Friday, March 13, 2009

1. THE HIGGS: LOOK AT IT THIS WAY, NOW WE KNOW WHERE IT ISN'T.

The Fermi National Laboratory announced today that the Higgs boson is not all that heavy. If it was, the Tevatron would have found it. It must be down in the underbrush with all the other debris from proton-antiproton collisions. That means there's going to be a lot of sorting out to do before it can be identified with certainty. This makes it less likely that FermiLab will win the race to the Higgs.

2. SCIENCE ADVICE: THE "HOLD" ON SCIENCE NOMINATIONS.

Along with the rest of the scientific community, we were elated by President-elect Obama's early choice of Harvard physicist John Holdren to be presidential science advisor, and Oregon State marine biologist Jane Lubchenco to head NOAA www.bobpark.org/WN08/wn121908 . But it is now mid- March and neither has been confirmed by the Senate. An anonymous hold has been placed on both nominations. It's widely rumored that Bob Menendez (D- FL) is using the "hold" to wring concessions on an unrelated issue; others say it's David Vitter (R-LA) for purely ideological reasons related to Holdren's pro-environment stance. We have no way of knowing. The Senate custom of allowing individual senators to delay confirmations with an anonymous hold is starkly undemocratic and exposes the nation to unnecessary risk. We have serious scientific issues to resolve.

3. STEM CELLS: GORGIA SENATE PROHIBITS STEM CELL RESEARCH.

In a strict party-line vote, all 34 Republican Senators all voted to ban embryonic stem cell research and therapeutic cloning in Georgia, and all 22 Democrats voted against the ban. An initial version of the bill defining an in vitro fertilized egg as a person was dropped along with criminal penalties. The final bill states that embryos can't be created in vitro for the the purpose of generating new stem cell lines.

4. THE PRICE OF PORK: OBAMA SIGNS AN UNFORTUNATE SPENDING BILL.

Acknowledging that the bill was imperfect, which is an understatement, the president signed a $410 billion measure to fund most government agencies through September. The bill included some 8,500 projects inserted by individual lawmakers. As usual scientists and academic institutions participated in the pig out. Having promised to eliminate earmarks in his campaign, the President paid a political price for signing. Earmarks constitute less than 2% of the discretionary federal budget and many of the projects may be valuable, but if they are we can't tell because they've not gone through a review process.

5. LIE DETECTOR: ALL WE NEED NOW ARE LIARS THAT STINK.

Homeland Security is soliciting sources to look (or sniff) into human odor as an indicator of deception. It's not totally crazy. Sweat due to nervousness comes from different glands than sweat due to exertion, and has a stronger odor. But this has the same flaw as the polygraph. It's not clear whether liars or innocents will be more nervous.

Bob Park can be reached via email at whatsnew@bobpark.org
THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND
Opinions are the author's and are not necessarily shared by the University, but they should be.