Quick Update - Gas Prices

Well, it has happened even faster than I predicted. It only took 5 days for gas to go from $2.65 to the first station I saw at $2.50 per gallon. This must be the result of the Middle East suddenly being in such a grand, peaceful state, with no more fears or pressures on the world oil supply, and our sudden therapy that has gotten the U.S. over its addiction to oil. China and India are also being good stewards of the environment and have cut their demands and use of oil.

I am expecting prices to balance out around this level for the next few weeks, and even go lower heading up to the election. Let's see if that is what happens. And, we'll see if prices just happen to increase after the election. I can't possibly imagine prices will increase significantly, if at all, even if a major event were to occur in the Mideast before the election. Again, time will tell...

ADDENDUM:
Well, prices are down under $2.50, at least in my district where a Republican incumbent, Mark Kirk, has a competitive race with Dan Seals, a Democratic challenger. Now, I want to research something, and anyone who reads this please feel free to chime in. As a scientist, I can't help but to look for and notice patterns. In other congressional districts around the Illinois 10th, where there really aren't major challenges, gas prices are over 30 cents higher than in the 10th district.

I really want to know why this is, because it has NEVER been like that before! Prices are always within 10 cents of each other as long as I have lived here. I would be fascinated to know what the average price is in noncompetitive districts versus in competitive Republican districts around the country. And, the Kirk campaign sends out the occasional email campaign update. One was sent out this morning, and the only topic was his gushing over the fact that within the last 3 weeks gas prices are 50 cents cheaper, meaning things are fine and dandy under Republican leadership. I find this almost laughable, when literally across the street in the 9th district (a safe Democratic district) prices are still over $2.80. It is hard to conclude anything other than something's up! If this is the case, does anyone know the legalities of price fixing in specific areas? All I can say is Go Dan!!

Continuing Decline of Arctic Ice

Just an update, as two new NASA studies show clear and undeniable evidence of rapid melting of winter ice. Since December of 2004, every single month has shown new record declines in the ice cap. And to quantify it better, melting is occuring at an annual rate 10 to 15 times faster than in the past. We (i.e. the U.S.) will continue to do nothing constructive as far as combating global climate change for at least two more years with the Bush administration, but voters had better wake up some day and move environmental issues up the ladder of priorities. Do we not at least owe our kids a better world than what we inherited, or shall we leave them with a plethora of problems that will occur if the climate continues on the path that is clearly laid out before us? Let's consider this question seriously, shall we.

Let's Collect Some Data on Gas Prices, Shall We?

Here around Chicago something seemingly extraordinary is happening. Gas prices have been coming down steadily and even dramatically. I paid $2.65 today, a price I cannot even remember seeing for a long time. Maybe 2-3 weeks ago it was still over $3 per gallon.

I have to wonder about this. Yes, it is post-Labor Day, but demand has not fallen that much. Worldwide demand certainly is only increasing. The violence in the Middle East, at least in Iraq, has gotten worse, and tensions with Iran have increased, not improved. Al Qaeda just today warned of attacks in the Mid-East and against Israel. The price of a barrel of crude is still in the high $60s. These are all the reasons big oil uses time and time again to justify the rise of oil prices over the past two years. So why the significant drops in price? Is Big Oil simply so satisified with their record and mind-numbing profits that they are being nice to us?

Oh, wait, there may be another reason. Who is Big Oil's best friend, outside of the administration? A Republican in the House of Representatives. And I almost forgot, the Labor Day weekend is the unofficial start of the election season's final push, where voters begin to actually pay attention to all the rhetoric and character assassination that is modern American politics. With the GOP in legitimate trouble, with a real possibility of losing the House, I wonder if Big Oil is making the assist...I predict that oil prices will drop to about the $2.50 range on average, several weeks before the election, and remain there. Voters will notice the positive effect on their pocketbooks. The GOP desperately needs a pocketbook issue boost to offset the Iraq mess, and gain some distance from the president's dismal approval rating. So, let's just keep track of oil prices. Let's see if I am wrong. Let's see if there is a stabilizing and extended time interval for lower prices. And then let's see what happens a week or two after the election. Will prices begin a steady ascent back up to the $3 level before or after the election? Time will tell, but these will, in my mind, be interesting and important questions to note and keep track of.

Now this is a Legacy to Leave Behind....

Here's to you, Grandma, as we remember your life and the incredible legacy you and Grandpa have left behind. Mary Vondracek lived to the age of 97, and here is what she and Frank Vondracek, who passed away in 1983 and in his prime was a world class football (he would roll in his grave if I called it soccer!) player for Czechoslovakia, were all about: 7 kids, 24 grandkids, 33 great grandkids, and 3 great-great grandkids. Now that is a legacy worth noting, and all of us will always love you both until we join you...and thank you...

Administration Surveillance Policy Fails First Legal Test

King Bush's, I mean President Bush's, secret and warrantless surveillance program has been ruled unconstitutional by a U.S. District Court. In my humble opinion, this is only a good thing as it will hopefully hold when the appeals are made by the administration. Ultimately, this will make it to the Supreme Court, where this decision may in fact be overturned now that it is stacked with a majority on the right, but time will tell. The District Court ruled a warrantless program violates free speech and privacy rights, which I realize will be attacked, but in my mind it is separation of powers that is most relevant.

A majority of Americans don't have a problem with wire-tapping suspected terrorists or their acquaintances, regardless if they are in or out of the country. The trouble is, just as the administration now has a doctrine of unilateral, first-strike, pre-emptive war (how has that turned out so far? Do you feel like the world is a safer place at the moment?), it has developed a similar view of its place in our government. Certainly in wartime the executive has stretched the boundaries stated in the Constitution in the name of national security, but in the end the reason for three branches is basic oversight and checks/balances. No one argues that there are national security concerns. No one argues that surveillance needs to be secret, because we don't want the bad guys to know when they are being tapped. But I think most will sleep better at night when there is a system in place where someone, such as the secret court already allowed under the 1978 FISA law, keeping an eye on the scope of the program. A Republican Congress has already come out and said it will work with the administration to modify FISA. What is the administration's issue at this point? What Americans want is simply a system for someone else to ensure there is a check to make sure it is only suspected terrorists and any associates within that network who are being monitored ( and keep that as secret as you want), and that flagrant abuses of executive power are not taking place on the general American public.

Research Showing Reading Gives Brain a Workout

Results of some recent research needs to be made available to parents, educators, and children everywhere: Reading gives the brain a more thorough workout than previously believed, and needs to remain a primary component of every classroom. This research comes at a critical time, as results of a landmark literacy study show that from 1992 to 2003, the overall illiteracy rates have increased (a summary of the studies in 1992 and the repeated study in 2003 is in the September, 2006, Scientific American, page 32). It is now estimated that by the standards of an information economy, about one-third of all American adults is functionally illiterate, rating as either "below basic" (12%) or "basic" (22%) skills.

Brain imaging technology shows that areas of the brain become active when reading that, up to now, were not known to be active. For instance, an example of reading the word 'cinnamon', activates olfactory portions of the brain (thanks to the Eides for posting this). Reading about 'kicking' activates that area of the brain responsible for leg motion, and reading about 'picking' activates the portion used for hand movements. This involvement of multiple areas of the brain during reading contributes, I would imagine, to the sense a reader gets of not being able to put a good book down because he/she is literally sensing what is happening...there is the mental imaging and reactions taking place in the brain similar to if the reader were actually doing what was being presented in print. As the Eides point out, it does not require virtual imaging experiences to activate the brain so fully, just a good book. These findings support the notion that reading is a tremendous way of learning because of such a dramatic response by the brain when processing the written word.

As for the illiteracy rates, some of this is almost certainly due to larger numbers of immigrants, meaning a larger number and percentage of immigrant children in schools in 2003 compared to 1992, as well as a continuously increasing number of elderly Americans. Age is known to contribute to a decline in literacy skills and abilities. My own experience in schools over the last decade causes me to suggest that kids do spend more time today with video games and other forms of entertainment that do not require any literacy skills than ten years ago, and therefore read less. But to say one in three adults will struggle with literacy in the workplace is still a staggering number. We need to make good use of this type of research to try and convince students and workers that reading is worth the effort and still needs to be a part of one's daily routine throughout life.

If I were Education King for a day

If there is one good thing to No Child Left Behind, it is the notion that there should be a well-qualified teacher in every classroom. Now, what "well-qualified" means, exactly, has been and continues to be debated, but it does sound like a pretty basic component of a good education system to have professionals working with kids who have been trained in their subject areas as well as trained to work with kids in a particular age group. The trouble is, there is evidence that suggests neither is taking place often enough.

For instance, something like a third of all new teachers leave the profession within the first three years of their teaching careers (and half leave after only four years). This begs for several questions to be asked, starting with: If new teachers were properly prepared for what they would be doing with kids in a classroom, would we expect such a large percentage of them to quit the profession in such a short period of time? A second question is: Would such a large percentage of new teachers quit if they had good support in the schools in which they went to work? In my mind, the answer to these questions probably not.

Ever since I went through a certification program twelve years ago, I often think back to those classes and try to figure out what I learned and how much I took awa from those courses, and to this day I can't think of many experiences that were useful to the reality I faced in an inner-city Chicago high school, where I began teaching. And I know for a fact I am not alone in having a severe disconnect between teacher training in college and reality in difficult schools. If I were Education King for a day, I would first get involved with reforming education programs in teaching colleges around the country. One example of reform would be to require professors and instructors who teach teachers how to teach to spend X weeks observing not top suburban schools, but some of the tougher schools in the area. Then, their classes would focus not on psychological theory, but rather the realities of actual classrooms and real problems and issues teachers face consistently, from day to day. Of all my professors I had in teaching certification classes, not a single one had ever taught high school, and I cannot remember any one professor who had spent more than a few days observing high school classes. Many of the courses focused on 'one size fits all' strategies and methodologies. I learned within the first two weeks of student teaching that most of what was taught to me was irrelevant, and that classroom teaching relies on figuring out, quickly, how to use multiple strategies simultaneously because of the range of ability and discipline from one student to the next. Teachers need to be prepared for the worst case scenarios in schools, and not ideal world models that do not exist in most places.

The next thing I would do as Education King would be to focus on teacher mastery of the subjects they are to teach. For instance, science teachers should have at least a semester's worth of actual science research under their belts, so they get a clear understanding of what science really is and how it really is done in a lab, and not just remembering a series of facts. Math teachers should have to take applied math courses in order to be able to explain to students why math is important in and relevant to modern life, so kids don't leave feeling like they simply are being forced to memorize a methodology to solving some type of problem, and then become lost when a slightly different problem (dealing with the same material) comes along. And math teachers should be trained to do simple experiments/hands-on activities where students collect data and use those data in solving a certain set of problems, again to make the math real and relevant.

I am using science and math for the moment largely because I teach science and there are some very good math related posts on Eideneuroloearning Blog. First, they note some reasons why children have difficulties learning math in the first place. A second gets into a comparison between how math is taught in China versus the United States, and also exam results taken by teachers. American teachers did far worse than their Chinese counterparts.

Often a goal of schools is to improve curriculum. Often, however, instruction is forgotten or takes a back seat to curriculum development. Instruction and preparedness is so important, though, that this needs to be the focus, especially in schools that are having academic troubles. One may have a worldclass curriculum, but if the teacher is terrible, it won't matter. Even if resources are limited and the curriculum is not demanding, a good teacher, with strong subject knowledge and preparation, can still work wonders in that situation. And if a teacher cannot answer the question "Why are we studying this?", chances are learning will suffer. There is much to be done to reform and improve education across all age groups and in all schools, and if teachers are not prepared our kids will continue to suffer the consequences. Much of that reform will not happen until we get serious about better teacher training from day 1 in the teacher colleges and universities. Contrary to much popular belief, teaching is far from an easy ob and profession; again, if it is so easy, we shouldn't be losing so many new teachers so quickly at the start of their careers.

Television Marketing of Food Affecting Children's Understanding of Health

A recently published study (the journal Speech Communication) by U. of Illinois communication professor Kristen Harrison caught my eye. She studied children's understanding of what foods would help make them healthy (and not just slim and trim), and the role television marketing plays in that understanding. Children's diets and health have made banner headlines in teh past coupe of years, as child obesity has been increasing steadily over the past decade, and studies such as this should help parents and educators decide on good strategies to get a child's awareness and healthy eating habits established.

The study found that television has largely stopped touting foods that are rich in nutrients, and rather focus on what ingredients a product does not have, such as fat or carbohydrates. Many children as well as parents have begun to think that, because of the emphasis on obesity, a skinny kid is equated to a healthy kid, when in fact some skinny kids may actually be malnourished. As is typical, a balance is needed and the study shows that there are severe misunderstandings in actual nutritional value of foods among many children. What's more, Harrison found correlations between a child's weight and their understanding (or lack thereof) of nutrition. For example, heavy kids who watch a lot of TV (her study included a panel of 134 1st-3rd graders, who averaged 28 hours of television viewing per week) are more likely to to think Diet Coke is healthier than orange juice, because I suspect, they have been exposed to diets by the adults in their lives. They also think fat-free ice cream is healthier than cottage cheese. Harrison also discovered that in nutritional reasoning, where children were interviewed and had to explain their answers, the more TV the children watched, the worse their nutritional reasoning. One example is the kid who says a particular food is not healthy because "his sister hates it," rather than any legitimate reason such as it is a fatty food or because parents said it was not healthy.

In the end, this study shows that parents need to be the main line of defense when it comes to a child's health. Limiting television viewing and the number of commercials children watch should help according to these results, and paying attention to pediatricians and public service announcements about what a truly healthy diet looks like is essential. Schools do need to pay attention to what is served in cafeterias, and this is happening at an accelerated rate; many schools in my area are replacing soda machines with juice and other healther drinks, and healthier snacks have begun to appear in vending machines in a number of schools, replacing potato chips and some candy bars. These are steps in the right direction, but it is a major challenge because of the sophisticated marketing various companies now use to hook the largest number of youngsters on their products.

Using Mediciexity to Define the Future of U.S. Particle Physics

In modern scientific research, we find more and more often groups put together in a very multidisciplinary way. What can happen from a mix of people who are trained in a variety of fields is often rapid progress and new findings, and has been referred to as the Medici effect. Recently, a panel was put together to discuss and make recommendations to Congress about the future of American high energy physics. The U.S., which has been at the forefront of particle physics for decades, will lose its lead when the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is commissioned in 2007 at CERN. The LHC will replace Fermilab as the world's most powerful accelerator, and numerous American physicists will center their research overseas (they have been doing so in larger and larger numbers for the past 8-10 years already).

Since 2004, a panel (EPP2010) was put together by the National Research Council, following a request by the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation, to set the course for U.S. high energy physics. Their report came out this past April. What is interesting about the panel, though, beyond their final report and recommendations, is the make-up of the panel. In the past, advisory panels consisted of high energy physicists and some administrators of national labs. This time around, knowing that our loss of the lead in this type of research was a certainty for many years to come, the NRC took a new approach and formed a multidisciplinary panel. The chair was Harold Shapiro, an economist and president emeritus of Princeton, and the other members included 3 Nobel winners (2 in physics, 1 in medicine), an astronomer, a former CEO of a technology firm, a former director of Brookaven National Lab, a former White House OMB official (expert in budgets), a former Presidential science advisor, a condensed amtter physicist, and then several high energy experts.

I think this is an important step not only for high energy physics, which historically has been viewed many non-physicists as a waste of time and vast sums of money, but for American science in general. I believe this panel will become (at least I hope it does) the model for how to map out the future of U.S. science in all areas of research because of the nature of science today. It is incredibly expensive, and more often than not research programs are emerging as multidisciplinary entities that require the efforts of numerous fields of study. I also think the make-up of the EPP2010, for instance, gives the science more credibility in the eyes of Congress and the public, because it addresses not only the particle physics/science issues, but applications in and out of the field and cost effectiveness. In the past, we (high energy physicists) have not been very good of communicating why the work is important and the many benefits that arise directly and indirectly from the research. This approach should begin to improve the communication, and should emphasize that the two types of science, applied and pure, cannot live without each other. Trying to take advantage of mediciexity is the way of the future.

Check out Your State's Status for NCLB

Here is the link to the letters sent to each state Board of Education, regarding the state's status for standards and assessments. Most states have failed to meet deadlines for having 'qualified teachers' in every classroom, and most states have had issues gearing all the testing to meet the criteria laid out in the No Child Left Behind law. Some states are losing some of the Title I money as punishment (including my state of Illinois).

NASA Mission Statement Changed

The problems NASA climate expert Jim Hansen has created for the White House probably have much to do with the change in NASA's mission statement, which used to include the line "to understand and protect our home planet." This line is now cut entirely from the mission statement, which certainly puts pressure on NASA and other government scientists to stop worrying about studying global climate change. This has been an increasing area of study within NASA since they obviously have the tools necessary to do the science from space. As Hansen points out, perhaps the White House is trying to eliminate research that is creating headaches for Bush.

Rewriting Science, the Administration Way

There was a fascinating, and extremely disturbing, story on 60 Minutes this past Sunday. I believe it was a replay, as I missed it when it was originally aired.

The story included an interview with NASA climate expert (generally considered the top expert on the panet in his field), Jim Hansen, who risked his job by going public with some White House activity. Ever since the Bush administration came to power, there has been an ongoing campaign of overlooking, questioning, and simply ignoring the science behind several issues, most notably the global changes in climate. It is certainly well-known that it took a number of years before the president would even accept that the global temperature is rising, and even longer to finally acknowledge that humans have something to do with it. But what scientists have been complaining about for years now is the unprecedented way in which this White House censors and restricts scientific results from making it to the public by government scientists. Now, every administration tries to put its own spin on science. Hansen, for instance, mentioned he is politically an independent, and that during the Clinton administration they wanted him to try to spin the science to make global warming and climate change appear to be worse than what the data suggest. Hansen correctly did not do this and made sound scientific recommendations and reported his conclusions based on available evidence, and not political goals.

However, something that has begun to happen with the Bushies is that all scientific reports that are to go public from government research scientists must go through a White House editing process first; and it is not scientists in the White House that are doing the editing...it is lawyers and administration officials. This is nonsense!!

For example, any reports that are published for public review on environmental and climate issues are run through the office run by Phil Cooney, the chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality. It is Cooney who has personally edited the science reports coming from the government agencies that study such topics. The first problem is, Cooney is an attorney, and he is marking up and removing scientific evidence and conclusions from researc papers and memos. I think every rational person would see some problems with an editor who has absolutely no expertise with technical subjects. The second problem is that Cooney was formerly a star lobbyist for the petrolium industry. The 60 Minutes piece had numerous examples of the edits made by Cooney, as they got their hands on actual copies of the papers he edited with his hand-written marks. My favorite is the complete deletion of the paragraph explaining how and why energy production contributes to global warming because of high levels of greenhouse gases during the relevant chemical reactions of the process. He did not even try to fudge the language, but simply crossed it out. The paper submitted to congressional committees contained all the edit and deletions made by Cooney, so that Congress would not be able to see the actual science in order to act at all to curb the problems at hand (since according to the White House, owned and run by big oil, there are no problems). This si despicable in my view, and goes to an entire new level of misinformation and lack of respect for science...and it deals with a major issue that will likely explode in the near future for global environmental damage and global economic chaos.

It should be noted that Hansen has not been allowed to take other interviews, and during the 60 Minutes interview he had a NASA public relations official sitting just off camera, so if he said something the administration did not want to hear, she would have stopped the interview on the spot. This is not what I want in the United States....it is a reflection of an administration that is in denial and has propped up political ideology and overall ignorance ahead of facts and science. It seems like a story that would come out of the former Soviet Union or something.

In my opinion there is no question that the numerous reports of White House tampering with intelligence prior to the invasion of Iraq are true. This White House in particular has gone beyond the normal spin all politicians do, and has created an environment where the expectation is to censor, edit, misinform, and select only those morsels of information that works in their favor. We have seen the results of that misinformation in Iraq, and I fear these eight years of Bush denial and total inaction, which are critical years for the fight of environmental damage, will show similar results in several decades. America and the world deserve better, and I think the single best thing that can happen in the near-term is for the Democrats to win back the House in the fall election. We need to have a buffer to stop the shift to the far right in our government, force it back to a more moderate government, and begin to put science, facts, data, and evidence back into policymaking.

NAACP President Looking for Action

NAACP President Bruce Gordon stated in his speech at the national convention that Black Americans needed to end "victim-like thinking" and take advantage of the opportunities that are out there presently to begin pushing more people of color out of poverty. This year's convention is being held in Washington DC, and the hope is that the president, who has never made an appearance at any NAACP event (perhaps with all the problems that have existed in black precincts the last two elections has something to do with the tension between the president and the Black community), will come.

With nearly a dozen years of experience working with minority students and parents, I've concluded that the single biggest obstacle that perpetuates the continuing achievement gap between white students and students of color is cultural in nature, and the attitude taken by Gordon is certainly a positive step. One grand experiment is Project Excite, which essentially is looking to see if there is a critical mass of minority students who excel academically that begins a domino effect, where being smart (which most of the students are) turns into acting smart and allows students of color to believe it is OK (and not an act of "acting white") to get into advanced classes and aim for top colleges academically. Politically, the minority blocks are large enough to determine elections, and time will tell if there is the motivation on a large scale to take advantage of that potential.

Will we ever be able to predict what social systems and networks will do? Perhaps globally, but likely not locally

There is a lot of interest in social systems and networks, and the use of network theory to help explain how and why social systems work the way they do. While research has shown, for instance, how different rulesets lead to various decisions or how network topology helps identify how disease spreads, one needs to keep in mind that there is a difference between local environments and global environments. What I mean by this is that the analyses done in these areas of study essentially look at results that affect the system more globally. It is quite another thing to see what happens to individual agents, since in complex systems the rules that govern individuals can be and typically are very different from the rules that govern collective behavior.

In a physical system this is similar to studying gases. We can in principle use Newton's laws to predict what should happen to individual atoms and molecules, but collectively we need to resort to a statistical/probabilistic approach. Collectively, there are set probability distribution functions for something like molecular speed, but that is meaningless to an individual molecule of the gas. In social systems, we are dealing with complex, unpredictable individual agents that make up the system, and this makes things considerably more difficult to analyze than a gas, whose individual agents are governed by deterministic rules (at least to a good approximation using classical physics). It will be quite difficult to accurately model emotion and religious fanaticism, for example, for individuals in a social system. We can guess and try to take a statistical approach, but this leaves some degree of uncertainty in results and predictions. It will be very difficult to model and predict what is going on in the head of a leader such as Osama bin Laden; there is a good deal we can only guess at, even though there has been research and progress in figuring out how his larger terror network operates and is structured. This is the difference between local and global environments and rulesets.

Whether it is trying to figure out economies, decision-making, trade networks, terrorist organizations, or worldwide transportation networks and systems, we will likely always be in a better position to understand the global structures and behaviors of those networks compared to what happens to individuals and in local segments of the larger network. There will be a 'fuzzy' area where the transition takes place between where the local environment ends and the global begins, and vice versa, similar to the fuzzy area between where relativistic effects are significant compared to Newtonian predictions, or where the boundary is between a classical and quantum systems. These are areas of study that have no clear-cut borders, and much of the answer depends on what level of sensitivity and precision you are interested in. So it goes, too, for social systems, and those who are interested in such areas of study need to keep this concept in mind. As in physical science, the difficult part will be to determine how large the error bars are on results and predictions, and will be based on how sensitive the global systems are to local perturbations caused by individuals within the system.

Quantum Biology Pushing Computing Technology

Many have heard of areas of science such as quantum mechanics, biochemistry, biophysics, physical chemistry, and so on. One growing area that has not received much popular attention is quantum biology, which looks at biological processes at the molecular and atomic scale, where weak but relevant quantum effects are helping to drive different biochemical reactions, as well as the processes involving energy conversion, such as light into chemical. Look at some specific projects here. Another significant aspect of these studies involves doing computational computer simulations of such reactions and biological processes. For example, for the first time, a group at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), led by Prof. Klaus Schulten, has done a full blown, atom-by-atom simulation of an entire life form. It sounds crazy, but this is the level the science is at presently.

UIUC is home to one of a handful of National Supercomputing Centers, and the Schulten group ran a simulation of the satellite tobacco mosaic virus, which consists of abot a million atoms in total. For 100 days, they ran a simulation of a 50-nanosecond time interval to see how every atom behaves and could therefore map all the processes occuring in the virus for that time period. Now, this doesn't sound like much...only a 50-nanosecond interval. But to get better and longer intervals to study, new computing schemes are necessary and are being developed. For example, at UIUC there is work being done to advance into the next level of computing power, the petascale computer (a thousand trillion calculations per second; currently supercomputers are in the terascale range, or only a trillion calculations per second. Compare to most home PCs which are in the gigascale range, or billions). The simulations being done by such groups would take an estimated 35 years on a home PC, so this gives a good comparison to see how advanced supercomuting platforms are. The importance of such simulations is to get a handle on all behaviors of something like a virus, which are being focused on because of their relative simplicity (no simulations of, say, humans, will be possible any time soon) as well as for medical research where molecular medications may be developed (using nanotechnology) that can be effective against a particular harmful virus.

Is it just me, or is this something we should address - Scientists making connections with the public

I was just made aware of a survey in England. Nearly 1500 scientists were surveyed about making connections with the public, such as giving popular talks, going into classrooms to talk about their work and encourage students to pursue science, and so on. The results had nearly two-thirds (64%) asy they were too busy to do any sort of public outreach, and instead needed the time to raise funds for their departments, i.e. grant writing. A majority of the respondents thought it was not important to go into schools, participate in public debates, or do media interviews. This sort of thing is viewed as 'fluffy' and not a good career move (my guess is this was the view of mostly non-tenured faculty). The Royal Society put out a statement which said scientists need to be encouraged somehow to get their work out in the public arena.

In this day and age, where science and technology drive the global economy and scientists complain about funding cuts and the lack of public knowledge or understanding of basic science, these results surprised me. Perhaps we are starting to wake up here in the U.S., where many NSF grants, for instance, require some small section of public outreach. This is actually a good time for schools to approach universities and attempt to collaborate, since many in the universities may actually consider forming a program or project with local schools in order to have it to put in grants. I've personally written four letters of support for Northwestern professors in the past year. But it sounds as if overseas this is not yet the case. My only hope is that federal funding agencies in the U.S. do not take such requirements out of grant RFPs.

I think it is true that the general public is largely scientifically illiterate, and scientists have done a poor job of getting their message out in a good, clear manner so the public cares more about what science is and how vital it is to our way of life. If scientists are unwilling to get the message out, help schools, and get involved in debate, then perhaps we should not be so miffed when a significant portion of the masses comes out and wants intelligent design in science classes and don't believe the science of global warming. I would have to think that it is in the best interest of the scientific community that the message gets out to the public, and that institutions should try to encourage it in some way. In addition, with looming shortages of scientists in the near future, one would think scientists would want to have some contact with the next generation and try to encourage them to pursue science, math and engineering, as well as science education.

Quantum Computing via Quantum Interrogation

Here is one of the strangest things I've ever heard of. Prof. Paul Kwiat's group at my alma mater, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has determined an answer to an algorithm using a quantum computer, without ever running the algorithm (see Nature 439, p. 949-952, 2006). Now, quantum mechanics is bizarre no matter how one looks at it, but this is as counterintuitive as it gets, and is bilt around the phenomenon called quantum entanglement.

The idea is to use an interferometer, which is a device that splits a beam of light down two perpendicular arms. This was the device used in the classic Michelson-Morley experiment that ultimately showed there was no ether, and helped lead to Einstein's relativity theories. If a laser is used as the light source, then one has a system of photons that are all in the same quantum mechanical state. In a quantum mechanical system, computers are being designed where bits, the binary digits that are the 1's and 0's in any computer, may be certain spin states of the particles being used in the system. What's more, quantum mechanics is built around the probabilities of particles being in one state as opposed to another state, and the quantum bits (or qubits) may be placed in superpositions of 1 and 0. In Kwiat's computing system, photons from a laser were entangled.

As Kwiat describes it in Physics Illinois News, "By placing our photon in a quantum superposition of running and not running the search algorithm, we obtained information about the answer even when the photon did not run the search algorithm." This was the first time that a theoretical possibility known as 'counterfactual computing,' or inferring information about an answer even through the computer did not run, has been successfully demonstrated in the lab. The goal is to use this quantum interrogation scheme to reduce noise in larger-scale quantum computers, which is a key technical and engineering problem in this field. Large-scale quantum computing is perhaps the Holy Grail of computing and encryption, and it is experiments like Kwiat's that are leading the way to that type of technology.

Gore Gets the Science Correct, According to Experts

To the many doubters I have talked with about Al Gore's documentary on global warming and climate change, "An Inconvenient Truth", all the climate experts surveyed by AP say the science is accurate. Many believe the film is, without having seen it, a doomsday, political comeback in the making for Gore, and that he would be apt to exaggerate scenarios and the science to make a more dramatic impact on the public. This is a logical thought when any poltician is involved, because it is largely their job to spin a topic to their advantage and shape public opinion. While I have not yet had the chance to see it, I certainly plan to because it has received good reviews, and in my case I am most interested in the science of climate change. It si good to hear GOre got it right.

The article referenced notes that many of the top science agency directors (appointed by the president) have not yet seen it, and the president simply refuses to see it...this subject truly is an inconvenient truth for current policies, and it is easier to simply ignore some potentially devastating consequences (leave that to future presidents and generations to worry about) than to anger friends in the oil and industrial sectors.

Getting New Teachers into Public Schools: Teach for America Model

A recent Chicago Tribune editorial praises the recruiting efforts of the Teach for America (TFA)organization. This group recruits graduating college students to commit to two years of teaching in public scools in 22 regions throughout the country. With 3500 current teachers in 1000 different schools, TFA has produced 14,000 teachers altogether since 1990. Last year alone there were 19,000 applications to TFA, which is impressive considering the salary falls into a $23,000 - $43-000 range, often well below the starting salary these students could make outside of education. Often the teachers coming through the TFA program will put in their two years and then move on to other careers, but some two-thirds will remain in teaching beyond that required period. TFA is looking to expand into more states and regions of the country and continue to increase the number of teachers it provides to our schools, as we see shortages of qualified teachers in many areas of the country, as well as continued high attrition rates where about half of all new teachers will leave the profession within their first 3-4 years.

Chicago Public Schools Makng a Push to Promoting Science Research

I just completed a series of workshops with a couple dozen high school science teachers from the Chicago Public Schools (CPS). These teachers have been involved in the Chicago Science Fair, which is the main thrust of science research in city schools. The Science Fair, which has been running for over fifty years, gets literally thousands of students to do projects at all grade levels, but the level of work is typically of the 'cookie cutter' variety, which means projects tend to be recyccled each year and have known answers. Many times the research is a standard experiment that is done in the classroom at some point. In most cases the outcomes are either known or can be guessed at fairly easily. However, new goals for research programs throughout the city now include getting more teachers and students to pursue possible projects of a more advanced variety, where students try to do more original work and get into 'real' science. Ultimately, CPS wants to see more submissions of student work to the major national competitions such as the Intel Science Talent Search (also known as the 'Nobel Prize' for high schools, as six former participants have actually won Nobel Prizes!) and Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology.

It is truly remarkable the quality of work high students are capable of doing under the right circumstances. If given doable projects, truly advanced work can be done by bright, motivated and curious students. The obvious and serious problem we have in high schools, though, is a lack of resources and expertise to develop doable projects that yield some level of original work and results. The workshops I led this week focused mainly on getting resources organized and developing strategies for the development of ideas and opportunities for students, and CPS is providng resources and time for teachers to go on and develop their own research programs. This new level of commitment in one of the largest school districts in the nation is most welcome as the U.S. seeks to increase the numbers of stdents who move into technical majors in college and beyond. It also may provide a necessary boost to science programs as the No Child Left Behind school ratings will include science scores for the first time in the 2006-07 school year. I encourage all students and teachers who have an interest in research to check out this website in order to begin developing ideas of your own.