US Science Research Articles

US science agencies brace for shutdown

US science agencies brace for shutdown

US science agencies targeted for cuts

Energy research and environmental regulation among areas hardest hit in proposed budget plan.

US science funding future uncertain as Republicans take control of the House

US science funding future uncertain as Republicans take control of the House

US science academy report calls for 'bipolar' research

US science academy report calls for 'bipolar' research

End of empire: external and internal transitions in US policies for science, technology and innovation

Over the last 20 years, the shape of the global political economy has shifted dramatically, but US science and technology policy is continuing as though nothing has changed since the Cold War. Military research and development are prominent, and policies are still oriented towards large firms in existing industries rather than small, dynamic ones in new industries. US scientists and engineers are still world leaders in Mode 2 learning, as indicated in their active collaborations with industry; but large US markets seem to be keeping the system from putting effort into developing partnerships in the emerging economies. While the capability exists, then, the directional arrow is not pointed towards continued prosperity through innovation in the US economy. Science and technology policies are themselves in need of innovation.

Some Things I Learned at the AACE/EACE/CPEN Meeting

I came home from the AACE/EACE/CPEN Meeting with a head brimming with ideas. I must admit I couldn’t tell which presentation was from a CPEN member and which was from an AACE member! I couldn’t tell which were the best hula dancers at the Luau either! We heard a nice synopsis report regarding Dr Varmus’ priorities at the NCI. He wants to ramp up clinical trials. It takes too long to get from concept to accrual and more than 60% of trials have less than 6 participants. I had a nice talk with the NCI’s (and our) editorial board member Rose Mary Padberg and she’ll write a paper on initiatives they have at NCI on clinical trials education. Our groups and this journal can help in this arena. Dr Varmus also wants to foster the application of personalized (he likes the term genomic) medicine. He’ll be pushing for the cancer genomic atlas project. Global Health will be a big issue—that’s the theme for next year’s conference! I heard great presentations from the international cancer information service group (www.icsisg.org) and was amazed at their reach into so many countries. I also heard from Carolyn Messner (who constantly reminds me of the reach that telephones can have) about all of her programs at CancerCare, which are now available across the globe, and the awesome (the only word to describe it) St Jude program, Cure4kids, which brings pediatric oncology information to the world (www.Cure4Kids.org). Global research will help this country and Canada learn to deal better with ethnic minority populations (see the NCI’s Office of Latin American Cancer Projects, for example). Tobacco control remains big on the NCI’s screen. Another priority is stimulating the next generation of scientists, and our organizations can play a big part (the US Science and Engineering Festival was taking place on the National Mall at the same time as our meeting, and was attended by President Obama). And finally, the NCI will try to foster “comparative effectiveness research.” One special presentation of many was that of Kathy Blazer and her colleagues at City of Hope, who spoke about how their wonderful genetics education program was sprouting seeds whereever their trainees were working. Kathy used the apt business analogy “communities of practice.” I think that image describes exactly what we want—widely dispersed but connected sites of excellence, pushing the mission to understand and control cancer forward! This important image depicts what we all should be and can be doing to spread and connect and use education to decrease the burden of suffering from cancer across the globe. Read the abstracts! Presenters, send in papers! Submit something for next year’s meeting in Buffalo, which will take place September 8–10, 2011. We CAN change the world by working together in effective communities of practice. Let’s do it!

US science faces a squeeze

Power shift in Congress paves way for Republicans to constrict government spending.

The decline of public interest agricultural science and the dubious future of crop biological control in California

Drawing from a four-year study of US science institutions that support biological control of arthropods, this article examines the decline in biological control institutional capacity in California within the context of both declining public interest science and declining agricultural research activism. After explaining how debates over the public interest character of biological control science have shaped institutions in California, we use scientometric methods to assess the present status and trends in biological control programs within both the University of California Land Grant System and the California Department of Food and Agriculture. We present available data on the number of scientific positions and the types of positions to discuss the impact on the amount of public interest research on biological control in California. We use sociograms to depict how biological control science networks have been reconfigured over time. Our quantitative and qualitative analyses indicate that the following factors contributed to the decline of biological control science in California over the 45-year period analyzed: (1) the institutional reconfiguration of university research priorities; (2) the fraying networks within and increasing specialization of biological control science; (3) the transformation of the social organization of the life science work, including privatization; and (4) the abandonment of this thematic area by civil society activist groups. This broad array of forces suggests that biological control, as a public interest science, will require a deliberate intervention, based on advocacy of clear public interest criteria.

A two-year plan for US science

Daniel S. Greenberg sets out five things that the White House and Capitol Hill can and should accomplish between now and the 2012 election.

A Missing Link: K-4 Biological Evolution Content Standards

The National Science Education Standards (NSES) is one of the most influential documents in US science education. The NSES has been utilized by local schools and districts, state departments of education, and national curriculum groups to form the backbone for curriculum frameworks, programs, and assessment systems to guide science education. The NSES provides national biological evolution content standards for fifth grade through high school but not for kindergarten through fourth grade. This article presents K-4 biological evolution content standards that can be used in conjunction with the current NSES K-4 life science and earth science content standards, brief examples of integration activities using the K-4 biological evolution content standards, and supplemental teacher information for the K-4 biological evolution content standards. The biological evolution content standards and the additional materials can guide teachers when teaching biological evolution to K-4th grade students.

US science and engineering graduate students increase in number

US science and engineering graduate students increase in number

Mediating subpolitics in US and UK science news

The development of therapeutic cloning research sparked a scientific controversy pitting patients' hopes for cures against religious and anti-abortion opposition. The present study investigates this controversy by examining the production and content of Anglo-American print media coverage of the branch of embryonic stem cell research known as "therapeutic cloning." Data collection included press articles about therapeutic cloning (n = 5,185) and qualitative interviews with journalists (n = 18). Patient activists and anti-abortion groups emerged as key news sources in this coverage. Significant qualitative differences in the mediation of these subpolitical groups and their arguments for and against therapeutic cloning are identified. Results suggest that the perceived human interest news value of narratives of patient suffering may give patient advocacy groups a privileged position in journalistic coverage. Finally, Ulrich Beck's theoretical arguments about subpolitics are critically applied to the results to elicit further insights.

Financial pain should focus universities

The tightening of the US science budgets could improve both teaching and research, argues Diane Auer Jones — by forcing academics and their institutions to play to their strengths.

Experimental comparison of inquiry and direct instruction in science

There are continuing educational and political debates about ‘inquiry’ versus ‘direct’ teaching of science. Traditional science instruction has been largely direct but in the US, recent national and state science education standards advocate inquiry throughout K‐12 education. While inquiry‐based instruction has the advantage of modelling aspects of the nature of real scientific inquiry, there is little unconfounded comparative research into the effectiveness and efficiency of the two instructional modes for developing science conceptual understanding. This research undertook a controlled experimental study comparing the efficacy of carefully designed inquiry instruction and equally carefully designed direct instruction in realistic science classroom situations at the middle school grades. The research design addressed common threats to validity. We report on the nature of the instructional units in each mode, research design, methods, classroom implementations, monitoring, assessments, analysis and project findings.

Adaptations and Continuities in the Use and Design of Visual Representations in US Middle School Science Textbooks

Visual representations are ubiquitous in modern‐day science textbooks and have in recent years become an object of criticism and scrutiny. This article examines the extent to which changes in representations in textbooks published in the USA over the past six decades have invited those critiques. Drawing from a correlational analysis of a corpus of 34 US middle school physical science textbooks, continuities are established with respect to the purposes that most textbook images serve and the numbers of schematic representations that are used. Changes are observed in the overall total number of representations in textbooks and in the proportion of representations that are photographic. Interpretive cases of individual representations over time are presented to further illustrate the continuities and changes that have taken place. Specifically, high‐fidelity images, such as photographs, are shown permeating or replacing schematic and explanatory images in the interest of promoting familiarization to students. This shifting emphasis toward familiarization is discussed as a specific cause for concern about quality and utility of representations in modern‐day US science textbooks.

Shallow Mantle Composition and Dynamics: Fifth International Orogenic Lherzolite Conference: Foreword

The First International Orogenic Lherzolite Conferencewas held in Montpellier, France, in 1990 (Menzies et al.,1991). Subsequent Orogenic Lherzolite Conferences wereheld in Granada, Spain in 1995, Pavia, Italy in 1999 andSamani, Japan in 2002. Avital aspect of all these meetingswas the opportunity to visit nearby exposures of mantleperidotites: to date, participants have visited Lherz inFrance; Baldissero, Balmuccia, Erro Tobio, Finero, Lanzoand Liguria in Italy; Ronda in Spain; Beni Bouserain Morocco; and Horoman in Hokkaido, Japan.Peer-reviewed papers from all four conferences were pub-lished in theJournal of Petrology in 1991, 2001and 2004 and,in one instance, in Chemical Geology in1996.The Fifth Lherzolite Conference was held in ShastaCity, California in September 2008. The conference wassponsored as a Chapman Conference by the AmericanGeophysical Union (AGU), which also provided locallogistical assistance. Funding for participants was providedby the AGU, US NSF Ridge Program, the NSF EarthSciences Division, the US Science Support Program of theConsortium for Ocean Leadership, the Royal Society UKand the Lithosphere^Asthenosphere Interactions taskforce of the International Lithosphere Program. Present,from14 countries, were108 attendees including 36 studentsand 11 postdoctoral researchers. Sixty-six oral presenta-tions and 67 posters were presented during the 5day meet-ing. As is the tradition, field trips to classic mantleperidotite localities were incorporated into the program,including a pre-meeting trip to the Josephine peridotiteled by Peter Kelemen, Henry Dick, and Greg Hirth forabout 50 people; a mid-week field trip for all participants,led by Tim Grove and Christy Till; and a 2day,post-meeting trip to the Trinity peridotite for about 50people, led by Peter Kelemen, Francoise Boudier, andKolya Stremmel.The Fifth Lherzolite Conference covered a broaderrange of topics than previous meetings, including carbonsequestration in the mantle and low-temperature hydro-thermal alteration. Underlying the presentations was therealization that previous distinctions between ‘orogenic’peridotites (e.g. Lanzo Massif, Italy), and ‘ophiolitic’peri-dotites (e.g. Troodos, Cyprus; Josephine, Oregon) and‘abyssal’peridotites from ocean ridges were in need of revi-sion. It now appears that a continuum exists fromsub-continental to oceanic mantle exposed in some com-plexes (e.g. Lanzo; Bodinier et al., 1991; Piccardo et al.,2007; Mu«ntener et al., this issue), and that much ocean

A comparative analysis of three different MODIS NDVI datasets for Alaska and adjacent Canada

Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data offer great potential for monitoring vegetation dynamics in Alaska. However, certain MODIS image quality issues, such as geometric distortion, have been analyzed and documented in high latitudes and regions distant from the Greenwich Meridian. To improve MODIS data usability, the Canada Centre for Remote Sensing (CCRS) developed a seven-band reflectance dataset (10 day composite) at 250 m resolution for Canada and North America. More recently, the US Geological Survey Earth Resources Observation and Science Center produced an eMODIS dataset that includes a 7 day composite of normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and surface reflectance data at 250 m, 500 m, and 1 km resolutions for the conterminous United States and Alaska. Although these two datasets are based on the same MODIS level 1B data as those of the standard MODIS products, they are processed to improve their use in high-latitude regions. In this study, we conducted a comparative analysis of the standard MODIS, CCRS MODIS, and eMODIS Alaska 250 m NDVI products using the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) images as a reference source. CCRS MODIS and eMODIS Alaska NDVI images have significantly improved geometric features over those of the standard MODIS product. Pixel-by-pixel comparisons of the MODIS datasets indicated that all retained the original MODIS radiometric characteristics, but considerable mismatches at the pixel level were found due to geometric distortions caused by resampling. All three MODIS datasets agreed well as images were degraded to 5 or 10 km resolution.

The science of creativity

An influential writer has been employed by leading US science, engineering and technology university to teach creativity. E&T finds out why MIT is teaching engineers to think laterally. It was not so long ago that companies wanted universities to stress the value of teamwork and structure in preparing undergraduates for working life. Creativity and an interest in arts or humanities were seen as mercurial, peripheral, even dangerous. However, the problems facing engineering today have forced a rethink overcoming broad challenges such as global warming and more focused ones such as the physical limits abutting progress in electronics will demand original thinking. How do you provoke that? It's no great surprise to learn that the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is an old hand at this game. The US educational system has always had a certain amount of flexibility in allowing students to mix degree majors in the sciences with minors in the arts, and MIT is one of its leading innovators. So much becomes clearer still when you learn that its current Rudge and Nancy Allen Professor of Creative Writing is also the holder of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Literature. Junot Diaz is well on the way to becoming a literary superstar. He won the Pulitzer for his novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao', and before he joined MIT produced 'Drown', a powerful collection of short stories.

Internationalisation of pharmaceutical R&D: how globalised are Europe's largest multinational companies?

The internationalisation of corporate research is an issue with a large impact on strategic decision-making within the research-intensive pharmaceutical industry. However, sector-wide comparative statistics on the whereabouts of corporate research activities and the geographic distribution of their research partners is scarce. This paper describes the international research profiles of Europe's top 10 largest multinational pharmaceutical companies based on publication counts and author address information drawn from the thousands of pharmaceutical research articles published in 2005–2006. The results provide relevant aggregate-level background intelligence for strategic analysis of the industry's internationalisation processes and research cooperation patterns. The overall statistics indicate that international research activity of European industry is significantly more oriented towards the US science base than vice versa. Company-level statistical data on the research cooperation involving each company's central research centres based in country of corporate headquarters, reveal quite distinctive geographical characteristics alongside differential preferences for in-house or external research partners.

Budget instructions

US science agencies may need to prove they are solving national problems. David Goldston explains.