Element FYI

The addition of authors and the authors' rank in a scientific research paper's list of authors have as much to do with money and politics as they do about who did the work. Senior researchers and professors may be given honorary authorship because they helped to spark an idea that led to the results or because the honorary author has such clout that simply having their name on the paper can grease the review path to a top journal. As the journal Science manages fallout from the Hwang Woo Suk scandal, the NY Times reports that Science is considering "new requirements that authors 'detail their specific contributions to the research submitted,' and sign statements that they agree with the conclusions of their article." According to the NY Times, a statement of authors' contributions is already required by The Journal of the American Medical Association and by other medical journals. This requirement may be a challenge to implement for a multidisciplinary journal like Science, since it will require a significant change in proceedures for scientific fields otherwise untouched by the Hwang scandal. Nevertheless, we particularly liked the NY Times' sample page from the Journal of Imaginary Genomics, which humorously illustrates what future issues of Science might look like if the editors implement these new requirements.

International Space Station astronaut Jeffrey Williams was first to report a recent eruption of the Cleveland Volcano on Tuesday, May 23 and provided the first photographs of the event. The Cleveland Volcano lies along the Aleutian Islands volcanic chain southwest of mainland Alaska. Williams' photograph from space shows the ash plume moving west-southwest from the summit of the volcano. The Cleveland Volcano is not seismically monitored by the Alaska Volcano Observatory, and so its eruption would not have been immediately detected without the ISS observation system. According to NASA, "This is the first early sighting of a new eruption in recent years. Williams edged out the nearest satellite by approximately seven minutes to capture the image."

The journal Nature reports that on June 13, the House of Representatives amended a spending bill to require National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant recipients to submit their papers to PubMed Central within 12 months of publication. PubMed is a free online archive of papers covering biomedical and life sciences. Those who stand to lose if the bill passes are mainly publishers and scientific research societies who depend on exclusive publication rights of scientific articles to secure their subscription income. NIH grantees are currently requested to submit their published papers to PubMed, but they are not required to do so. According to Nature, "Some journals do not allow copyedited versions to be posted on PubMed Central. This means two versions of the same research paper can be published: a peer-reviewed manuscript version held in PubMed Central and a journal version complete with copyedits and other mostly cosmetic modifications. The PubMed Central version would also not necessarily link to the journal that published the paper." These efforts by Congress may soon cover not only NIH, but all federally funded programs, which would include the National Science Foundation (NSF) and NASA. "In May, for example, Joseph Lieberman and John Cornyn introduced a bill that would require that all federal US agency grantees with annual research budgets of more than $100 million make their research papers freely available within six months of publication." Ironically enough, the link to the Nature article requires a subscription - or you could buy access to the article (not the whole issue of the journal, just the one article) for only $30. Maybe Congress is onto something.

I have a friend who's always getting sick or injured when he really needs to be getting down to writing. I, on the other hand, am completely justified in deciding that the best time to clean my apartment is when I have a paper due. It turns out that there's now a name for this career-threatening phenomenon. Watson's Syndrome, according to Dr. Richard Gelles, is characterized by (A.) A continuing and persistent avoidance of engaging in the actual writing and completion of one's dissertation, peer reviewed publications, or grant proposals; or (B.) Engaging in what appear to be important activities that take the place of completing one's dissertation, peer reviewed publications, or grant proposals. Dr. Gelles, who is a dean of the School of Social Policy and Practice at the University of Pennsylvania, writes about Watson's Syndrom in his article posted June 19 in Inside Higher Ed. While Gelles's article does not suggest a cure, one commenter suggests "proactive mentoring" by professors. Does that involve a cattle prod? Oh, well, if you can't actually write the thesis yourself, you can always blog about it.

If you're hanging out in the Long Island, New York area some Sunday this summer and have a hankering for a dose of science fun, stop by the Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, NY for Summer Sundays, beginning July 9 and running through August 20. Run by the U.S. Department of Energy, BNL began as a nuclear-science facility in 1946 and is home to six Nobel Prize winning scientists and three nuclear reactors. Among BNL's 5,300 acre campus, adults and children can learn about invisible light rays, DNA sequencing, and weather forecasting, among other fun and interesting science topics. There are only seven Summer Sundays in all, and each Sunday focuses on a specific topic listed here. In addition, each Sunday, the "Whiz Bang Science Show" (pun intended??) will be performed three times from 10:30 am to 3 p.m. Click here to learn more about the history of Brookhaven National Lab.

If you happen to be in Florida when hurricane season hits, whom should you look to in a major storm emergency? Not FEMA, silly - Mickey Mouse! That's right, NOAA's National Weather Service has declared Walt Disney World as a safe place to be in the event of a major storm. To achieve this recognition, Disney World had to "establish a 24-hour warning point and emergency operations center; have more than one way to receive severe weather forecasts and warnings and to alert the public; create a system that monitors local weather conditions; promote the importance of public readiness through community seminars; and develop a formal hazardous weather plan, which includes training severe weather spotters and holding emergency exercises." So don't let a little hurricane derail your summer vacation plans. Typhoon Lagoon is the place to be!

Before Katrina, before Kyoto, before the Clinton years, Al Gore held the first congressional hearing on atmospheric carbon dioxide as a rookie senator in 1981. This week's issue of New York magazine traces Gore's interest in global warming from his days as a Harvard undergraduate through the development of his speeches on global warming, his 1992 book Earth in the Balance, and finally to the documentary An Inconvenient Truth, which opened Wednesday in New York and Los Angeles and opens in select theatres nationwide in June. Al Gore has been traveling the country promoting the film and is said to have shed his stiff persona to reveal a passionate Al Gore that was missing in the 2000 presidential campaign. He even won audiences over this past weekend with an appearance on Saturday Night Live. Is Al Gore merely promoting a film, or does he have greater political ambitions? For climate scientists who have seen their funding slashed under the Bush administration and their efforts to report scientific results on global warming curtailed by administration appointees, one can only hope.

• An Inconvenient Truth Official Website [Climate Crisis]
  
• Trailer: An Inconvenient Truth [Apple]
  
• The Come-Back Kid [New York Magazine]
  
• 'An Inconvenient Truth': Al Gore's Fight Against Global Warming [New York Times]
  
• Saturday Night Live: If Al Gore were President (Video) [Crooks and Liars]

Has your science blog reading fallen into a rut as of late? Here are just some of the latest additions to the Science Blog section of Element List that we particularly like. Enjoy.

• WorldChanging is a technology-oriented blog that offers links to ideas and tools for sustainable living. If sustainable development is important to you, this site will show you how to practice what you preach.
  
• medGadget, created by a team of medical researchers, is an internet journal covering the latest medical gadgets and technologies.
  
• Invasive Species Weblog by Jennifer Forman Orth began as a personal project in April 2002 to keep up with media coverage of invasive species while she was a graduate student. The site has since grown to over 1300 posts and even hosts a store for ISW geek swag.
  
• Lifehacker is just one blog spawn of Gawker Media mogul Nick Denton of Gawker and Defamer fame. While most of his sites are meant to blissfully drain every last drop of productivity from your work day, Lifehacker attempts to make up for this by covering work/life productivity and software tools to make your life just a little richer and happier.
  
• CONELRAD looks back at the good ol' bad days of Cold War atomic era culture through the eyes of writers who "grew up in the shadow of the BOMB." The writers have collected a plethora of links and digitized memorabilia, including a recently unearthed Civil Defense film starring Gene Hackman, that was released just a year before his Oscar nomination for Bonnie and Clyde (1967).

The U.S. National Science Foundation's (NSF) Beijing Office officially opened on May 24 in the Silver Tower high rise, which also houses the U.S. Embassy. The objective of the new office is to foster international collaborations between Chinese and American scientists. Representatives from the NSF, the U.S. State Department, the Chinese National Natural Sciences Foundation, and Chinese Academy of Sciences attended the opening. As of 2001, China ranked third behind the U.S. and Japan in research and development expenditures, according to the NSF Science and Engineering Indicators 2006 report that was published this past February. The new Beijing Office is the third foreign NSF office following Paris and Tokyo.

Dr. Robert 'Bob' Gagosian, Director of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) since 1994, announced yesterday that he is stepping down as Director of WHOI in six weeks. Jim Luyten, WHOI Executive Vice President and Director of Research, will step in as Acting Director until a replacement is found. WHOI is the largest private, independent marine research facility in the United States and operates one of the world's top marine science graduate degree programs jointly with MIT. A tipster writes that Bob is not leaving directly for another job, but that he wants to do something 'for the community.' Could he be heading to Washington, D.C.? The science world waits with bated breath....

You're not a truly dedicated grad student until you've spent a night, or perhaps a whole weekend, working and sleeping in the lab. But sleeping on the floor, even with a small sleeping mat, can be uncomfortable, assuming you have room to stretch out in the first place. The Computer Bed from Flying Beds.com has been making the rounds on the blog circuit this week. During the day, it's a roomy desk, and at night it folds down into a bed without dumping the contents of your desk all over the place. It comes in several stains as well as black and white. At a price of over $2000 plus the twin mattress, this may be out of reach of most grad students, but the construction seems simple enough that you could build one for yourself. (via Make)

The employees of the San Diego Zoo, Wild Animal Park, and department of Conservation and Research for Endangered Species (CRES) have joined together to write a collective blog about living and working at - what we'll collectively call here - the zoo. And wouldn't you know it, the latest blog post is about a couple of pigs from Nairobi who are proud new parents - no, we're not talking about Brangelina's celebrity spawn, but a pair of red river hogs from the Wild Animal Park's Nairobi Village. (In case you couldn't tell from the picture.) The San Diego Zoo Weblogs mostly cover the animals, but also cover various events, such as the local student science awards, construction and reconstruction of various exhibits at the parks, and the joys of meal time with the animals. Since there are many contributors, there are new posts almost everyday and often more than once per day. Check it out.

Who knew there were so many brain researchers on postage stamps? Dr. Eric Chudler at the University of Washington collects commemorative postage stamps of famous brain researchers from around the world and posts pictures of the stamps on his website. Sweden seems to have the most brain doctors on stamps, followed by Portugal and Germany. Dr. Chudler is Director of Education and Outreach at the University of Washington Engineered Biomaterials lab. He also maintains a website of neuroscience research commemorative postage stamps. (via Improbable Research)

Have a great idea for a documentary film? If your research leads you to the door of the Smithsonian Institution, you may be in for a rude surprise. According to the NY Times, "On March 9, Showtime and the Smithsonian announced the creation of Smithsonian Networks, a joint venture to develop television programming. Under the agreement, the joint venture has the right of first refusal to commercial documentaries that rely heavily on Smithsonian collections or staff. Those works would first have to be offered to Smithsonian on Demand, the cable channel that is expected to be the venture's first programming service." Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns said, "I find this deal terrifying. It feels like the Smithsonian has essentially optioned America's attic to one company, and to have access to that attic, we would have to be signed off with, and perhaps co-opted by, that entity." In response to criticism, Jeanny Kim, a vice president for media services for Smithsonian Business Ventures, said, "It's not our obligation to help independent filmmakers sell their wares to commercial broadcast and cable networks." Isn't this the pot calling the kettle black? Margaret Drain, a vice president for national programs at WGBH, said, "I'm outraged that a public institution would do a semiexclusive deal with a commercial broadcaster." The Smithsonian received $615,097,000 from Congress in 2006 to cover salaries, expenses, and facilities capital, and is requesting $644,394,000 for 2007. According to the Smithsonian 2007 budget request to Congress, "Some of the greatest works of art in this countryor the worldare at the Smithsonian. The Smithsonians art museums, the Freer, the Sackler, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the National Museum of African Art, the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York City, the Smithsonian American Art Museum and its Renwick Gallery, and the National Portrait Gallery, collectively, are the third most visited art complex in the United States." The Smithsonian Institution also includes the Air and Space Museum and the National Zoo. And now, other than viewing the Smithsonian museums in person, their works may only be available to you though your paid cable subscription to Showtime.

It was only a matter of time. The NY Times reports that online publisher Blurb has created BookSmart, a free, downloadable software program that can turn your weblog into a hardcover book, which can be purchased online for as little as $30. There are various formats and templates to choose from. Authors also will be able to create their own little bookstore on the Blurb website. There are supposedly some glitches that remain in the current beta release, but these reportedly will be fixed before the first official version is released online.

The 2006 edition of Science and Engineering Indicators, published in late February by the National Science Foundation and available online, reports on various science and engineering (S&E) trends across the United States such as the number of S&E degrees awarded, labor and salary statistics in S&E fields, research and deveopment funding, and S&E indicators broken down by state. The map at right shows the percentage of S&E doctorates as a share of the total workforce for each state in 2003 (click to enlarge), indicating which states are most attractive to S&E doctorates and where the most job opportunities for S&E doctorates are likely to be found. S&E fields include physical, life, earth, ocean, atmospheric, computer, and social sciences; mathematics; engineering; and psychology. The study also covered public interest, knowledge, and attitudes about science, and found that most Americans get their science news from television followed by the internet, which is "the preferred source when people are seeking information about specific scientific issues. In 2004, 52% of National Science Foundation survey respondents named the Internet as the place they would go to learn more about a scientific issue such as global warming or biotechnology, up from 44% in 2001." Despite the Bush administration's stated opposition to stem cell research, only 36% of those surveyed said they were opposed to medical research that uses stem cells from human embryos, down from 51% in 2002. And for those considering a career in science, "Scientists share (with doctors) the top spot in the Harris poll of occupations having the most prestige." The report itself is meant to be policy neutral, so the NSF has provided its recommendations based on the report in a companion document, America's Pressing Challenge - Building a Stronger Foundation.

With so many science programs getting the ax - nevermind what Bush said in his State of the Union Address, scientists who depend on NSF, NIH, and NASA funding, among others, are suffering this year - it's good to hear of a field that is growing. This week's issue of Science has two special feature articles on careers in systems biology, which is an emerging interdisciplinary field that combines biology with physics, computer science, chemistry, mathematics, and engineering. If you're having trouble finding a postdoc position in, say, astrophysics, you might have better career prospects in systems biology. The two feature articles focus separately on careers in Europe and the United States, which is considered the leader in systems biology research. The Institute for Systems Biology (ISB) in Seattle, Washington is the article's poster child for a successful young lab. ISB is an independent research institute founded in 2000 by Leroy Hood after he "concluded that he couldn't arrange a successful marriage between computing and biology in the academic environment of the University of Washington." According to the Science article on the US market, "systems biology is in heavy demand. 'Systems biology is very fashionable. Until it is fully established in all of the major universities, there will be a lot of hires, either new hires or professors that are reminting themselves,' predicts David Galas, a researcher at ISB and vice president and chief scientific officer of the Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus, Ohio. Roger Brent (pictured), president and research director of the independent Molecular Sciences Institute (MSI) in Berkeley, California, agrees. 'I'd say that this is a time in which a talented young person who demonstrates an ability to make real contributions can pretty close to write their own ticket in terms of what they can do academically and intellectually,' he says."

If you're ever in need of a geeky gift, Think Geek is the place to go - online, of course. They have more geeky t-shirts and gadgets than you can shake a mouse at. One of their cooler gadgets to come out lately is the water powered clock. The 6-inch high digital clock uses an internal converter that extracts electrons from water or any electrolytic fluid, creating an electric current that acts as a fuel cell to power the clock. The clock provides the time and date as soon as the reservoir is filled and also makes for a cute little flower vase. The clock runs for months on a single fill-up. Flowers not included. If you want something extra geeky, try the water powered multifunction alarm clock, which has a clock, alarm, timer, and thermometer all in one.