What's New? -- by Bob Park

[Dardedar]

WHAT’S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 16 Jul 2010 Washington, DC

1. POPULATION: RE-EMERGENCE OF THE POPULATION ISSUE IN THE UK.
The world slept through two decades as if forbidden to utter the
word "population." No American politician would dare speak the dangerous
word even now. It’s being voiced once again in the UK, however, not only
by such high-profile intellectuals as Sir David Attenborough, but also by
Fred Pearce, a prominent science writer, who tells us, presumably with a
straight face, that "the problem is not population but consumption."
Dominic Lawson, also with a straight face, writes in the Independent
that, "Affluence is the answer." The rich, he notes, have fewer offspring;
all we have to do is make everybody rich. Between Pearce and Lawson, a
bunch off basic conservation laws must get mangled. Not a moment too soon,
the UK's Royal Society is launching a comprehensive review of the evidence,
led by Sir John Sulston, who was awarded the 2002 Nobel Prize in Physiology
for his contributions to the Human Genome Project. Just the person.

2. WARMING: IT’S HOTTER THAN THE ARM PIT OF FAHRENHEIT’S MISSUS.
Only the US and Belize still use this archaic Fahrenheit temperature scale,
but Washington, DC just hit 100 F (about 38 C). Not to worry. I have an
ad torn from Parade magazine. Parade has the highest circulation of any
print news. The ad, configured to look like a news story, is about
a "miracle air cooler." It's on wheels and you can roll it around anyplace
you want cool air. If you buy one quick you might get another one free.
But heck, they're "a real steal at just $298 and shipping." So if it
doesn't have to be in a window, where does the heat go? They come equipped
with two reusable ice blocks. Just fill ‘em up and plug ‘em in. This is
what we did back in the 30s. On unbearably hot days you put a block of ice
in front of a table fan. Taking into account the energy required to make
ice, it's much less efficient than your air conditioner.

3. NASA: SENATE AUTHORIZATION CANCELS THE RETURN TO THE MOON.
The Senate Committee on Commerce Science and Transportation yesterday
agreed unanimously on a blueprint for NASA that is devoid of any new
science. The bill does get rid of the pathetic return-to-the-moon program,
but it is otherwise just a plan to avoid adding to unemployment in the
space industry. It calls for development of a spacecraft capable of
carrying a crew beyond low Earth orbit, but there's no place to go

4. NUCLEAR WEAPONS: WHAT SHOULD WE DO WITH THE STOCKPILE?
Under the Obama administration's 20-year plan the US nuclear arsenal would
reduce the 5000 deployed and stored warheads by about 40%. The US has no
conceivable need for the remaining 3000 nuclear warheads. Additional cuts
however would be too expensive. As Lisbeth Gronlund of the Union of
Concerned Scientists is quoted in today's Washington Post, "nuclear weapons
are now a liability not an asset." We can't get rid of them fast enough.

5. CELL PHONES: PROXIMITY TO TOWERS DOESN’T RAISE CANCER RISK.
Of course it doesn't, for the same reason that the phones don't cause
cancer: the frequency of microwave radiation is far, far below the
photoelectron threshold.

THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND.
Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the
University of Maryland, but they should be.
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[Dardedar]

WHAT’S NEW Robert L Park Friday, 10 Sep 2010 Washington, DC

1. EMBRIONIC STEM CELLS: APPEALS COURT STAYS BAN ON RESEARCH.
A three-judge appeals panel lifted an August 23 injunction banning the use
of federal funds for research involving embryonic stem cells. The stay
could be short-lived; opponents of the use of embryonic stem cells have
only until September 14 to file a response and the government must submit
its response by September 20. The Alliance Defense Fund, which filed the
original lawsuit, is a conservative Christian organization launched in 1994
by Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, and James Dobson,
founder of Focus on the Family. The problem, however, was the United States
Congress which passed the Dickey-Wicker Amendment prohibiting the use of
federal tax money for research involving the destruction of human embryos.
The pressure should be on Congress to amend the law.

2. FREE SPEECH: TESTING OUR COMMITMENT TO THE FIRST AMENDMENT.
Saturday was supposed to be International Burn a Koran Day, decreed by
Baptist minister Terry Jones in Gainesville, Florida, the instigator of
this thing, whatever it is. The last thing I saw on the news this morning
was protestors in Jalalabad, or someplace, pushing signs printed in English
in front of the cameras. The signs vowed revenge, but it wasn't a threat to
burn Bibles in revenge, which would be harmless, but to kill Americans and
Jews. Back in the US, the befuddled pastor seemed to be speaking in
tongues. I don't think he will light the match, but why shouldn't he as
long as he pays for the books and doesn't violate any municipal burning
ordinance? The First Amendment is on his side, but nothing will ever get
resolved because neither side has any evidence. Science works, because we
have evidence to argue about.

3. L’AVION RENEFLEUR: SCANNING FOR OILFIELDS FROM THE AIR.
The Engineer, www.theengineeer.co.uk , had a story in the 20 August 2010
issue about a technology to scan for oil from the air. Using a technique
called atomic dielectric resonance (ADR) Scotish scientists will detect and
measure offshore oilfields using radio and microwaves. They have proven the
technology works at depths of up to 4 kilometers and now hope to adapt it
to search for offshore deposits, a remarkable development. It might be
noted, however, that in 1976 the government of France conducted trials of a
secret device that purportedly used the echo from a newly discovered
particle to map mineral deposits from the air. Over the next three years
France invested some $200 million in the idea, a lot of money at the time,
but no government official had yet had a look at the device. A prominent
nuclear physicist, Jules Horowitz was appointed to investigate, and devised
a simple test that revealed it to be a fraud. Government secrecy had
permitted the deception to go unchallenged for three years. Now that it was
exposed as a fraud, the French government made the appropriate change –
secrecy was tightened still further to avoid embarrassment.

[Dardedar]

WHAT’S NEW Robert L Park Friday, 15 Oct 2010 Washington, DC

1. INCONTROVERTIBLE: APS FELLOW HAL LEWIS RESIGNS MEMBERSHIP.
Hal Lewis, a Fellow of the APS, has resigned his APS membership of 67
years. News stories described his resignation as a protest of the official
APS position on global-warming; but that's not quite what his resignation
letter says. He begins by recounting how things were before the serpent
persuaded physicists to taste the fruit of the money tree. An oversight
committee of "towering physicists beyond reproach" assured the independence
of the study panel. The second paragraph is Hal’s actual resignation:

"How different it is now," he writes. "The giants no longer walk the
earth. The money flood has become the raison d’etre of much physics
research, the vital sustenance of much more, and it provides the support
for untold numbers of professional jobs. For reasons that will soon become
clear my former pride at being an APS Fellow all these years has been
turned into shame and I am forced with no pleasure at all, to offer you my
resignation from the Society."

Hal couldn’t resist pissing on the APS Global Warming Statement, which he
thinks is a scam. The APS statement uses the word "incontrovertible" to
describe the evidence for or against global warming. “Incontrovertible”
should be unacceptable to physicists. What sets physics apart from other
ways of knowing is openness to revision if better information becomes
available. Openness to new knowledge is the most important concept science
can offer the world.

2. DISCONNECT: COULD IT HAVE BEEN WRITTEN BY PAUL BRODEUR?
Several readers of this column urged me to read "Disconnect: the truth
about cell phone radiation, what the industry has done to hide it, and how
to protect your family” by Devra Davis. The author’s name was not familiar
to me, but I picked up a copy on my way to the campus health center for my
annual flu shot. I opened it in the waiting room. At the top of page 1
was a quote from the Talmud that appealed to me: "Who can protest and does
not, is an accomplice in the act." I hereby protest this book. By the time
my name was called. I had reached page 21. The author was explaining that
the background level of microwave radiation to which we are all exposed is
billions of times greater than the natural background level. Should we be
worried? She doesn't say. But I recalled another book that started with
the same statistics. Paul Brodeur, The Zapping of America: Microwaves,
their deadly risk, and the cover-up (Norton, 1977). Devra Davis has given
us a rewrite of a 33-year-old book. It was wrong then too. I explained why
in my 2001 editorial in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Robert L Park, JNCI, Volume 93, Issue 3, Pp. 166-167.

3.ASTROLOGY: MAKING MEDICINE FIT THE STARS--WHO KNEW?
An article by Eric Bellman in the Wall Street Journal last week may mark
the birth of a new era of cooperation between modern medical science and
the ancient wisdom of the East. Expectant mothers in India consult their
astrologer to find the most auspicious day and time to enter the world, and
schedule a C-section with their obstetrician for delivery at that moment.
This is a breakthrough but why stop there? Why not learn the most
auspicious time for conception? Perhaps there should be a staff astrologer
in every IVF clinic.

[Dardedar]

WHAT’S NEW Robert L. Par no k Friday, 24 Dec 2010 Washington, DC

1. JANE LUBCHENCO: NATURE MAGAZINE’S "NEWSMAKER OF THE YEAR".
An editorial in Nature yesterday, "Calm in a Storm," named NOAA
Administrator Jane Lubchenco, "Newsmaker of the Year." Lubchenco’s frank
and informed interviews in the media on the Deepwater Horizon oil spill
drew attention to the need for scientists to speak out on issues that
matter. But it’s not for the timid; she was criticized for the way her
agency initially downplayed evidence of oil spreading below the surface.
Ironically, What’s New was criticized for warning about below-the-surface
spread before it was observed
http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN10/wn052810.html.

2. INTEGRITY: WHITE HOUSE GUIDELINES ON SCIENTIFIC TRANSPARENCY.
In March 2009, newly-elected President Obama issued a memorandum on
scientific integrity forbidding the distortion of science for political
ends. The move seemed to signal a clear departure from the administration
of President George W. Bush, which muzzled government scientists whose
views departed from those of the White House. Last week, John Holdren,
director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, issued
a four-page guideline prohibiting political interference and assuring
transparency. That's all that was needed, but it didn't seem to please
anyone. Some thought it was too short, but more likely it was too long;
the First Amendment to the Constitution after all is a single sentence.
Transparency is good, but if the transparent medium is too thick the
picture tends to be distorted by refraction.

3. EMISSIONS: EPA SEIZES GREENHOUSE GAS PERMIT POWER FROM TEXAS.
The Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday that it will seize
authority from Texas to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants
and refineries because Gov. Rick Perry and state regulators refuse to
implement the rules. Governor Perry said a number of states would side
with Texas on the issue, but with only two weeks left before the new law
takes effect Texas is the only state refusing to enforce it. Texas has a
long history of imagining itself to be above federal law, and an equally
long history of losing in court.

4. DYSPROSIUM WAR: U.S. WILL BREAK CHINA’S RARE-EARTH MONOPOLY.
This is not good news. The 15 lanthanide-series metals, plus scandium and
yttrium are not at all rare in the Earth's crust, but they’re widely
dispersed and difficult to separate. The magnetic properties of dysprosium
in particular make it important to the iphone and to hybrid and electric
automobiles http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN10/wn092410.html . China
gained its monopoly of rare-earth metals by cutting prices at the cost of
environmental degradation. It's a time-honored path for modernization of an
economy, but with its new wealth, China now seeks to improve the
environment. That's not easy to do in the rare-earth market; the dust from
mining operations is mildly radioactive due to thorium and uranium minerals
and the separation process uses enormous amounts of toxic acids. The chief
US producer was Molycorp which now plans to reopen to its notorious mine in
Mountain Pass, CA, closed in part because of environmental degradation.
The company promises to employ a cleaner technology, but mining it is an
inherently dirty business.

[kwlyon]

" Texas has a long history of imagining itself to be above federal law, and an equally
long history of losing in court."

...You know Texas is the only state in the union which may legally secede. I was taught this in high school....I shit you not.

[Doug]

...You know Texas is the only state in the union which may legally secede. I was taught this in high school....I shit you not.

DOUG
They shat you. Texas cannot legally secede, despite how much they might want to. What they reserved the right to do in their constitution is separate into smaller states, stated as being able to "alter" their Texas method of governing.

I went through the Texas public schools, and they give out a lot of misinformation, for sure.

[kwlyon]

Texas cannot legally secede, despite how much they might want to.

... despite how much everyone might want them to:)

[Dardedar]

WHAT’S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 7 Jan 2011 Washington, DC

1. AUTISM: THERE IS NO VACCINATION AGAINST FRAUD.
In 1998, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, a British gastroenterologist and researcher,
set off a worldwide panic with a Lancet article in which he identified the
common MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccinations as a cause of autism.
There was a precipitous drop in the number of parents electing to vaccinate
their children, and a corresponding rise in measles cases. Once considered
inevitable, measles is a serious disease. In 2009, however, Wakefield was
found to have altered patient’s records to support his claim. The Lancet
immediately retracted his 1998 publication. The British General Medical
Council ruled that Wakefield had acted "dishonestly and irresponsibly."
Investigative reporter Brian Deer has tracked Wakefield for years, turning
up new "contributions" to support his "work." Lawyers, smelling a
possible "mass tort blitz” that could make them very wealthy, were
particularly generous. Class-action lawsuits in asbestos and tobacco,
while justified, eventually benefited the lawyers far more than the
victims. Wakefield was struck off the Medical Register and may no longer
practice medicine in the UK. No matter, Wakefield now operates an autism
clinic in Austin, Texas. Although he doesn't have a medical license in the
US, that won't much matter in Texas.

2. VACCINATION: PUBLIC HEALTH MAY NEVER FULLY RECOVER.
An editorial in the British Medical Journal expressed the hope that the
latest news will put an end to the anti-vaccine movement. We should be so
lucky. Paul Offit, an infectious disease expert who wrote Autism's False
Prophets, and donated all royalties to autism research, is not optimistic.
Wakefield is clearly seeking to portray himself as a martyr, and even has
his own celebrity activist pleading his case to the public on programs such
as Oprah, former Playboy model Jenny McCarthy who has an autistic child.
The scientific community must learn to speak up publicly on issues of
integrity.acomplishment

3. ESP: THIS IS ABOUT THE LAST THING SCIENCE NEEDED.
Four years ago when the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research lab (PEAR)
closed its doors after 28 years, scientists saw the closing as a sign of
progress. The public had lost interest in the make-believe science of ESP.
Not a single accomplishment marks the existence of the world's most famous
ESP laboratory. ESP today exists only in second-rate science fiction.
That's where it belongs. However, according to an article by Benedict Carey
on the front page of yesterday's New York Times, a respected psychology
journal plans to publish a paper described by the author as "strong
evidence for extrasensory perception." How strong? Extraordinary claims,
it is often said, require extraordinary evidence. Any evidence of ESP
would qualify as extraordinary today. I have not yet seen the paper, but I
have gone through the exercise of trying to imagine evidence for ESP I
would find persuasive. I couldn't even come close.

[Dardedar]

WHAT’S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 10 Jun 2011 Washington, DC

1. ET TU TARA? "PIERCING THE FOG AROUND CELLPHONES AND CANCER."
The WELL blog by Tara Parker-Pope was the top story in Tuesday’s NYT Health
Section. Her story is not wrong, but it’s told in the wrong context.
Science is a search for cause and effect, not an epidemiologic majority.
To settle the question, WHO invited 31 experts to spend a week in Lyon, the
culinary capital of France, strategically located between the two best wine
regions. Meanwhile, much had been made of a study showing that the brain
is "activated" by microwave radiation. Of course, it is. The effect of
microwaves on the human brain, as on cold pizza, is to cause chemical bonds
to vibrate, which we sense as heat. Unlike cold pizza, however, the human
brain resists being heated. Deep within the brain, the hypothalamus, the
thing below the thalamus, senses any increase in blood temperature. It
calls on blood vessels in the heated area to expand, and increases the
heart rate. The fresh blood is a coolant, but incidentally, also increases
the rate of metabolism. "Microwaves have activated the brain," the human
observers shouted. The shout was heard in Lyon. Amidst the clinking of
glasses, the vote of the expert panel tipped from "no effect" to "possibly
carcinogenic to humans." What could it matter? No one is going to stop
using cell phones anyway. Does anyone care? One enormously powerful group
cares, the tort industry.

2. WHAT NEXT? SHOULD WN DROP THE CELL PHONE/CANCER ISSUE?
Since 1993, http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN93/wn012993.html , WN has
criticized media coverage of cell-phones and cancer in 76 weekly issues.
The media was also criticised in the Journal of the National Cancer
Institute http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/93/3/166.full . Mine is a
small voice. Tara Parker- Pope would find the number of subscribers to WN
amusing, but I kept expecting someone in the media to realize that 5
billion is a very large number. Does it matter that people take unneeded
precautions? No, what matters is that they don't understand why it doesn't
matter. If one jury in Cupcake, SD awards monetary damages based
on "possibly carcinogenic to humans," there will be a stampede of tort
lawyers pushing class-action lawsuits.

3. NUCLEAR POWER: JAPAN UNDERSTATED RADIATION LEVELS.
Radioactive emissions from the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power
plant in the early days following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami
disaster were understated by more than a factor of two. This come as
Chancellor Angela Merkel announces plans for Germany to exit nuclear power
by 2022. This comes even as world efforts to control global warming show no
progress. Hope of revitalizing nuclear power in the US is dead.

4. PERIODIC TABLE: ELEMENTS 114 AND 116 HAVE BEEN ADDED.
Yet unnamed, the two elements were first formed in 2004 and 2006 as a
result of a collaboration begun in 1990 by Russian and US scientists at the
joint Institute for nuclear research in Dubna, near Moscow. The two
elements decayed after a few milliseconds. The search continues for
possible stable elements.

THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND.
Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the
University of Maryland, but they should be.

[Dardedar]

WHAT'S NEW Robert L Park Friday, 22 Sep 11 Washington, DC

1.VACCINE: THERE IS NO INOCULATION AGAINST IGNORANCE.
Here we go again. Last week during a debate of Republican presidential
candidates, Representative Michele Bachmann characterized human papilloma
virus (HPV) vaccine as "a potentially dangerous drug," and linked its
effect to "mental retardation." There is no medical support for her wildly
irresponsible remarks; the HPV vaccine prevents cervical cancer, and an
editorial in Nature calls on Bachmann to retract her words, but I don't
think she reads Nature. The 1998 claim of British researcher Andrew
Wakefield that the common MMR vaccine causes autism set off a revival of
the anti-vaccination movement, and a corresponding rise in measles cases.
In 2009, however, Wakefield was found to have altered patient’s records to
support his claim http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN11/wn010711.html .
Barred from the practice medicine in the UK, Wakefield now operates an
autism clinic in Austin, Texas. He doesn't have a US medical license, but
such formalities don't much matter in Texas. Rick Perry, the Governor of
Texas, differs with Bachmann on HPV, having attempted to mandate the use of
the HPV vaccine for 11 and 12-year-old schoolgirls as the Center for
Disease Control recommends, which may have something to do with the fact
that Merck, the only maker of HPV vaccine, is a major contributor to
Perry's campaign.

2. WIRELESS: WHERE SHOULD I PUT MY CELL PHONE, DOCTOR?
The hot new place for young women to tuck their cell phones is inside their
bra. They set the ring on "vibrate," creating an erogenous tingle when a
call comes in. Devra Davis, author of "Disconnect," a book about the
alleged dangers of cell-phone radiation, worries that the women are being
set up for breast cancer. Microwave radiation, Davis says, "seeps directly
into the soft fatty tissue of the breast." What does it do there? As
Albert Einstein explained in 1905, the photon energy is given by the
frequency times Planck's constant. That's plenty of energy to excite
molecular vibrations, which heats tissue, but it's only one millionth of
the ionization threshold energy, so radiation is not a cancer threat.
Meanwhile in Washington, DC, a Wireless Safety Summit in a couple of weeks
will focus on legislation to block smart meters, which is a totally dumb
idea.

3. EINSTEIN: EARLY ARRIVAL OF CERN NEUTRINOS CAUSES CONFUSION.
It was a page-one science story in major papers around the world: neutrinos
beamedd from Geneva were detected 454 miles away in Italy in less time than
light would take to make the same trip. Everyone was excited, except the
physicists. Interviewed by the Washington Post, Drew Baden, chair of the
U. Maryland Physics Department, called the result, "a flying carpet," not
to be taken very seriously without strong independent confirmation, and
maybe not then. The goal of physics is to identify natural laws that
govern the universe. Einstein's 1905 explanation of the photoelectric
effect, for example, casts strong (overwhelming?) doubt on epidemiological
evidence that purports to show that cell phone radiation is linked to
cancer.

THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND.
Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the
University of Maryland, but they should be.

[kwlyon]

Two comments on cell phone radiation:

1) Yes, the radiation is far below the ionization threshold. It is reasonable to assume the only danger posed by such radiation (when intensities are not ridiculously high allowing for multi-photon absorption events at which point you are cookin' anyways) is thermal. You are quite transparent to this particular wavelength range. Thus most of the radiation that may be directed towards you passes right through you with little to no interaction. This means that a) VERY LITTLE energy is absorbed by your body and b) that VERY SMALL amount of energy is spread out uniformly over a VERY LARGE volume of tissue thus any corrosponding heating is absurdly insignificant.

2) Despite the above, science should be experimental at its heart. It is possible there is some mechanism by which these devices could cause harm (perhaps some unknown resonance effect?) However before you can attempt to iron out the details of a mechanism by which harm might be done one must first determine if there is a mechanism at all. The most logical place to start is to determine if there is a correlation (even if not necessarily causal) between cell phone usage and any form of cancer. Very comprehensive epidemiological studies have been conducted and NO STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT LINK has been found between cell phone usage and any form of cancer. Anyone who tells you otherwise is likely lying...but ask them for a source anyways as it will likely prove amusing.

Kevin