Science Simplified!

Comment

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 21, 2014 at 6:12am

Billionaires With Big Ideas Are Privatizing American Science

As government financing of basic science research has plunged, private donors have filled the void, raising questions about the future of research for the public good.
To show that private science has roots in the first gilded age, though, is not to dismiss Americans’ perceptions that there is something new in the way science is now being funded. Unlike their early-20th-century predecessors, for example, philanthropists today are targeting particular fields themselves and bypassing traditional intermediaries such as trustees, federal actors, and research experts. On the one hand, these intermediaries can be perceived as an unnecessary and time-consuming bureaucratic hurdle that not only stands in the way of donors’ passionate inspirations, but also stalls innovation and avoids risk-taking. On the other hand, their presence can facilitate informed decision-making and serve as a democratizing element, ensuring that several groups of Americans besides the private-sector elite have a say in the course and development of American science.
https://news.yahoo.com/way-wrong-way-privatize-science-121500191.html
One important distinction, however, exists between these two earlier philanthropists and the philanthropists funding private science today. With the Carnegie Institution and the NRC, Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller had invested in building up American science as a holistic unit and leaving it up to foundation trustees, federal actors, and their expert advisers to decide which particular fields and projects to support. By contrast, it seems that philanthropists today are invested in deciding for themselves which particular strands of research in American science are worthy of their funds. As the Times journalist Broad reminds us: “[T]he new science philanthropy is personal, antibureaucratic, inspirational.”

The question is whether we—as Americans—welcome this new model of private science as is, or whether we find something valuable in its older form. More specifically, we need to ask ourselves whether we welcome a world where individual philanthropists decide for themselves which research fields in American science to fund. This contemporary model might encourage funders’ enthusiasm, clear the way for innovation, and encourage risk-taking, but at the very cost of silencing the voices of American trustees, research experts, and policymakers. This second model is perhaps more expedient than the first, but also less democratic.

Such a conversation should not lead us to bemoan one period of private science and celebrate another; but rather, to think critically about the model of private science that we would like to see take shape in the 21st century.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/16/science/billionaires-with-big-ide...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 21, 2014 at 6:04am

New Meta-analysis Confirms: No Association between Vaccines and Autism

Analysis of 10 studies involving more than 1.2 million children reaffirms that vaccines don’t cause autism; MMR shot may actually decrease risk
A meta-analysis of ten studies involving more than 1.2 million children reaffirms that vaccines don’t cause autism. If anything, immunization was associated with decreased risk that children would develop autism, a possibility that’s strongest with the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine.

The report appears online in the journal Vaccine as an “uncorrected proof.” This means that it has passed through peer review and been accepted for publication, but may still undergo proof-reading changes.
- http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X14006367

http://www.autismspeaks.org/science/science-news/new-meta-analysis-...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 21, 2014 at 5:38am

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 21, 2014 at 5:34am

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 21, 2014 at 5:31am

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 21, 2014 at 5:20am

Cells at the back of your eyes pick up particular light wavelengths and, with a light-sensitive protein called melanopsin, signal the brain’s master clock, which controls the body’s circadian rhythms. Blue light, which in nature is most abundant in the morning, tells you to get up and get moving. Red light is more common at dusk and it slows you down. Now, guess what kind of light is streaming from that little screen in your hand at 11:59 P.M.? “Your iPad, your phone, your computer emit large quantities of blue light,” says sleep researcher and chemist Brian Zoltowski of Southern Methodist University

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 20, 2014 at 7:12am

Surgical Infections Fly under the Radar at Outpatient Clinics
Outpatient surgeries at freestanding medical centers are growing in popularity, but for all their promise, gaps in tracking superbugs and other infections fuel concern
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/under-the-knife-where-inf...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 20, 2014 at 7:09am

Massive dose of measles vaccine clears woman's cancer
US doctors claim to have wiped out a woman's advanced blood cancer with a massive dose of the measles vaccine, enough to inoculate 10 million people.
The woman was part of a clinical trial at the Mayo Clinic demonstrating that cancer cells can be killed with injections of a genetically-engineered virus through a process known as virotherapy.

Two patients in the study received a single intravenous dose of an engineered measles virus (MV-NIS ) that is selectively toxic to myeloma plasma cells. Stacy Erholtz, 49, from Minnesota, was one of the two patients in the study who received the dose last year, and after ten years with multiple myeloma, she has been clear of the disease for over six months now.

"It was the easiest treatment by far with very few side effects", say the researchers

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 20, 2014 at 6:45am

UK’s Science Media Centre lambasted for pushing corporate science
The influential media centre has inspired a range of others around the world

But researchers say it offers a biased, industrial-science view of issues

The findings could help avoid similar pitfalls if any developing world centre is set
http://www.scidev.net/global/journalism/feature/uk-s-science-media-...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 20, 2014 at 6:38am

Organisations that fund agricultural research for development often see initiatives that work with local expertise as unscientific, and this pervasive view is stifling collaboration with other development actors, experts say.

Working with local farmers, NGOs and civil society is vital to ensure that advances in ‘hard science’ truly boost development, attendees of the first annual meeting of Agrinatura — an alliance of European institutions that work on agricultural research for development — heard last week (5-7 May) in Austria. Some said funders should do more to support such efforts.

Many scientists involved in funding decisions prize focused research

But this can sideline local knowledge and collaboration with social science

It may also suit agribusinesses more than smallholder farmers

Peer reviewers ‘harming alliances with local expertise’
http://www.scidev.net/global/funding/news/peer-reviewers-local-expe...

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• …
• 1056
• 1057
• 1058
• 1059
• 1060
• …
• 1165
• Next ›
• Page