| In Feast of Data on BPA Plastic, No Final Answer Everyone is exposed to BPA, but after hundreds of studies, there is no consensus about its safety. feeds.nytimes.com |
Mystery bird: American herring gull, Larus smithsonianus | GrrlScientist This demystified mystery bird has an interesting (and still unresolved) story to tell about its taxonomic history. As if that isn't enough, this post is also accompanied by a 2-minute podcast that discusses this species' defining role in scienceAmerican herring gull, Larus smithsonianus (in Europe), or Larus argentatus smithsonianus (in North America), photographed at Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge, Alabama, USA. Image: Terry Sohl, 13 February 2008 [larger view]. I encourage you to explore this generous photographer's work. Canon 20D, 400 5.6LThis North American species is often treated as a subspecies of its European "sister" but is now regarded as a separate species by some authorities. You might be surprised to learn that its presumed European sister species is red-listed in the UK because its population declined by more than half in the last 25 years. Can you identify this species and its (presumed) European sister species, and tell me which plumage cycle it is in?Let me answer the easy question first: the bird pictured above is in its first plumage cycle, indicating it is less than one year old. To answer the other questions, I need to give you a quick overview of this species' taxonomic history. This is an American herring gull. The American herring gull was first recognised as a new species – Larus smithsonianus – in 1862 after Elliott Coues' meticulous studies of the specimens held by the Smithsonian Institution. This species was later reclassified as a subspecies of the European herring gull, Larus argentatus. As is typical for many gulls, the herring gull species complex has a very complicated and poorly understood taxonomy. However, the Association of European Rarities Committees and British Ornithologists' Union (BOU) split it into a separate species after publication of the 2007 report [DOI: 10.1111/j.1474-919X.2007.00758.x] that suggested the American herring gull is not at all closely related to the European herring gull. Thus, they are not sister species. Based on that report, the BOU went further by moving the American herring gull into a different clade or lineage. That clade includes the East Siberian gull, Larus vegae, which occurs in northeast Asia. For reasons that are not clear, the American Ornithologists' Union continues to classify the American herring gull as Larus argentatus smithsonianus; a subspecies of herring gull. Regardless of how you think about the herring gulls, there is one man who, while he was alive, thought deeply about them. Below is a 2 minute podcast that takes a brief look at how the herring gull helped one scientist earn a Nobel Prize, thanks to my friends at BirdNote Radio:If you have bird images, video or mp3 files that you'd like to share with a large and appreciative audience, feel free to email them to me.GrrlScientistguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Don't cut science funding – you'll start a brain drain This coalition shows no understanding of the value of UK scientific research, argues leader of the lecturers' unionDoes the UK value its world-beating academic research or not?Our academics set the global standard, despite less funding than that they could secure abroad. The £6bn a year currently spent on research pumps an additional £45bn into the UK economy.With just 1% of the world's population, the UK produces 7.9% of the world's research publications and 12% of all citations.Most UK academics want to carry on working here. But significant brain drains in the 1950s and the 1980s were driven by an inability to gain funding and frustration with government policy.If we are to avoid a brain-drain cycle every 30 years then we cannot pursue another punitive regime of cuts. The financial cuts of the 1980s hit morale and infrastructure hard, and that led to talent disappearing overseas.The coalition's cuts may dwarf previous brain drains because, in its underpinning philosophy, this government makes it clear that research is simply not valued. Yet university research provides a great deal for the taxpayer.Cutting research funding would only advance the decline of the UK as an academic world power. The science budgets in our competitor countries, such as America, France, and Germany, are expanding. India and China are building hundreds of new labs and research facilities every year, not threatening existing projects with closure or making academic staff redundant as some UK universities are doing.We simply will not be able to continue to compete against countries with bigger budgets and support from politicians who understand the importance of research. We should also not be surprised if competitor countries make it easier for our scientists and researchers to move abroad.It is time for government to pull back from the brink before they undermine the fabric that has made UK universities the envy of the world.• Sally Hunt is general secretary of the University and College UnionResearch fundingHigher educationResearchScienceLecturersguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Employment tribunal hears of bizarre hoax phone call The director of Britain's Science Media Centre pretended to be a journalist investigating MP's staff expenses.Few people who are familiar with the small pond that is science journalism in the UK will have failed to gulp on reading about the ex-Labour MP Jim Devine and the unthinkable bullying he unleashed on his boss, Marion Kinley.Devine, who was an MP in Livingston, Scotland, before being done for fiddling expenses last year asked an acquaintance to make a fake call to Kinley and pretend to be a journalist investigating her financial affairs. The story gets darker with every step and you can read more about it here. Devine has since been ordered to pay Kinley £35,000.Though appalling from the off, it was not the top line that shocked many of my colleagues most. What came as a surprise was the revelation far down the story that the fake call in question was made by Fiona Fox, head of the Science Media Centre in London, a prominent venue for press conferences on all matters scientific and medical. Otherwise articulate people who read the story struggled to say more than three letters: WTF?I contacted Fox to ask her about the story and she provided a statement, which she has already sent on to a Scottish newspaper. It reads as follows:"I am pleased Miss Kinley has won her case and deeply regret being unwittingly drawn into this unpleasant saga. In a very, very small way I too was duped by this man. He had assured me that this kind of prank was part and parcel of the humour in his team and that his colleagues gave as good as they got. At that time I had no reason to doubt the integrity of a Member of Parliament who I got to know because of his public support for stem cell research during the Human Fertility and Embryology Bill in 2008."By phone, Fox explained that she knew Devine for around five weeks in 2008. A day after making the fake call - and leaving a message on Kinley's answerphone - Kinley called Fox, who admitted the hoax and apologised. Fox says: "I was a first class idiot." I doubt many will disagree.There are many wonderful things about being a science journalist. You get to spend your days interviewing highly intelligent people who have spent their lives wrestling with profound and fascinating questions about how the world works and all that is in it. Now and then a grim story crops up. This is one of them.Controversies in scienceIan Sampleguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Green: A Cultural Barrier on Climate Change A University of Michigan researcher compares inaction on heat-trapping emissions to the cultural attitudes that delayed the abolition of slavery or bans on indoor smoking. feeds.nytimes.com |