritarian and damaging to artisanal food makers. The small glass jugs filled with green … Continue reading →

+

6:22 PM | More E. coli testing, labels for tenderized beef, but questions remain in Canadian food safety plans

Canada is strengthening its E. coli testing in summer months and will mandate labeling of mechanically or needle tenderized beef, but some omissions are notable. • The changes only apply to meat produced at federal plants inspected by the Canadian … Continue reading →

May 16, 2013

+

12:15 AM | Plant Science Already Feeling Sequester’s Pain

The sweeping cuts in federal spending known as the sequester are already taking a toll on scientific research. Jennifer Fletcher, a professor at the University of California, Berkley stationed at the USDA-funded Plant Gene Expression Center, faces the sudden challenge of slashing direct research costs by 40%. “I’m paying part of a research associate’s salary… and already as a result of the cuts we’ve had to eliminate that position.” Now Fletcher has less money to spend on supplies […]

May 15, 2013

+

4:51 PM | From What We Know to What We Do: Now is the Time for Governments to Fix a Failing System for Drug Development

Kristine Husøy Onarheim and Johanne Helene Iversen from Universities Allied for Essential Medicines write about the broken system for drug development, and how governments are given an opportunity to address it. The member states of the World Health Organization (WHO) …

+

12:37 PM | “There are immediate wins” – protecting science spending in austere times

These are difficult times for the economy. Next month, the Government is set to announce the results of its recent Spending Review, looking at how much it is going to spend on each area of the UK’s economy. Yesterday, at … Continue reading →

+

9:02 AM | Arctic Nations Debate Future

A meeting of Arctic nations is attracting international attention. But how will countries respond to changes in the region? Continue reading →

May 14, 2013

+

5:37 PM | Union of Concerned Scientists Failing on Farming

Ok, this is a little different, but it’s annoying, so I’m going to talk about it. Let me begin by saying I love the Union of Concerned Scientists. They’ve been wonderful advocates on climate change for decades; they are media savvy, they train scientists to be media savvy, and they push the media and policy makers alike to…

May 12, 2013

+

5:42 PM | Good Conservation Policies Can Push Markets Towards Conservation

A lot of debate among conservationists centers on the conflict between the desire to see a species totally protected from human exploitation and the reality that market forces will continue to exist (see the latest on shark fin bans for a very good example). Ideally, a conservation plan should strike a balance, ensuring the continued [...]

May 09, 2013

+

3:21 PM | Washington Vs. Oregon and BLM Lands

Washington and Oregon are very strongly linked historically as both were once part of the Oregon Country and later the Oregon Territory. We share a number of other characteristics: the Pacific Ocean on our coast, the Cascade Range dividing the states into a dry east half and a wet west half, a western low land with population centers, cloudy wet winters on the west side and icy cold winters on the east. But there are some big differences. Eastern Oregon, with the exception […]

+

8:30 AM | A sad day for public health – standard packs and the path ahead

The 2010 film The King’s Speech was a national triumph. So at Cancer Research UK we’re dismayed to have to report that we’re not exactly rolling out the red carpet for yesterday’s Queen’s Speech. In fact, quite the opposite. The Queen’s … Continue reading →

+

8:00 AM | Science is a winner for Britain – cutting it would be folly

The US, Germany and China are increasing research spending. We would be foolish to do the opposite, writes Venki Ramakrishnan. Fourteen years ago, my wife and I took a decision to move from USA to Britain. I took a 40 per cent pay cut, and we left children and close family behind. We were willing [...]

May 08, 2013

+

1:34 PM | A Queen’s Speech to speed up progress against cancer?

This morning the Queen opened the third session of the 2010-15 Parliament with a speech in the House of Lords. Her speech was written by the Government, and outlined its legislative agenda for the upcoming parliamentary session (which will last … Continue reading →

+

3:06 AM | Dumb rules: EU sets out post-horsemeat food standards

EU Health Commissioner, Tonio Borg said May 6, 2013, the European political environment needs to loosen its ties on the agri-food sector, if is to be competitive in the future, while simultaneously creating a farm-to-fork food safety revolution to curb … Continue reading →

May 06, 2013

+

11:22 PM | WHO: the global view of Campylobacteriosis

From July 9-11, 2012, the World Health Organization (WHO), in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), convened an Expert Consultation on The Global View of Campylobacteriosis, … Continue reading →

May 03, 2013

+

8:36 PM | From BAM to The BRAIN Initiative: A clearer view of a major neuroscience enterprise

By Gabrielle Rabinowitz In February, the media was abuzz in response to President Obama’s pledge to fund the creation of a Brain Activity Map (BAM). Reporters erroneously promised a comprehensive human brain map, complete with cures for neuropsychiatric disorders, while glossing over the fact that BAM was actually more about technology development using model organisms. [...]

May 02, 2013

+

4:47 PM | Government must put children’s health before tobacco’s profits

Next Wednesday, in a ceremony full of tradition and colour, the Queen marks the formal start of the parliamentary year. This will include a speech that sets out the government’s agenda for the coming session, outlining proposed policies and legislation. … Continue reading →

+

4:33 PM | Over a quarter of the people in the U.S. are just plain paranoid

This is very discouraging news. We can’t seem to move forward no matter what on this issue and a good portion of the population is beyond rational discussion. Attitudes Behind the Divide on Gun Control. Democrats and Republicans continue to be divided over the need for new gun control laws, and the most recent national survey of registered voters from Fairleigh Dickinson University’s PublicMind finds that attitudes regarding the perceived likelihood of an armed revolution to protect […]

+

12:29 PM | Turning the World Upside Down

Isobel Braithwaite shares her thoughts on the recent launch event of the Turning the World Upside Down online platform. A couple of weeks back, I attended the launch event of the new Turning the World Upside Down (TTWUD) website, …

May 01, 2013

+

3:36 PM | European Court is on the Wrong Side on Patient Safety

Síle Lane from Sense About Science discusses the recent European Court injunction on clinical trial data. The European General Court has issued an injunction to prevent the European medicines regulator from releasing information from clinical trials conducted by AbbVie and …

+

2:47 PM | LNG Reversal

Regardless of opinion one way or another the following link below is a bit mind bending when it comes to energy policy in the United States and Washington State. exxonmobilperspectives/opponents-of-lng-exports-miss-the-paradigm-shifthttp://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/e2-wire/297023-geopolitical-impact-of-natural-gas-exports-examined-in-upcoming-house-hearing-A few years ago I did some slope stability assessment work associated with a proposed liquid natural gas (LNG) port and associated […]

April 30, 2013

+

2:00 PM | Hydrofracking: Small But Many Footprints

I came across this bit of policy spin effort by ExxonMobil (disclosure - I have some stock in the company). This cartoon graphic showing how small the hydrofracturing footprint is compared to other energy foot prints natural-gas/surface-footprint. I have done some research on hydrofracturing in part for work and in part as a policy matter. A recent work project was a bit of loss leader - perhaps 20 hours of research to write a few paragraphs in a report regarding a […]