I’ve added Bad Astronomy to the link list under science. The joke is it isn’t bad.

Carl Zimmer on The Mutiny Down Below

Judging from fossils and studies on DNA, the common ancestor of humans, chimpanzees, and bonobos lived roughly six million years ago. Hominids inherited the genome of that ancestor, and over time it evolved into the human genome. A major force driving that change was natural selection: a mutant gene that allowed hominids to produce more descendants than other versions of the gene became more common over time. Now that scientists can compare the genomes of humans, chimpanzees, mice, and other animals, they can pinpoint some of the genes that underwent particularly strong natural selection since the dawn of hominids. You might think that at the top of the list the scientists would put genes involved in the things that set us apart most obviously from other animals, such as our oversized brains or our upright posture. But according to the latest scan of some 13,000 human genes, that’s not the case. Natural selection has been focused on other things–less obvious ones, but no less important. While the results of this scan are all fascinating, one stands out in particular. The authors of the study argue that much of our evolution is the result of a war we are waging against our own cells. (links in original)

From a recent House Committee on Science report

Chairman Inglis added that he was concerned about proposed funding reductions in NSF’s educational activities. “I wonder about the cuts in math and science education, and indications that some NSF activities may be ‘migrating’ to the Department of Education. The NSF has a passion for excellence, while the Department of Education is arguably focused on proficiency. Passion isn’t easily transferred.”

Testifying before the Subcommittee were Dr. Arden Bement, Director of NSF; Dr. Mark Wrighton, Chairman of the Audit and Oversight Committee of the National Science Board and Chancellor of Washington University in St. Louis; and Dr. Christine Boesz, Inspector General of NSF.

Following the witnesses’ oral testimony, Members of the Subcommittee questioned the panel about the proposed funding levels for FY 2006, including requested cuts to math and science education. Members also highlighted ongoing concerns regarding the proposed transfer to NSF of funding responsibility for icebreaking activities in the Antarctic Ocean. Also discussed during the hearing were management challenges facing NSF, including workforce planning and post-award management.

Dr. Bement testified that the proposed funding increase for NSF is reflective of the Administration’s confidence in the agency and the importance to the U.S. economy of NSF’s investments in research and development. “At a time when many agencies are looking at budget cuts, an increase in our budget underscores the Administration’s support of NSF’s science and engineering programs, and reflects the agency’s excellent management and program results.”

I don’t think this is going to make Inglis so happy.

From Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

WASHINGTON, D.C.–Global warming conversations have shifted from whether climate is changing to how we will deal with the inevitable consequences. And the price you pay will depend on where you live and how well you prepare, suggests one of the most detailed studies to date on global warming and its likely effect on human activity.

“Like politics, global climate change is local,” said Michael J. Scott, a staff scientist at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash. “Our behavior where we live must change with the climate if we are to stave off economic and natural catastrophemeet the challenge Mother Nature may hand us in the next few years.”

And the good news continues from Wisconsin-Madison via Eureka Alert

As a result, governments and health officials need to begin to think about how to respond to an anticipated increase in the number and scope of climate-related health crises, ranging from killer heat waves and famine, to floods and waves of infectious diseases.

That, in a nutshell, was the message delivered to scientists here today (Feb. 20) at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) by Jonathan A. Patz, an authority on the human health effects of global environmental change.

As the world’s climate warms, and as people make widespread alterations to the global landscape, human populations will become far more vulnerable to heat-related mortality, air pollution-related illnesses, infectious diseases and malnutrition, Patz says.

From Carl Zimmer

The more scientists study the eye, the more they recognize that Darwin was right. This is not to say that they know everything about how the eye evolved. Evolutionary biology is not an automatic answer machine that can instantly tell you every detail about how eyes–or any other organ–evolved. Instead, scientists study eyes of different animals, the proteins they are made of, and the genes that store their recipe. They come up with hypotheses about how evolution could have produced these results. Those hypotheses then point the way to new experiments. In this way, evolutionary biology is no different from geology or meteorology, or any other science that illuminates the natural world.

To be precise, I should say that scientists study the evolution of “the eye.” There are millions of different eyes (and other light-detecting organs), each built by a different species from its own unique set of genes. Closely related animals tend to have similar eyes, because they descend from recent ancestors. Some scientists study how eyes can adapt over a few million years to the special circumstances of a particular species. Other scientists step a little further back, to look at how the different types of eyes have evolved from simpler precursors. And other scientists step even further back in time, to find clues about where those simpler precursors came from. In this post, I will move back through time through these different stages of eye evolution (a la Richard Dawkins’s The Ancestor’s Tale (link in original).)

RealClimate has a nice breakdown of “hockey stick.” What are the issues? It makes good sense and worth a read. Scope, lingo, and criteria.

From NASA

If you’ve ever looked at Saturn through a backyard telescope, you know it’s true: Yellow is the dominant color of Saturn’s thick clouds. “Sunlight reflected from those clouds is what gives Saturn its golden hue,” explains West.

But Cassini saw something different. Close to Saturn, the spacecraft was able to photograph the clear air above the planet’s clouds. (“Air” on Saturn is mostly hydrogen.) The color there is blue.

“Saturn’s skies are blue, we think, for the same reason Earth’s skies are blue,” says West. Molecules in the atmosphere scatter sunlight. On Earth the molecules are oxygen (O2) and nitrogen (N2). On Saturn the molecules are hydrogen (H2). Different planets, different molecules, but the effect is the same: blue light gets scattered around the sky. Other colors are scattered, too, but not as much as blue. Physicists call this “Rayleigh scattering.”

End of story? Not quite.

“There are some things we don’t understand,” says West. For example, while Saturn’s northern hemisphere has blue skies, Saturn’s southern hemisphere does not. The south looks yellow. It could be that southern skies on Saturn are simply cloudier, yellow clouds making yellow skies.

Intriguing, especially since we’re reading Shelley at the moment.

Images are going up from the Huygen’s probe. Exciting exciting. See them at Unscrewing the Inscrutable, JPL, and ESA.

Lively discussion generated from this post at the Panda’s Thumb. The comment responses I thought were pretty reasonable counterarguments.

We can ask who is watching the watchmen? But who’s watching the amphibians.