Save our Science. Again.

This sort of thing seems to come up with depressing monotony. The Institute of Physics has issued a plea to the Science and Technology Facilities Council not to introduce cuts until Professor Bill Wakeham review of Physics is reported to the government.

The STFC is short of 80 million. In comparison, the Northern Rock building society has had to have a loan of £26bn because - well, frankly they were too greedy and didn't worry if things went wrong because the government would have to bail them out.

Looking at the Hansard report on the discussion on Tuesday in the House of Commons on STFC funding, I find some interesting quotes:

The important point... is that the STFC has been telling Ministers about the problem since July

Although it looks as though the research councils have had a cash uplift, they are in fact spending not new money, but old money that was going towards research costs

As far as I am aware, every physics community in every university is affected by these cuts.

ROUS

Or Rodents of Unusual Size - in the film Princess Bride, the Dread Pirate Roberts declares his disbelief in their existence, only to be promptly attacked by one.

He'd have come off rather worse against a rodent of the most unusual size so far discovered by science - Josephoartigasia monesi tipped the scales at over 1000kg.

See also an summary article in the Grauniad

Three As and a Facebook account

Oh, shock horror. A Cambridge University admissions tutor has admitted to looking at prospective students facebook public accounts.

The University says it relies on "interview performance, academic record and personal statement, outlining their interests and reasons for studying a particular course."

But someone can be nervous at their interview, or overstate their interests in a personal statement. Or they could be very, very dull and do nothing but work (while I like to think of City boys as being very, very dull, nowadays they like to recruit people who get firsts while, say, captaining the rowing club).

Perhaps the tutor doesn't really want a bunch of dry, grey, faceless academic clones who can do nothing but work, because if you pick that you'd get a bunch of nervous breakdowns long before the finals. I suspect the tutor isn't using this as an excuse to deny people, but as a clue that someone should really be let in.

Flu vaccine?

The BBC reports that a drugs company has developed a vaccine against influenza A. That's all influenza A, not just this year's variant. Not a perfect vaccine, but protecting 90% is better than 0%.

In the Acambis press release here, they state that a pre-clinical study suggests that the vaccine provides 70% protection against the Vietnam 2004 strain of H5N1 avian influenza. Which is some 70% better than the control group.

Of course, even if it works it will be some years before this is readily available.

Dig, Lazarus, Dig

Not completely sure what this video of Nick Cave et al suggests - apart from that the new album is imminent.

More details on their website

All right if it's funny?

Would it be funny if Times journalist Matthew Parry was hit by a large 4x4 and dragged a hundred yards down the road, dying in the gutter? Or would him being the victim of a hit and run by a speeding GTi be a joy to witness?

No?

I didn't think so either. But he appears to have a different sense of humour.

Others who hate cyclists - like Jeremy Clarkson - are annoying, but I don't recall him ever suggesting a good way to maim them, just whinging about them in an occasionally entertaining fashion.

Shutdown for being sexist?

I'm still not sure about quotas - I suspect there is always the danger that the mandatory limited group will be perceived as token members, and their opinions and contributions ignored by an inner circle consisting of the group that used to be in the majority, but this article in the Guardian about Norway's laws has a quote that hits the nail on the head as to why quotas should be considered.

In Norway's case, they're mandatory - a law put in place several years ago requires companies to have 40% of the board directors to be women. A large number of companies appear to have just ignored that, putting them in rather an awkward position now that the Norwegian government is actually saying that they will apply the law they've been saying they'll apply.

Here's the quote:

""the fact that diversity is a value in itself, that it creates wealth... From my time in the business world, I saw how board members were picked: they come from the same small circle of people. They go hunting and fishing together. They're buddies."

Norway being Norway, that quote is from a 52 year old man in their Conservative party, Ansgar Gabrielsen.

But it really hits the nail on the head - if they are only selecting from a limited pool - those who will be the fishing buddies of the current limited pool - then you are restricting the quality of your boards. Given that Norway has had equal education for years, if the quality of the female candidates for board director isn't up to scratch, then that will be the fault of the companies themselves for not promoting them to positions to gain the experience needed. The Norwegian government had given them ample time to do so.

You published that *when*?

Oh my my, what sort of industry have I got myself into?

A letter in Nature this week notes the worrying trend of increasing paper publications on the 25th of December - while there are a number of countries that do not officially celebrate this day, of course, for many others it is a legal day off. In fact, I'm banned from trying to sneak in and do any lab work, even if I did want to.

Guess what I'm procrastinating over my blogging right now rather than getting on with? Yep, submitting a journal paper. This one got delayed as a referee wants - nay, virtually insists - on my including a reference that doesn't appear to be available outside of North America, and the journal complains about mechanical deficiencies (the margins are too small. Uh... guys? It's an electronic submission, in an extremely widely available format. That means you can reformat the damn thing yourself, surely? And wouldn't that be quicker than sending me an email telling me I have to do it? And if you're going to tell me I have to do it, couldn't you at least tell me what the damn unconventional margin sizes you want are?)

Almost like a whale?

Evolution is a weird thing. Particularly for those who still think there has to be some designer, for whom the random twists and turns of evolution can be utterly confusing. Why, for example, if you wanted to make a giant sea living creature, would you start with something on the land?

So the discovery of fossils like that of Indohyus, a fox-sized, deer-like mammal that lived 48 million years ago and spent a fair amount of time in the water, is the sort of thing that must do their heads in.

Links:
The BBC report, the Nature News summary and the original paper, snappily titled "Whales originated from aquatic artiodactyls in the Eocene epoch of India"

Advertisement for a Hollywood film

As with most Hollywood blockbusters these days, The Golden Compass (which I haven't seen yet) has a way to get bloggers to give them free advertising with little things to put on the blogs. In this case, it is a "choose your own daemon". I have shamelessly done this twice, as the first time I was somewhat disappointed to be paired with a mouse.

I'm obviously feeling more egotistical this time, as they've given me a monkey.

I bark, therefore I am

So, dogs are capable of using abstract concepts.

For those with journal access, the original paper in the journal Animal Cognition is here

Basically, the paper is reporting a test of visual categorisation, in that having trained the dogs to differentiate pictures of dogs and pictures of landscapes, the dogs then classed pictures of dogs on a landscape in the former category, not the latter.

Having grown up with two border collies, I'm not particularly surprised at this - those dogs always seemed pretty smart (well, the first one did, the second is rather weird)

*THIS* is how you evict someone from a university library

In the US, security staff at libraries are videoed repeatedly tasering a recalcitrant student.

This Youtube video of someone getting evicted from a university library in the UK shows there is still a huge difference - that this is one of the most viewed youtube footages according the university facebook account shows just how little scurrilous footage there is.
Security overstepping their authority? Nope.
Security overzealously enforcing their authority? Nope.
Security halfheartedly lugging some loon out of the library because he was bothering the students and refused to leave when asked politely? Check.
They don't even drop him - they gently lower him to the ground. Well, I suppose it was a little damp, this is in November after all.

The video is only remotely entertaining at the end, when you realise why the individual that the security staff have had to carry out through the doors with a distinct air of boredom was deservedly evicted. As they stand around, looking distinctly uninterested by the tedium of the whole affair, the evicted individual demonstrates that he appeared to believe that his right to free speech included ranting about 'Jaysus' to students who'd rather get on with their studying (although not having a library card means they were clearly legally entitled to ask him to leave).

Apart from making you realise what a thankless task security at a university have sometimes, the general indifference of the student body to this fundamentalist loon has to be applauded...

Evidently the board did get the message

One lesson from the Rugby World Cup was that the "minnows" aren't that little a bunch of fish. Fortunately, the International Rugby Board has realised that a) the only way to grow the game is to give the best of these "minnows" a chance to play in the Rugby World Cup, and b) they aren't "minnows" anyway.

Argentina will also now definitely be playing in the Southern Hemisphere (Quad Nations?) tournament, rather than an expanded Seven Nations.

I like this

Although I have no artistic ability whatsoever (what do you mean, you can tell from the banner image?), I rather admire as well as envy those who do. So the website Ffffound rather appeals to me - image bookmarking of cool pictures that people come across on the web.

My favourites are the classic pre-computer designs for conferences and sporting events - wish I could come up with something that stylish.

Probing crystals, one column of atoms at a time

One of the things that makes new science possible is having shiny new toys to play with - once a technique has been developed and made practical, all sorts of new information can be gained in a large number of areas.

In transmission electron microscopy, for example, rapid recent advances mean we're able to get more information from smaller regions of samples. A paper in this week's Nature by Kimoto et al, demonstrates electron energy loss spectroscopy from individual columns of atoms in a crystal. As a microscopist myself, I have to say - this is really, really cool.

They're at it again

Looking at the NY Times today, one of the cartoons made me snort with derision at the attitude of the cartoonist (not the first time I've thought that Glenn McCoy is an arse).

One day, certain Americans might finally get some humility and realise that it is no longer acceptable to refer to their President as "Leader of the Free World".

Bush barely got a majority of the ballots that were counted from the Americans who bothered to vote in only one of his two elections. If the "Free World" got to have a say who their leader would be, it certainly wouldn't have been Bush. If you believe in democracy, then you have to stop claiming to be the leader of the free world until such a vote exists.

Possibly the most gob-smacking example of government stupidity I've seen all week

Just when you think that the UK government is breaking new bounds in stupidity in being so penny-pinching that a member of staff thinks it's a good idea to send CDs with half the country's account detail on via unlisted post, the US government shows it is leagues ahead with bureaucratic penny pinching.

Apparently, they have decided that some government employees should repay their signing bonuses if they do not see out their contracts. Which would appear to be reasonable enough, except that these government employees are service people, and can't fulfill their contracted term because they have been injured in the course of duty.

Who on earth thought this was a good idea?

The US army have declared this to be a clerical error. What is it with these clerics?

Football

On the BBC pages appears this quote

We're simply a better team

Croatia coach Slaven Bilic

Can't argue with that, really. England are out because they deserve to be.

Nooooooooo!

Damn that miserable summer!

A shortage of hops means - £4 a pint!

The Outside Royalty

When the Grauniad described a band as a cross between Pulp and The Arcade Fire, I was intrigued but suspected they were overdoing it.

But no, The Outside Royalty do sound good to me. Not completely convinced that Adam Billing is what Jarvis Cocker would sound like if he'd come from the Steel City in the US rather than the one in Yorkshire, but the music is rather good.