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Domain: aaas.org
Stories and comments across the archive that link to aaas.org.
Stories · 17
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Pew Survey Documents Gaps Between Public and Scientists
PvtVoid writes: A new Pew Research Study documents an alarming gap between public perception of scientific issues and the opinions of the scientists themselves, as measured by a poll of AAAS scientists. Even worse, the gap is partisan, with clear differences between Republicans and Democrats, and between conservatives and liberals. For example, while 98% of AAAS members agree with the statement that "Human beings and other living things have evolved over time", only 21% of conservatives agree, compared with 54% of liberals. Global warming, similarly, shows an ideological gap: 98% of AAAS scientists agreed with the statement that "the Earth is getting warmer mostly due to human activity", compared with 21% of conservatives and 54% of liberals. Encouragingly, almost everybody thinks childhood vaccines should be required (86% of AAAS members, 65% of conservatives, and 74% of liberals.) Go here for an interactive view of the data. -
Classroom Clashes Over Science Education
cheezitmike writes "In a two-part series, the American Academy for the Advancement of Science examines two hot-button topics that create clashes in the classroom between science teachers and conservative-leaning students, parents, school boards, and state legislatures. Part 1 looks at the struggle of teachers to cover evolution in the face of religious push-back from students and legislatures. Part 2 deals with teaching climate change, and how teachers increasingly have to deal with political pressure from those who insist that there must be two sides to the discussion." -
Classroom Clashes Over Science Education
cheezitmike writes "In a two-part series, the American Academy for the Advancement of Science examines two hot-button topics that create clashes in the classroom between science teachers and conservative-leaning students, parents, school boards, and state legislatures. Part 1 looks at the struggle of teachers to cover evolution in the face of religious push-back from students and legislatures. Part 2 deals with teaching climate change, and how teachers increasingly have to deal with political pressure from those who insist that there must be two sides to the discussion." -
Gulf Bacteria Quickly Digested Spilled Methane
masterwit writes "From an AAAS news release: 'Bacteria made quick work of the methane released by the Deepwater Horizon blowout, digesting most of the gas within the four months after its release, according to a new study published online at ScienceExpress.' This study, however, did not deal with other chemicals (oil) from the disaster's fallout. A glimpse of good news from the disaster's aftermath." Reader iamrmani points out a related article suggesting that things may be looking up for BP after the Presidential Commission said blame for the disaster should be shared with service contractors and government regulators. -
World's Smallest Battery Created
Zothecula writes "Because battery technology hasn't developed as quickly as the electronic devices they power, a greater and greater percentage of the volume of these devices is taken up by the batteries needed to keep them running. Now a team of researchers working at the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies has created the world's smallest battery. 'It consists of a bulk lithium cobalt cathode three millimeters long, an ionic liquid electrolyte, and has as its anode a single tin oxide (Sn02) nanowire 10 nanometers long and 100 nanometers in diameter.' (Abstract in Science.) Although the tiny battery won't be powering next year's mobile phones, it has already provided insights into how batteries work and should enable the development of smaller and more efficient batteries in the future." -
Insurgent Attacks Follow Mathematical Pattern
Hugh Pickens writes "Nature reports that data collected on the timing of attacks and number of casualties from more than 54,000 events across nine insurgent wars, including those fought in Iraq between 2003 and 2008 and in Sierra Leone between 1994 and 2003, suggest that insurgencies have a common underlying pattern that may allow the timing of attacks and the number of casualties to be predicted. By plotting the distribution of the frequency and size of events, the team found that insurgent wars follow an approximate power law, in which the frequency of attacks decreases with increasing attack size to the power of 2.5. This means that for any insurgent war, an attack with 10 casualties is 316 times more likely to occur than one with 100 casualties (316 is 10 to the power of 2.5). 'We found that the way in which humans do insurgent wars — that is, the number of casualties and the timing of events — is universal,' says team leader Neil Johnson, a physicist at the University of Miami in Florida. 'This changes the way we think insurgency works.' To explain what was driving this common pattern, the researchers created a mathematical model which assumes that insurgent groups form and fragment when they sense danger, and strike in well-timed bursts to maximize their media exposure. Johnson is now working to predict how the insurgency in Afghanistan might respond to the influx of foreign troops recently announced by US President Barack Obama. 'We do observe a complicated pattern that has to do with the way humans do violence in some collective way,' adds Johnson." -
Science Debate 2008
bhmit1 writes "BusinessWeek is reporting about Science Debate 2008, an attempt to put the scientific issues front and center in the US Presidential race. After 12,000 scientists signed on in support of the idea of a debate focused on science, no campaign has replied to an invitation to such a debate. The article notes that only one candidate has said much about science issues in the campaign, and that some who are running are sufficiently anti-science as to deny evolution. There is a link to a comparison of the candidates' positions on issues informed by science. (Yes, Ron Paul is included.)" -
Patents Chilling Effect on Science
cheesedog writes "The American Association for the Advancement of Science recently conducted a survey on the effect of patenting on the sciences. The results are frightening: 1/5th or more of all research projects in the United States are being chilled by patent holders. The sheer amount of research being canceled because of licensing issues is astounding, but at the same time many of these researchers hold their own patents and therefore contribute to the problem." -
Using Copyrights To Fight Intelligent Design
An anonymous reader writes "The National Academies' National Research Council and the National Science Teachers Association are using the power of copyright to ensure that students in Kansas receive a robust education. They're backed by the AAS: The American Association for the Advancement of Science." From the release: "[they] have decided they cannot grant the Kansas State School Board permission to use substantial sections of text from two standards-related documents: the research council's 'National Science Education Standards' and 'Pathways to Science Standards', published by NSTA. The organizations sent letters to Kansas school authorities on Wednesday, Oct. 26 requesting that their copyrighted material not be used ... Leshner said AAAS backs the decision on copyright permission. 'We need to protect the integrity of science education if we expect the young people of Kansas to be fully productive members of an increasingly competitive world economy that is driven by science and technology ... We cannot allow young people to be denied an appropriate science education simply on ideological grounds.'" -
Online Science Policy Critique Of Kerry And Bush
museumpeace writes "David Appell, one of Techonology Review's bloggers, has posted a quick review of Nature Publishing Group's comparison of candidate positions on Science faulting both for various lame answers. That might save you the trouble of reading all the other coverage at NPG, and the more informative articles published by Science. But if you want a heads-up about which kinds of research will thrive or get the ax in the next four years, you might want to slog through "Kerry and Bush offer their views" . Both publications require registration or payment to access most of their content but the science policy debate is being aired out for free." -
New Atomic Clock Pushes Boundaries of Accuracy
Neophytus writes "An interesting story on the BBC reports on how a new type of atomic clock is near completion that would only loose about a second in every 100 million years. Within ten years they hope to have a clock with billion year accuracy which would potentially bring advances in disease research by watching timing genes. More reports from this year's AAAS Annual meeting can be found on the BBC, and information about the event on the AAAS Annual Meeting website." -
Slashback: ClonesMAX, Animation, Dislaimers
Slashback with a reader review of the IMAX version of Star Wars Episode Two,the continuing courtship of AIM and ICQ, episode 408 of Futurama, and more, including How to go around the world without going anywhere at all. Read on below!Give me IV any old day. Rupert writes with a review of the newly IMAX-ified Episode II of the Star Wars saga:
"Since it was my wife's birthday today, last night I took her to see Star Wars: Episode II: Attack of the Clones: IMAX edition. Notwithstanding the overuse of colons, this is a movie worth seeing, even if you think you already saw the movie.
If you haven't already seen AotC, you no doubt have your reasons, and there isn't anything in this edition to make you change your mind. Likewise, the plot still has gaping holes and Anakin is still moody, so if those were enough to make you hate this movie, you won't want to see it again. The action sequences gain little from the new presentation, as objects move too fast across the large screen to follow.
On the other hand, if you want to see the pores in Natalie Portman's skin, or the individual hairs in Christopher Lee's beard, this is the movie you've been waiting for. I suspect that some time was spent re-rendering the digital characters. Yoda, Wattoo and Jex Dexter stood out in close up, looking more real than the human actors.
Some scenes were cut from this edition. Some I didn't miss, such as Ani and Amidala frolicking in the meadow with the giant bed bugs. Others, such as almost all the scenes in Palpatine's office, and many of the Jedi Council made it even harder to follow what was going on.
You might be wondering where you can see the movie."
Always cut with the Groenig. ari_j writes "It looks like Fox is giving us a new season of Futurama. From the page, "Season Premiere Sunday, Nov. 10th at 7PM/6C". Sure enough, my local Fox affiliate is carrying it as stated. From tv.yahoo.com: '"Crimes of the Hot", Episode #408.
Al Gore's head holds an emergency summit in Kyoto, Japan, to deal with global warming caused by robot emissions.'"This does not look good on a resume. nautical9 writes "As a follow up to Henrick Schon's dismissal from Bell Labs last month for falsifying data, many of his former co-authors are retracting their articles from the AAAS's prestigious Science magazine. It's apparently the largest retraction for the journal ever. Bell labs is also pulling six different patent applications of his. Here's the Wired article."
Is this the basket you ordered for all your eggs? With regard to the AOL / ICQ integration CowboyNeal mentioned the other day, nxtw writes "At this moment, ICQ users can send messages to AIM users, but AIM users cannot send messages to ICQ users or be seen on your buddy list. However, AIM automatically postpends any screenname or group consisting of all numbers with -ICQ when added to your buddy list. (This applies to the beta AIM 5.1.3009 client.)"
They're in Australia, of course they have flying dreams. VileScum writes "Back in May a reader posted this story of an Australian Guy who built a 747 Sim in his garage. As reported in the Sydney Morning Hearld The builder and a group of his friends are now doing a round the world sim flight for charity. The full story can be found here. The details of the actual flight can be found here."
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Spafford On Infrastructure Risks
nealmcb writes "In a major report from the AAAS, Eugene Spafford, director of CERIAS, summarizes the many risks to our information infrastructure (viruses, bugs, single points of failure, etc.), their causes (explosive growth, primacy of time-to-market over quality, lack of support for basic information security research, etc.), and the negative effects of the DMCA, CBDTPA, and other corporate maneuvers." -
Spafford On Infrastructure Risks
nealmcb writes "In a major report from the AAAS, Eugene Spafford, director of CERIAS, summarizes the many risks to our information infrastructure (viruses, bugs, single points of failure, etc.), their causes (explosive growth, primacy of time-to-market over quality, lack of support for basic information security research, etc.), and the negative effects of the DMCA, CBDTPA, and other corporate maneuvers." -
Spafford On Infrastructure Risks
nealmcb writes "In a major report from the AAAS, Eugene Spafford, director of CERIAS, summarizes the many risks to our information infrastructure (viruses, bugs, single points of failure, etc.), their causes (explosive growth, primacy of time-to-market over quality, lack of support for basic information security research, etc.), and the negative effects of the DMCA, CBDTPA, and other corporate maneuvers." -
Humans Will Sail To The Stars
oddsheep points to an "article on BBC news from the AAAS Expo in Boston about how researchers are discussing spreading the human race across the galaxy in solar sailing ships. Not a new idea of course but the social implications discussed are great: what the hell do the volunteer colonists (and their descendants) do for the hundreds of years it would take to get anywhere? Cue "Are we nearly there yet?" from the back seats ad infinitum and the longest game of 'I Spy' in history..." -
Feature: WH Panel Calls for Crypto Export Reform
Kathleen Ellis, editor of the Privacy News Portal, has written an excellent feature about how The President's Export Council Subcommittee on Encryption (PECSENC) has recommended dropping almost all export controls on strong crypto, and why it is unlikely that this group's recommendations will be acted on in any meaningful way. (More below)White House Subcommittee Endorses Crypto Reform.
Will Someone Please Listen?
By Kathleen EllisAnother shot was fired in one of the longest-lasting and most contentious battles regarding Internet policy last Wednesday, when a White House advisory subcommittee announced it has recommended that the Clinton Administration all but reverse its restrictive stance on the export of encryption products.
The President's Export Council Subcommittee on Encryption (PECSENC) was formed earlier this year by the White House to provide guidance in the U.S. Government's development of encryption policy, which has been the subject of heated debate. As many Slashdot readers already know, the government has insisted for years that liberalizing encryption export could cause serious problems for national security by giving terrorists and criminals access to the technology. Of course, net activists and industry folk assert that the right to privacy supercedes the wishes of any bureaucrat, and that terrorists and criminals can just as easily get their crypto from any other country that does not restrict cryptographic exports.
Critics of the Administration's policy had expected to gain little support through the subcommittee's recommendations. William Crowell, the subcommittee's chairman, is currently President and CEO of Cylink Corporation, an internet security firm, but previously served as Deputy Director for the National Security Agency. Several committee members also had ties to law enforcement or other government agencies; Stewart Baker, an attorney with the Washington-based Steptoe & Johnson, is former general counsel to the NSA and is a vocal opponent of loosening restrictions on encryption. Steve Walker is former president of Trusted Information Systems (now owned by Network Associates), a leading producer of key escrowed encryption products, which the FBI has lobbied to make mandatory even for domestic use.
Despite these ties, however, the subcommittee cited a need for the U.S. government to "recognize market realities" and reverse its course on encryption policy. Among its recommendations:
- License-Free Zones: Recognizing that the European Union is planning to drop all cryptographic export rules between member countries, the US should likewise identify a list of countries which do not pose any major terrorist threat, and allow encryption export (hardware and software products) without a license.
- On-Line Merchants: On-line merchants based in other countries will be added to the list of business types permitted to have encryption products exported to them from the US. Banks and a limited number of other financial institutions currently enjoy this license exception.
- Mass-market hardware and software: Mass-market products which utilize up to 128-bit key length triple DES will enjoy license exception. "The US government should recognize the difficulty of controlling mass-market products once they are allowed to be exported to even limited sectors".
The subcommittee also suggests eliminating cumbersome reporting requirements for manufacturers of encryption products, as well as removal of source code, cryptographic Application Programming Interfaces and devices such as encrypting routers from the list of restricted technologies.
So cypherpunks across the nation will soon be free to export their code at will? Subcommittee chairman William Crowell is hesitant to say yes. "The Administration will have its own ideas about which of these recommendations are implementable. Vice President Gore has said that the administration would consider additional liberalization over what they announced last year, so it was important to get these recommendations to the table while they were thinking about it". He expects that the administration will make further changes to its export policy based on the recommendations sometime in September.
There are other signs of change on the horizon regarding the government's attitude toward encryption. The successor to the current Data Encryption Standard algorithm, which will be used by the U.S. Government for a multitude of purposes, will be chosen by the National Institute of Standards and Technology with the next few months. Four out of the five Advanced Encryption Standard finalists were developed, at least in part, by cryptographers based overseas or holding foreign citizenships. The fact that such decisions could be made by NIST requires the acknowledgement, at least on some level, that good encryption can be produced in countries not affected by U.S. export law, and hence, can be made available around the world.
However, one prominent activist is still skeptical about the potential effect this announcement may actually have on U.S. policy. "This doesn't change policy, this is just yet another group that has come forward and said 'the U.S. policy is abysmal, it needs to be scrapped'" says David Banisar, Deputy Director of Privacy International, and co-author of "The Electronic Privacy Papers". "Many distinguished groups in the past have made similar recommendations...the Clinton Administration has thus far rejected any attempts to dramatically reform export control laws".
Banisar likened the potential influence of the PECSENC recommendations to those of a report published by the National Research Council in 1996. Much more conservative than the PECSENC subcommittee's suggestions, "Cryptography's Role In Securing the Information Society" was written by a committee comprised of government officials, representatives from the computing industry, and academics. The NRC committee's recommendation that 56-bit DES encryption took two years for the Bureau of Export Administration to implement, and many of the other valuable points in the report have never been implemented. The NRC report suggested that U.S. policy should take into account the "nonconfidentiality uses" encryption has to offer. U.S. policy still does not support the use of encryption for the purposes of authentication, which the committee identified as an "important crime-fighting measure". Indeed, one would think that the F.B.I. and the Department of Commerce would hasten to encourage the use of such technologies.
Banisar also expressed concerns about the provisions favoring online merchants. "The e-commerce exports have already been promised to online merchants...they will get what they want, which helps the Clinton Administration divide and conquer their opposition". Banisar stated that civil libertarians lost a powerful lobbying ally when banks were granted the same licensing exemptions now promised to entrepreneurs online. "When a wealthier group gets what they want, they stop fighting, and the everyday users get screwed."
It also seems that the recommendations do not go far enough to help the people who need encryption technology most. Barbara Simons is President of the Association for Computing Machinery and one of the members of the PECSENC committee. "It appears that the recommendations don't address the needs of people working for human rights in countries with repressive regimes," she says.
The human rights issue is a valid one within the debate on U.S. encryption policy. The American Association for the Advancement of Science's Cryptography, Scientific Freedom, and Human Rights program trains human rights workers to use encryption technology in countries like Guatemala and China, where oppressive governments have a way of making insurrectionists disappear. A letter from AAAS to the House or Representatives Committee on International relations states that "human rights activists are killed, tortured, disappeared and jailed for trying to expose horrendous abuses...[they] use encryption to protect themselves, the victims and eyewitnesses they are interviewing, and human rights colleagues around the world when they communicate sensitive information on grave abuses of human rights".
It would be wise and compassionate for the Clinton Administration to authorize a new class of license exceptions for human rights workers travelling into countries that don't fall under the "favored nations" exemptions for encryption exports. If national security were really a concern in these cases, they could add strict guidelines describing who the software could legally be distributed to within those countries. Unfortunately, PECSENC seems to have overlooked this important issue.
Despite these shortcomings, there are some definite gains to be made by following PECSENC's recommendations. Net activists will be keeping their fingers crossed when the White House reviews them next month. Progress has been far too slow in coming, and if there's ever been a time for our government to start making some positive decisions, this certainly is it.