Friday, May 21, 2010

1. BIRTH OF SCIENCE: NEXT FRIDAY, MAY 28, SCIENCE WILL BE 2,595 YEARS OLD.

On May 28, 585 B.C. the swath of a total solar eclipse passed over the Greek island of Miletus. The early Greek philosopher, Thales of Miletus, alone understood what was happening. The world's first recorded freethinker, Thales rejected all supernatural explanations, and used the occasion to state the first law of science: every observable effect has a physical cause. The 585 B.C. eclipse is now taken to mark the birth of science, and Thales is honored as the father. What troubles would be spared the world if the education of every child began with causality? We might, for example, have been spared the absurd cell phone/cancer myth:

2. CELL PHONES: LONG-AWAITED CANCER STUDY RELEASED THIS WEEK.

No link to brain cancer was found in a 10 year, $14 million epidemiological study of cell phone use in 13 countries (the US was not among them); the study was led by the World Health Organization (WHO). So is it safe to use cell phones? Uh, the report doesn't exactly say, instead it concludes that "more study is needed." On the contrary, the WHO study itself was not needed. I remind you that flawed epidemiology led to the great power-line scare more than 20 years ago. Publicized by a series of ignorant articles in the New Yorker http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN89/wn082589.html , it was a costly diversion that morphed into the cell-phone scare on Larry King Live http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN93/wn012993.html . Epidemiology is a useful tool for identifying possible environmental hazards, but it is not science, or a substitute for science. The science of electromagnetic radiation is clear: photons with energies below the photoelectric threshold (extreme blue-end of the visible spectrum) are not cancer agents. The energy of the photoelectron threshold is about 1 million times the energy of a microwave photon. Blueberry consumption would have a greater chance of being linked to cancer. Even as I send this off, however, my mail is full of warnings from nonscientists about the dangers of cell phones.

3. NCI: HAROLD VARMUS WILL HEAD THE NATIONAL CANCER INSTITUTE.

Currently President of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, the former director of NIH has been named to head the National Cancer Institute. Some are surprised that a former head of NIH would agree to direct one of its institutes, but Varmus never seems limited by the expected. Perhaps he believes, as many others do that we are on the threshold of major progress in preventing cancer. In this battle, the cell phone myth is a tragic diversion.

4. MARS ROVER: THE OLDEST COLONIST ON THE RED PLANET.

Opportunity arrived on Mars 25 Jan 04. In the 6 Earth-years since, Opportunity has never once complained about the cold nights, and it lives on sunshine. It has now operated on Mars longer than the 1976 Viking 1 lander, which ceased transmission in November of 1982. Meanwhile, Spirit, Opportunity's twin, is stuck in a sand trap. Not a lot happens on Mars for a stationary observer to report on, so Opportunity is trekking to a large crater. It should be there in a couple of years. Long before an astronaut could get there.

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.