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Yes, its a long-running tradition that the awards lag by at least part of a year (2003 in March 2004, 2002 in October 2003, etc). You can verify this with this database -- the tradition of awards being physically handed out in the year after the citation has been standard practice since at least JFK.

Yes, its a long-running tradition that the awards lag by at least part of a year (2003 in March 2004, 2002 in October 2003, etc). You can verify this with this database -- the tradition of awards being physically handed out in the year after the citation has been standard practice since at least JFK.

... the 2004 medals of science. Why do the 2004 medals get announced by the President in November 2005, and presented in 2006? Is this a tradition, or a reflection of current priorities...?

Here's another one: Money Talks.

The NSF's budget has increased every year during the Bush administration. From 2001-2003, for example, the NSF granted more money to more researchers every year. Last year's budget proposed by Bush, according to the ACS included similar increases:

The FY05 administration request for NSF is $5.7 billion, a 3-percent increase or $167 million over the FY04 budget.....a 4.7-percent increase for the NSF Research & Related Activities account. .....The biggest increase in NSF's FY05 budget goes to its Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction account, which receives a 37.6-percent increase, bringing its funding level to $213.2 million in 2004.
The FY05 NSF increases would bring the average annual research grant award size to approximately $142,000, up $3,000 over FY04. Average annual grant duration would continue to be 3 years.

Oh yeah, and the NIH budget doubled[pdf] from 1999 to 2003. For several of those years, a man named George W. Bush was president.

A more detailed, accurate version of this story can be found at the national science foundation I saw this yesterday and thought of posting to slashdot, but it didn't seem nerdy/techno-related. Ah well.

The questions were mostly just true/false; the ones that weren't were things like, "The amount of time it takes the earth to go around the sun is (a) a month, (b) a day, (c) a year". I'm unsure how the questions are particularly misleading or deceptive. Hell, I took the test myself when I found it (I can't for the life of me remember where it is now, but I first saw it with the questions separated), and I didn't miss any. So we're left with poor methodology. Are there particular known flaws in the design? I have little experience with survey design, so perhaps you can help me. What are the flaws, and why would they produce these particular effects?

When I see something like this, or like that NSF survey of public understanding of science and technology, which contains some howlers (more than half of Americans--and Europeans!--think that lasers work by focusing sound waves, and more than half of Americans think that early humans lived alongside dinosaurs)... I can't help but be confused. I know this stuff; why don't most people? Any explanation along the lines of, "well, I'm a brilliant ubermensch, of course!" is ridiculous; what are the odds of that?

So, I'm confused. How do people never bother to learn to read, or to do math? How is it that these things are considered so unimportant? How did I end up valuing such different things?

When I see something like this, or like that NSF survey of public understanding of science and technology, which contains some howlers (more than half of Americans--and Europeans!--think that lasers work by focusing sound waves, and more than half of Americans think that early humans lived alongside dinosaurs)... I can't help but be confused. I know this stuff; why don't most people? Any explanation along the lines of, "well, I'm a brilliant ubermensch, of course!" is ridiculous; what are the odds of that?

So, I'm confused. How do people never bother to learn to read, or to do math? How is it that these things are considered so unimportant? How did I end up valuing such different things?

Actually, this could have some bearings upon something else: the SBIR/STTR programs put together by the National Science Foundation. IIRC, when granted, you own the rights to the technology whilst dealing with the gov't and keep the product when you're finished [as does the gov't]. The gov't creates a wish list of products, you follow the guidelines you've submitted, and wait to find out if you have won the grant [or not].

Grants, trademarks, etc. belong to the company performing the work but the gov't is granted permanent, free use.

Also, as a startup, you'd have your first product ready for market when you complete phase III. Some of the descriptions (although a bit lacking) attempt to state a civilian purpose for the product to encourage interest in the program. The SBIR is business-oriented and STTR is generally university|scholarly. There are enough states which do not do well in the SBIR that will go apesh%t to help you write your grant proposals to bring the money into that region.

There are also companies which will write your proposal and take a cut if|when you acquire the grant.

Oops-- wrong marquette.

but here is a NSF award listing for them
http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardN umber=0452503

...is that Mitt has bogus information. The US graduated 25,258 science and engineering PhDs in 2003 and has been generating comparable numbers for over a decade. 25,258 > 24,900. If you just restrict yourself to science PhDs, the number is still ~20,000 PhDs per year in the US.

See for yourself: http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/nsf05300/dst.htm

The NSF does studies on scientific literacy. It's pretty bad, but the Europeans aren't much different.

Some examples: More than half of Americans think that humans and dinosaurs existed at the same time, that lasers work by focusing sound waves, or that electrons are larger than atoms. (These were posed as true-false questions. The American people would have done better if they'd flipped coins.)

The NSF does studies on scientific literacy. It's pretty bad, but the Europeans aren't much different.

Some examples: More than half of Americans think that humans and dinosaurs existed at the same time, that lasers work by focusing sound waves, or that electrons are larger than atoms. (These were posed as true-false questions. The American people would have done better if they'd flipped coins.)

year over year NSF funding goes UP not down. Now you could argue a 1% increase is'nt much, but if the U.S. were so anti-science there would'nt be an NSF.

http://www.nsf.gov/about/congress/

If you look closely at the second picture that you linekd to, http://www.cyberdyne.jp/Image/sakurai_double.JPG - you can see two things.

A) The demo was held at the World Expo 2005 in Aichi, Japan. All the robots that were demoed there were functional to various degrees (some are commercially available, some are lab prototypes, but they all were functional - no funky mockups). I know this because I was there (http://erinandterencetravels.blogspot.com/2005/09 /back-in-tokyo.html) and I recognize exactly where in the EXPO that would be demoed at. That was demoed at the Robot Station, in the kid's zone.

B) The sticker on the Endoskeleton's thigh is for NEDO - New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (http://www.nedo.go.jp/english/). This is Japan's largest public R&D management organization. They are the equivalent of the NSF (http://www.nsf.gov/) in the US of A. Hardly the guys to sponsor amateur hacks.

• Global competition for S&E talent is intensifying, such that the United States may not be able to rely on the international S&E labor market to fill unmet skill needs;
• The number of native-born S&E graduates entering the workforce is likely to decline unless the Nation intervenes to improve success in educating S&E students from all demographic groups, especially those underrepresented in S&E careers.

By the way, the NSF seems to think he's got something right. The National Science Board documents the problems:
http://www.nsf.gov/nsb/documents/2003/nsb0369/nsb0 369.pdf

and the NSF is tossing money in hopes of solutions:
http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2005/nsf05519/nsf05519.htm

By the way, the NSF seems to think he's got something right. The National Science Board documents the problems:
http://www.nsf.gov/nsb/documents/2003/nsb0369/nsb0 369.pdf

and the NSF is tossing money in hopes of solutions:
http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2005/nsf05519/nsf05519.htm

I think all the scientists at the NIH and the NSF would beg to differ.

But even if they are, care to explain what the "oh, I get it; people really aren't that ignorant" explanation is for the NSF results? Or that a third of Americans don't know that light travels faster than sound? Or that more than half think that lasers work by focusing sound?

Historically, political polling tends to be accurate to within a few points. How, then, are you accusing the NSF survey of massive incompetence? Aside from "man, those answers are scare", that is.

--grendel drago

Half the population thinks that "Ordinary tomatoes do not contain genes, while genetically modified tomatoes do.".

I despair when I think of the level of education of my countrymen.

--grendel drago

The NSF does studies on public understanding of science. For instance, fifty-six percent of Americans and Canadians said that "Ordinary tomatoes do not contain genes, while genetically modified tomatoes do.". But hey, sixty percent of Europeans surveyed thought so too.

Oh, heck, just see this table for the realization that more than half of Americans do not know that a year is the time it takes the Earth to go once around the sun. They're about fifty-fifty on "early humans weren't around at the same time as dinosaurs".

--grendel drago

The NSF does studies on public understanding of science. For instance, fifty-six percent of Americans and Canadians said that "Ordinary tomatoes do not contain genes, while genetically modified tomatoes do.". But hey, sixty percent of Europeans surveyed thought so too.

Oh, heck, just see this table for the realization that more than half of Americans do not know that a year is the time it takes the Earth to go once around the sun. They're about fifty-fifty on "early humans weren't around at the same time as dinosaurs".

--grendel drago

The NSF does studies on public understanding of science. For instance, fifty-six percent of Americans and Canadians said that "Ordinary tomatoes do not contain genes, while genetically modified tomatoes do.". But hey, sixty percent of Europeans surveyed thought so too.

Oh, heck, just see this table for the realization that more than half of Americans do not know that a year is the time it takes the Earth to go once around the sun. They're about fifty-fifty on "early humans weren't around at the same time as dinosaurs".

--grendel drago

could you and I, not with fate, conspire
to break this sorry scheme of things entire
could we not shatter it to bits and then
remold it nearer to our heart's desire!

- The Internet Swansong

More seriously, this is just a PR news item for a piddly little grant of $200K. MIT researchers routinely engage in this kind of vaporware research including much-hyped off-their-bottoms position papers in tight community-knit workshops.
NSF routinely awards much larger grants greater than $500K and very often even more than $1 million on collaborative grants. None of them make news, but this one does because Dave Clark is soooooo good at PR. Of course, as the article says, the program managers refused to talk to this reporter because they knew what it was worth -- nothing!!
For more info, search for recent awards on http://www.nsf.gov/

How does this translate to most, many, majority, all or half?

Well...

Stars:
Accuracy of survey results is within +/-3.1% for overall measures for the poll.

Branches:
Individual poll questions have an error margin of 7%

Plants/Science:
The data came from a National Science Foundation survey from 2000. The survey methodology description below is from the 2001 version of the same survey. One assumes that the NSF can perform consistent scientific surveys...

Population Target: The target population of the 2001 survey was noninstitutionalized adults, age 18 or older, residing in the United States.
Sample: 2,000 completed interviews.
Variation: The coefficient of variation for a percentage estimate of 50 percent in the total population in 2001 was approximately 2.5 percent.

Investing Knowledge:
For results based on the total sample, it can be said with 95 percent confidence that the error attributable to sample and other random effects is plus or minus 4 percentage points...

Earth/Sun:
The source data was same NSF survey as the Plant/Science data, with the same sample and variance.

Aside from the indirectly quoted NSF survey, all of the error margins were published right on the same pages where you got the sample sizes. Don't you understand what they mean?

How ironic that you attempted to debunk surveys that measure knowledge.

How does this translate to most, many, majority, all or half?

Well...

Stars:
Accuracy of survey results is within +/-3.1% for overall measures for the poll.

Branches:
Individual poll questions have an error margin of 7%

Plants/Science:
The data came from a National Science Foundation survey from 2000. The survey methodology description below is from the 2001 version of the same survey. One assumes that the NSF can perform consistent scientific surveys...

Population Target: The target population of the 2001 survey was noninstitutionalized adults, age 18 or older, residing in the United States.
Sample: 2,000 completed interviews.
Variation: The coefficient of variation for a percentage estimate of 50 percent in the total population in 2001 was approximately 2.5 percent.

Investing Knowledge:
For results based on the total sample, it can be said with 95 percent confidence that the error attributable to sample and other random effects is plus or minus 4 percentage points...

Earth/Sun:
The source data was same NSF survey as the Plant/Science data, with the same sample and variance.

Aside from the indirectly quoted NSF survey, all of the error margins were published right on the same pages where you got the sample sizes. Don't you understand what they mean?

How ironic that you attempted to debunk surveys that measure knowledge.

Maybe we don't need 20 history BAs for every science degree in this country.

I don't remember hearing about one of these since I was younger - I suppose my focus has shifted since then :) It still excites me nonetheless.

Anyway, another dinosaur discovery related National Science Foundation article can be found here and contains a little more info and some better pictures.

The big bang theory gained more credibility today with some news released by the National Science Foundation and collaborated by a United States team called Maxima with astronomers from the University of Minnesota and the University of California, Berkeley.

The soundwaves that were found are an impression of quantum scale energy fluctuations carried to earth by cosmic microwave background radiation. Scientists were able to measure the waves by looking at cosmic microwave background (CMB). These early soundwaves are thought to have created super and giant clusters of galaxies with their travel. The soundwaves are actually contained in primordial plasma. They are effectively overtones or harmonics of the big bang explosion that is said to have created the universe.

These soundwaves are important because they show two things that are important for understanding our universe in addition to solidifying the big bang AKA inflationary thoery.

# First of note is that the study indicates that the universe is geometrically flat, not curved. # This study also gives credence to the thoery that most of the universe is composed of dark matter.

The discoveries were made by microwave detectors in Antartica, using baloons. The study involved only about 3 percent of the sky, and looked at temperature fluctuations of only 100-millionths of a degree celcius in the CMB.

From the article: Brent, who received a $100,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to develop Qualrus

According to Brent's departmental web page he intends to apply for an NSF award- there is a big difference between applying and getting those awards- those are very hard to get. His personal webpage makes no mention of NSF funding, and an search on the NSF award search site shows no such award. It does appear that there was an old $99,900 NSF award to the company Idea Works where he is president (same address as his home address, BTW), but that award lists someone else as the principal investigator and yet someone else as the former principal investigator, and seems to be for a kind-of related project on coding data. I'm not sure what the story is, but it is clear to me that at least some of the facts are wrong.

From the article: Brent, who received a $100,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to develop Qualrus

According to Brent's departmental web page he intends to apply for an NSF award- there is a big difference between applying and getting those awards- those are very hard to get. His personal webpage makes no mention of NSF funding, and an search on the NSF award search site shows no such award. It does appear that there was an old $99,900 NSF award to the company Idea Works where he is president (same address as his home address, BTW), but that award lists someone else as the principal investigator and yet someone else as the former principal investigator, and seems to be for a kind-of related project on coding data. I'm not sure what the story is, but it is clear to me that at least some of the facts are wrong.

NSF has a whole division for that...it's called the Division of Shared Cyberinfrastructure.

http://www.nsf.gov/div/index.jsp?div=SCI

I quote:

"The National Science Foundation (NSF), suffering its first budget cut in years, will operate at 1.9% below FY 04 spending levels. The Foundation is funded at $5.47 billion, $105 million below last year and $232 million below the FY 05 request.

The budget cut affects the two major NSF accounts: Research & Related Activities (R&RA) and Education and Human Resources (EHR). The R&RA Account, which funds NSF's core research directorates and programs, falls to $4,220.56, $30.8 million (0.7%) below FY 04 funding levels and $200.95 million below the FY 05 request level. Funding decisions by directorate and program will be left to the discretion of NSF, pending Congressional approval. The EHR Account drops $97.56 million, or 10.4%, below FY 04 spending levels to $841.4 million."

Yet no spending cuts* can make it through Congress, because both sides are weighed down by lobbyists who will paint any cuts* in the most drastic light possible to sway public opinion. Everyone wants to cut spending, but not on THEIR projects, which means nothing gets cut.

You're wrong. The National Science Foundation last year (FY2005) had an actual, honest-to-goodness cut of 1.7% relative to FY2004. Accounting for inflation, that's more like a 4-5% cut in real spending power.

As far as I can tell, the President has little commitment to real science (that is, the kind where you don't already know what the answer is that you're trying to find).

Virii is not the plural of virus:

linky
just in case you still don't believe.

NASA has not been fully funded. What GWB has been and is doing is cutting a number of other projects (ISS, hubble, X-33 (in fact, just about all X projects)), talked about adding some money, but doing nothing.

As to science on mars, jupiter, saturn, when do you think these projects were formed up? Last year? Sorry, these were done for the last decade. Basically, these are from poppa bush/clinton time frame.

Now, as doing comparisons, I do have heard of Clinton doing LSD (but I do not doubt it). I have seen a lot of evidence of GWB doing drugs (coke, pot, etc), and it was an open secret in dallas that he used to deal coke, the same way that Clinton got around. So be careful of what you push.

Eh?

I suspect that there might be some rather important things going on in some other agencies. Just a thought. I suppose it depends how one chooses to define 'important' and 'beneficial'.

http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardN umber=0328849

...a misconception that a lot of people have, which is that there's somehow a shortage of scientists. Sorry, just not true.

I truly wonder why you think it is a misconception. It's not some urban legend or "rumors on the internets." The National Science Board is worried about it (NYTimes article here). It's a serious problem that a lot of people (e.g., the US government) are working on.

In fact, as a science teacher, I see a lot of the opposite phenomenon: kids who really care about jazz, or photography, but whose parents are pushing them to do science or computers, because they think it'll be more likely to lead to a good job.

While I agree that pushing kids to do things they don't want to do is foolish, your observation is not evidence for or against any shortage of scientists.

Personally, I don't think pressure from parents or lame gimmicks will make for more scientists and engineers. It seems to be more of a cultural attitude, which requires some deeper, more long-term changes. Honestly, I think that you, as a science teacher, play a relatively large role in that. If you really think the need for more scientists and engineers is just a misconception, I urge you to read more about it, especially the National Science Board's latest report.

...a misconception that a lot of people have, which is that there's somehow a shortage of scientists. Sorry, just not true.

I truly wonder why you think it is a misconception. It's not some urban legend or "rumors on the internets." The National Science Board is worried about it (NYTimes article here). It's a serious problem that a lot of people (e.g., the US government) are working on.

In fact, as a science teacher, I see a lot of the opposite phenomenon: kids who really care about jazz, or photography, but whose parents are pushing them to do science or computers, because they think it'll be more likely to lead to a good job.

While I agree that pushing kids to do things they don't want to do is foolish, your observation is not evidence for or against any shortage of scientists.

Personally, I don't think pressure from parents or lame gimmicks will make for more scientists and engineers. It seems to be more of a cultural attitude, which requires some deeper, more long-term changes. Honestly, I think that you, as a science teacher, play a relatively large role in that. If you really think the need for more scientists and engineers is just a misconception, I urge you to read more about it, especially the National Science Board's latest report.

My graduate fellowship (in physics) requires me to spend two days a week working with the science classes at a local high school, and I can say from experience that gimmicky pedagogical tricks like those mentioned in the article aren't the way to get kids (except maybe very young children) interested in science. The stuff just comes off as incredibly lame, and physicists end up looking like bigger geeks than they already are.

The way to engage kids is simply to show them the physics at work. I've got kids making plasma in a microwave, measuring the temperature of the sun with a cup of water, studying paper airplane trajectories, making stereo speakers. Physics is interesting and it's ubiquitous, so there's always something kind of cool that the kids can relate to. The secret is to let them see what's happening, get their hands dirty, and most importantly, let them ask the questions.

Find interesting (but safe) project, put them in charge, and they're hooked.

1. In the sciences, at least, previous experience is very, very important. i know some people who posted here commented that its all about GRE scores and grades. i found this, personally, to be totally untrue. as i said before, im in the physical sciences, which may be a bit different. that said, the focus in my grad school is on _doing_ your own research and the admissions committee is therefore interested in what you can do.

2. In the science field, if you want a job as an academic at a US school (i.e. a prof) you will be best off coming from a US school. For masters study im not too sure, though. One thing to keep in mind is that more funding will be available to you in the US _if_ you are a US citizen (see below). Going abroad may cost you more.

3. I think you will have to be open to changing your routine and way of thinking. Industry is, generally speaking, organized and motivated very differently than school. I have found grad school to be much more challenging than industry (even though i was managing several people in the R+D dept. at the company i worked for) - the demands on your time are tougher (random, long hours) and the intellectual tasks are more difficult. Prepare to work hard! I would also reccommend talking to your signifcant other, if you have one. The change in schedule and drop in free time (no more 2-day weekends :) are things you will want to discuss with him/her. Finally, start reading to get in shape... you'll be reading lots.

4. No comment.

Also, you will want to look for external funding. This can help supplement your meager stipend or offset the cost of tuition (if you have to pay). Some places to look (in the US, for US citizens) for Comp. Sci funding are:

Good luck!

You're right about private information being irrelevant to educational statistics. A year or two ago I got a survey in the mail from the National Science Foundation for science and engineering graduates, probably not related to this DoE thing but sounds very similar. In addition to degree and institution info it had all kinds of intrusive questions*, all personalized and with no way to anonymize your response. I took one look at the thing and said no fuckin' way. I looked around the NSF site, and I think the survey was the National Survey of College Graduates (NSCG).

----
* Here are the survey variables from the website:
* Citizenship
* Country of birth
* Country of citizenship
* Degrees Held (for each degree held: field, level, when received)
* Date of birth
* Disability status
* Educational history
* Employment status (unemployed, part time, full time)
* Geographic place of employment
* Labor force status
* Marital status
* Number of children
* Occupation (current, past, second, salary)
* Primary work activity (e.g., teaching, basic research, etc.)
* Race/ethnicity
* Salary
* School enrollment status
* Sector of employment (academia, industry, government)
* Sex

The federal ban is basically federal government research dollars shouldn't go towards research into the non-approved stem cell lines. The National Science Foundation has a chart that shows how much federal money is spent in the US by year, compared with a study by AAAS on R&D funding by state. 2002 totals come in at $84.9 billion by federal and $88.3 billion by states, in 2002 dollars. So, money could very well come from the state levels of governments, where the states that approve of the process can push their own money towards their goals... One could argue that that is the preferred path, to reduce the dependence on federal government, but I digress.

The core issue for most people is "should the government fund projects that I am morally opposed to?" It's a tricky argument, one used for and against the National Endowment of the Arts for years... Whether its Maplethorpe (S&M photos), Ofili's Madonna (elephant dung on the Virgin Mary), or any other controvercial art, these are just personal expressions of speech ... while it may offend, noone is harmed at the end of the day.

But when it comes to embryonic research, there are people that believe that the fetus is viable from the moment of conception, and that the process of extracting the cells is in effect "killing" a potential human. For them, it ranks as an abortion. Whether or not you believe that a life is being taken, many religious people do, and thus they want the practice to stop.

I would also counter that we are arguing two slightly different points. We both agree that there are two tracks that are available for research, embryonic stem cells and adult stem cells. Your argument appears to be that the government should not abandon the embryonic path simply because a minority are opposed to it on (their) ethical grounds, that there are many sick people who can benefit from the results of this research. My argument is that the government should be pushing its resources towards adult stem cell research, given that both technologies are on equal footing with this one being free of any stigma, and at the end of the day they are benefitting just as many people.

Personally, I'm about 50% against / 50% for embryonic stem cell research, but 100% towards adult stem cell research. I'm discouraged (yet not surprised) that there are just as many discoveries being made every day in adult stem cells (with more successes), yet the uninformed public only hears that embryonic stem cells are the only method.

I agree that the government should stop legislating moral statements, but then the constitutionalist in me also thinks that the government has no business putting any limits on first amdendment activity anywhere... This does not mean Freedom From Religion, that means Freedom Of Religion (like it reads), that the government needs to stop telling people that they cannot bring their symbols into schools and work, that the schools need to teach an objectively balanced education (as opposed to atheist) when it comes to religion. But that's an issue for another day.

Granted, their analysis techniques will probably be more than say, a perl script parsing the channel logs, but I mean, who is looking at these grants and deciding this is a valid spenditure of funds?

I can think of at least a dozen people off the top of my head that could write something similar within a couple of days, without spending more than a few bucks in Starbucks coffee and Twix candy bars...

I'm not saying you shouldn't have the TITLE tag for images, but the ALT text *should* popup instead if there is no TITLE tag. Only yesterday I saw a good example of this here. Those images could do with something describing them - the ALT text does, but nothing else. Ought the webmaster to have used TITLE or a caption on the page? I guess so. Did they? No. And as it happens, the ALT text is fine both for screenreaders and a description caption for me.

If all goes well this Austral Summer, IceCube will deploy four "strings," each with 60 light sensors attached, at a depth of about 2 km. Subsequent years will deploy more sensors until a total of 4800 is reached, making the cubic-kilometer sized detector one of the largest on Earth.

IceCube's quarry is primarily neutrinos of extraterrestrial origin. For the uninitiated, neutrinos are extremely elusive subatomic particles produced by high energy interactions. Candidate sources include the supermassive black holes at the heart of so-called "Active Galactic Nuclei", dark matter, and the mysterious Gamma Ray Bursts.

A recent article has more information.
See also a previous Slashdot post about IceCube's predecessor, AMANDA.
Wikipedia has this introduction to neutrinos.

Even compared to the tree. Sugarcane grows densely to several meters tall, much thicker than the widely-spaced trees several times taller. Again, actual sequestration stats will help us distinguish. My initial research shows that pure "species mass per acre" measures are misleading:
" The team discovered that the acres which were interplanted with Albizia trees (Albizia falcataria) were able to sequester more carbon than areas where eucalyptus trees were planted alone. The researchers believe that this is due to the nitrogen-fixing qualities of the Albizia trees."

Interestingly, that research was conducted on "a former sugar cane farm" in Hawaii. So the numbers we seek might lie just a few clicks away.

Note: Images are hosted through nyud.net to avoid funding spam

A cloud filled with simple molecules of sugar has been found 26,000 light-years away from us, near the middle of our Milky Way Galaxy. The 8-atom sugar molecules exist in a gas cloud named Sagittarius B2 at a temperature of only 8 degrees above absolute zero. Too far and too cold to bake your next cake! However, even if chemistry reactions on Earth and in this frigid sugar cloud are very different, astronomers think this "discovery suggests how the molecular building blocks necessary for the creation of life could first form in interstellar space." I'm not qualified to say if their claims are funded, but don't hesitate to tell me if they're right or wrong.

Please read the original article for more astronomical details or just enjoy the illustrations below describing how prebiotic chemistry -- the formation of the molecular building blocks necessary for the creation of life -- occurs in interstellar clouds.

The above acronyms in the credits for the illustrations refer respectively to the National Radio Astronomy Observatory , the Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) .

Sources: SpaceRef.com, September 20, 2004; and various websites