| Video: Tiger Sharks caught on film Predators appear to be pack-hunting off the Australian coast guardian.co.uk |
Numberplay: Answers Hang in the Balance A set of puzzles where you have to identify a heavier or lighter item from a group using a balance scale. feeds.nytimes.com |
Keep calm, carry on, but don't keep quiet I have been dealing with cuts in science since 2007. It can be draining and depressing, but I have learned at least two important lessonsThe HERA collider started up for the first time just as I was finishing my doctoral research. I was on "safety shift" on the ZEUS detector on one of the very early nights of data-taking. ZEUS was a massive particle detector, about 20 metres high and hidden behind concrete shielding. Safety shift was a good one for inexperienced grad students. Just plod around every hour reading dials and ticking a list, and report anything strange to the shift leader.At some point during the shift, someone saw water dripping out of the bottom of the concrete shielding around ZEUS. This was very bad. A leak could do horrendous damage to the delicate instrument we'd spent years building.People rushed around. The water was turned off, the procedure for opening the detector began, various senior physicists appeared and went into a huddle with the shift leader.Well below the level of this activity I plodded on with my safety round.I noticed, in the "rucksack" (three floors of high-speed electronics) that one or two of the temperature dials were slightly outside their allowed range.I went down to the control room again. Strictly speaking I should report this. But everyone was so busy with important stuff. What to do?The broad threat to research in the current spending round is new, but the water began dripping in 2007 for science funded via the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). In the three years between then and now, cuts of around 40% in research grants have been imposed. I've been sitting on various committees, trying to decide which great science to kill, in order to try and save the rest. It is stressful, unpleasant work, in which the "best" outcome is still dreadful.There were petitions, select committee reports and more. All through this, various important people in science policy would be buttonholing scientists behind the scenes saying things along the lines of "Don't make a fuss, we see the problem and we'll sort it out. All this noise is counterproductive." Sometimes some of us believed them, not realising that often their only goal was to keep a lid on things while the policy was implemented.It's true that shouting, alone, won't solve anything, and abuse is usually counterproductive. There need to be serious, sensible arguments. But keeping quiet is a sure way to be ignored.There was also an undercurrent of "do you really want the public to know how much money we spend on stuff like astronomy and particle physics? Sure, we know it's not useless, but they won't understand and if you make a fuss you'll get no support." Thankfully, on that one we didn't believe them. And we don't just have woe about cuts to tell the public. As we would have done anyway, we talked about the science. The Large Hadron Collider is a big story, but there have been plenty of others, for example the launch of Planck, and the great images from Cassini. The public response has been overwhelmingly positive (even when the LHC broke for a year!). We got a lot of support, not just from the public but from fellow scientists, who are sadly now in the same boat.In the end, after years of damage, the (third, for STFC!) science minister Lord Drayson came up with a plan which, while it did not fix the damage, did resolve some of the structural issues that contributed to the crisis.Back at ZEUS, I nervously tapped the shift leader on the shoulder and showed him the reading. The effect was dramatic. He leapt out of the room, ran up the stairs and pressed the emergency power cutoff for the entire rucksack. They had turned off the cooling water but not the electronics. A few more minutes and years of work would have fried.Two things seem clear.Carrying on doing science, if you are lucky enough still to be able, can sometimes be the best way of influencing the outcome.Keeping quiet, no matter what the appearances, will get you nowhere and may be terminal.Temperamentally I have never been one for marches and shouty public protest, but I'm planning to go on the Science is Vital demo on Saturday nevertheless.Science funding crisisScience policyJon Butterworthguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Art on the couch Exhibition puts psychoanalysis under the microscope news.bbc.co.uk |
Study reveals risky sex behavior among NYC teens By KAREN MATTHEWS 2010-10-25T07:55:29ZNEW YORK (AP) -- Nearly one-tenth of sexually active New York City high school students say they have had at least one same-sex partner, and teens who say they've had sexual contact with both sexes report higher-than-average rates of dating violence, forced sex and risky sexual behavior, a new study says.... hosted.ap.org |