[Hat Tip: Pharyngula]
In response to the dismissal of Canada's Science Advisor, the Harper government proposes to get science advice from someone other than scientists. They have established the Science, Technology and Innovation Council. This body will not advise the Prime Minister or members of parliament. It reports to the Minister of Industry. Here's the mandate ...The Council is an advisory body that provides the Government of Canada with external policy advice on science and technology issues, and produces regular national reports that measure Canada's science and technology performance against international standards of excellence.We all know what this means. The role of the council is not to give scientific advice, it's to promote and enhance technology.
The poll is now closed and here are the final results (see sidebar on the left-hand side of this page). The question was "How much of our genome could be deleted without having any significant effect on our species?"
Arthur Carty has been dismissed and he won't be replaced when he leaves on March 31.
). Over on Canadian Cynic LuLu thinks this is just a reflection of the science illiteracy of the Conservatives [Science? We don't need science.]. That's true but it's not going to be fixed by having a science advisor who hides out in the Department of Industry. 1. Along with Presidents of scientific societies, Presidents of leading universities, prominent scientists and teachers, and taxi drivers.
[The title of this posting is from an old Irish anti-war song called Johnny I Hardly Knew ye. Check out this version on YouTube.]
| Country | Nobel Prizes | Popn | Ratio |
|---|---|---|---|
| United States | 154 | 303 | 0.51 |
| Germany | 51 | 82 | 0.63 |
| United Kingdom | 48 | 61 | 0.79 |
| France | 20 | 64 | 0.31 |
| Netherlands | 11 | 16 | 0.69 |
| Russia/USSR | 11 | 141 | 0.08 |
| Switzerland | 10 | 8 | 1.25 |
| Japan | 8 | 128 | 0.06 |
| Sweden | 8 | 9 | 0.89 |
| Canada | 8 | 33 | 0.24 |
1. The population numbers are from the last few years. Since the Nobel Laureates are from the past 100 years, you could argue that the ratios for Canada and the USA should be higher since their populations have grown a lot more than the populations of the European countries and Japan. This would be obvious if we normalized on the 1950 populations.
From The Independent (United Kingdom) [Sentenced to death: Afghan who dared to read about women's rights].A young man, a student of journalism, is sentenced to death by an Islamic court for downloading a report from the internet. The sentence is then upheld by the country's rulers. This is Afghanistan – not in Taliban times but six years after "liberation" and under the democratic rule of the West's ally Hamid Karzai.
The fate of Sayed Pervez Kambaksh has led to domestic and international protests, and deepening concern about erosion of civil liberties in Afghanistan. He was accused of blasphemy after he downloaded a report from a Farsi website which stated that Muslim fundamentalists who claimed the Koran justified the oppression of women had misrepresented the views of the prophet Mohamed.
Mr Kambaksh, 23, distributed the tract to fellow students and teachers at Balkh University with the aim, he said, of provoking a debate on the matter. But a complaint was made against him and he was arrested, tried by religious judges without – say his friends and family – being allowed legal representation and sentenced to death.
[Photo Credit: Reuters]
[Hat Tip: RichardDawkins.net]
A few days ago Jennifer Smith over on Runesmith's Canadian Content reported that Stephan Harper has redecorated the lobbies behind the benches in Parliament. (It's the place where lobbyists used to hang out back in the olden days.) The full description can be found on the Green Party website [Model Parliament]. What may have been the most fascinating part of the afternoon was my time in the Government Lobby. Behind the curtains that run along the last row of benches on both sides of the House, are doors to long skinny living room areas. One is called the Opposition Lobby; the other the Government Lobby. In my pre-Green Party leader life, I have spent a lot of time in both. The Government Lobby was a frequent work space when I was Senior Policy Advisor to the federal Minister of Environment back in the mid-1980s. And I frequented both lobbies when I was with Sierra Club of Canada from 1987-2006. It did not strike me until I walked into the Government Lobby to await my turn as Speaker that I had not been in there since Stephen Harper became Prime Minister.
It used to have some paintings on the wall. Past prime ministers, certainly a formal portrait of the Queen. Landscapes. I know there was the occasional photo of current Prime Ministers, but when I walked in this time, I felt chilled to the bone. Every available wall space had a large colour photo of Stephen Harper. Stephen Harper at Alert. Stephen Harper in fire fighter gear. Stephen Harper at his desk. Stephen Harper meeting the Dalai Lama. Even the photo of the Queen showed her in the company of Stephen Harper. None were great photos. None were more than enlarged snapshots in colour. They didn’t feel like art.
Jennifer wrote to her MP, Garth Turner, to see if this was true and if someone could supply pictures. The title of her latest posting, Ask And You Shall Receive, tells it all.
In 1984, Bruce Merrifield (1921 - 2006) was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovering a method of synthesizing polymers on a solid matrix. The technique laid the groundwork for the development of peptide and nucleotide synthesizers that are now common in biochemistry laboratories. Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen,
The chemical reactions which take place in living organisms are not spontaneous, but require the involvement of catalysts. These catalysts are called proteins and are composed of chains of amino acids called peptides. A number of hormones and other substances which regulate different life processes are also peptides. There are about 20 naturally occurring amino acids which are found in such peptides and since the chains can be very long, the number of possible variations is virtually unlimited.
Today we know the structures of a very large number of proteins and peptides. Important contributions to this area of knowledge were made by Fredrick Sanger, who received the Nobel prize in 1958, and Stanford Moore and William H. Stein, Nobel prizewinners in 1972. A very important contribution was also made by the Swedish researcher Per Edman, who unfortunately died relatively young and whose method for the controlled degradation of peptides is now generally used.
The chemical synthesis of peptides is an important task. The principle used in such synthesis is simple and was developed a relatively long time ago by Emil Fischer, who received a Nobel prize in 1902, although for completely different discoveries. Expressed simply, this principle involves the binding together of two amino acids which have been appropriately modified to give a dipeptide. This dipeptide is then combined with a third modified amino acid to give a tripeptide and so on.
Even if the principle is simple, in practice it is difficult to synthesize peptides, since a large number of individual steps is involved. After each step the desired product must be separated from by-products and unreacted starting material and this takes time and involves loss of the product. When Vincent du Vigneaud synthesized a peptide hormone, oxytocin, which is a nonapeptide, for the first time, this represented a great step forward which was rewarded with the Nobel prize for 1955. To use a similar approach for synthesizing a peptide containing 100 or more amino acid residues is truly a heroic task, requiring a very large amount of work and chemicals. This task can be compared to climbing a high mountain peak in the Himalayas, which begins with a large expedition carrying much equipment and ends, if all goes well, with a few lightly equipped alpinists reaching the top.Therefore, Merrifield's development during the 1960's of a method for carrying out peptide synthesis on a solid matrix revolutionized the field. He attached the first amino acid to an insoluble polymer, a plastic material in the form of small spheres. Subsequently, the other amino acids were added one after one and only after the entire peptide chain had been synthesized was it released from the polymer. The advantages of this method are considerable. The complicated purification of the product after each synthetic step is replaced by simply washing the polymer to which the peptide is attached, so that loss of product is avoided completely. At the same time, the yield for each individual step is increased to 99.5% or better, a goal which cannot be achieved with conventional methods, but which is extremely important in syntheses involving a large number of steps. Finally, this method can be automated and automatic peptide synthesizers are now commercially available.
Thousands of different peptides of different sizes, as well as proteins, peptide hormones and analogues of these compounds have now been synthesized using this method. One milestone in this respect was the synthesis of an active enzyme, ribonuclease, containing 124 amino acid residues, by Merrifield and his coworkers.
The approach of performing a multistep synthesis with a compound attached to a solid matrix as the starting material has also been used in other areas. The most important of these is undoubtedly the synthesis of oligonucleotides, which are needed in hybrid DNA research. In this case as well an automated apparatus which can be programmed to synthesize desired products has been constructed. Although Merrifield has not worked in this area himself, it is clearly his ideas which have found a new application here.
Professor Merrifield,
Your methodology for chemical synthesis on a solid matrix is a completely new approach to organic synthesis. It has created new possibilities in the fields of peptide-protein and nucleic acid chemistry. It has greatly stimulated progress in biochemistry, molecular biology, medicine and pharmacology. It is also of great practical importance, both for the development of new drugs and for gene technology.
On behalf of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences I wish to convey our warmest congratulations and ask you to receive your prize from the hands of His Majesty the King.
Meet Sophophora melanogaster. It has some major advantages as a model organism. The genome is small and there are only four chromosomes; there are thousands of well-characterized genetic markers; the genome sequence is known; developmental pathways have been worked out; it has a short life cycle.A young Arkansan asks Mike Huckabee what should be done about schools not teaching evolution properly. The former governor then advocates what the student has already said was against state standards...that schools should teach creationism because evolution's only a theory.Huckabee is entitled to his opinion about creationism, of course, but what troubles me is his statement that evolution is only a theory. Most of us don't (usually) make statements about things that we know nothing about. I can't believe that Huckabee is completely ignorant about the basic facts of biology. Somebody must have told him at some time during his life that evolution is overwhelmingly supported by solid scientific evidence.
There seems to be a bit of a trend over on ScienceBlogsTM. First Razib decides that it's finally time to read The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, then John Lynch figures he should too. And now Laelaps gets into the act.Warning: The Structure of Evolutionary Theory is written at a very high level. It's not for high school students. If the language and style turns you off then maybe it's not for you. Try Dawkins or Dennett. Their version of evolutionary theory can be understood by 5th graders.
Half Sigma has posted an interesting article on the results of a 2006 poll about evolution. The survey asked the following question:Now, I would like to ask you a few short questions like those you might see on a television game show. For each statement that I read, please tell me if it is true or false. If you don't know or aren't sure, just tell me so, and we will skip to the next question. Remember true, false, or don't know. i. Human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals. (Is that true or false?)The overall results are not surprising. They have been discussed before. About 50% of Americans accept the fact of evolution and about 50% reject scientific facts.
The interesting piece of information comes from analysis of the responses of difference [Hat Tip: Gene Expression]
This is Earth-shattering news. If you go to the website of Nikki (psychic to the stars) you'll see that she predicted Heath Ledger's death [Nikki: Predictions].Death Watch and Health WatchTo find out why this isn't the end of rationality and the triumph of superstition, check out Way of the Woo. The surprise isn't that Nikki is a liar, it's that so many people fall for it.
Annette Funicello, Hillary Clinton, Doris Day, Willie Nelson, Pamela Lee Anderson, Loretta Lynn, Ted Kennedy, Unice Shriver, Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, Benazir Bhutto, President Masharaff, Billy Graham, Jerry Lewis, Chareleton Heston, Tony Curtis, Debbie Reynolds, Heath Ledger, Barack Obama, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Nelson Mandela, Farah Fawcett, Nancy Reagan, Dick Cheney, Dick Clark, Elizabeth Taylor, Larry King, Suzanne Pleshette, Mick Jagger, Arnold Schwarzeneger, Kirk Douglas, Hugh Hefner, Shirley Temple Black, Alex Trebek, and French President Sarkozy.
