Senator Orrin Hatch recently said, “I grew up in a shack with a Meadow Gold Dairy sign for a wall. I worked as a janitor to pay for law school. I believe in opportunity because I’ve lived it. And that’s what we’re going to deliver with #TaxReform.” https://twitter.com/orrinhatch/status/931387205578317827 He is […]
Politics
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The most definitive way to diagnose Alzheimer’s Disease, a severely degenerative disease of the brain, is an autopsy. Of course, the symptoms show up earlier – memory loss, personality changes, physical changes, and differing degrees of diagnosis are achievable with cognitive tests and scans of the brain. But distinguishing Alzheimer’s […]
This week Jodi and I left for Washington D.C. on Monday for an event at the Canadian Embassy on Tuesday night. She had been invited to attend an evening celebrating science in Canada, especially Nobel Prize-winner Art McDonald and projects at SNOLAB, that nation’s premiere underground science facility. In addition, […]
Given how much the past few months have been largely about “eating the seed” corn by threatening to pillage the nation’s scientific capabilities, this week was comparably more uplifted. Having reached a tipping point with the rhetoric of the current president, scientists and science advocacy organizations started planning a “March […]
Signs and portents abound in rhetoric from the current executive branch of the United States. Science, the only known way of establishing reliable information about the natural world, should be essential as a part of policy decision making. I try to highlight places where science and science-related agencies in the […]
The US President still has selected no science adviser, leaving scientific information assessment and scientific findings absent from policy making in the White House. The blindness and deafness to scientists and scientific assessment has re-emboldened science denialism in the U.S., evidenced by recent events. Scientific information relating to climate, energy, […]
The assault by the Executive Branch of the US government continues on basic scientific research and sound policy based on science. Here is a reading list covering some key issues from the last couple of weeks: Perspective: “In Trump’s budget: The unwisest cut“, by NYU President Andrew Hamilton. (Washington Post) […]
I spent a number of years in the early 2000s participating in yearly science advocacy efforts on Capitol Hill. As part of a team of high-energy physicists who would visit the Hill for two days, walking from building to building to meet with Members of Congress, I learned a few […]
Part 1 – What he said CNBC’s program “Squawk Box” recently interviewed the new EPA chief, Scott Pruitt. In an exchange about the shape of the earth, Pruitt said this: I think that measuring with precision the shape of the earth is something very challenging to do and there’s tremendous […]
The Environmental Protection Agency is home to a large number of scientists who have tried to contribute to the understanding of many issues affecting Americans: the health and safety of water sources and supplies, the contamination of air and its effects on our quality of life, and the changing of […]
On Tuesday, February 28, President Donald Trump gave his first address to a bicameral meeting of Congress. While not a “State of the Union” address – a President in office only 5 weeks is in no shape to discuss the state of the union over which they preside – this […]
There is a question that hangs on the lips of scientists in America right now. If science is under threat, what is the best way to act? There is no simple answer to this. Indeed, this is a deeply personal question for each scientist, one that can only be answered […]