ScienceInsider

by Eli Kintisch

A panel convened by Pennsylvania State University has mostly absolved Penn State climate scientist Michael Mann wrongdoing on allegations stemming from e-mails he sent as part of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia e-mail theft last year, The New York Times reports:

In some of the e-mail messages, Dr. Mann refers to his assembly of data from a number of different sources, including ancient tree rings and earth core samples, as a “trick.” Critics pounced on the term and said it was evidence that Dr. Mann and other scientists had manipulated temperature data to support their conclusions.

But the Penn State inquiry board said the term “trick” is used by scientists and mathematicians to refer to an insight that solves a problem. “The so-called ‘trick’ was nothing more than a statistical method used to bring two or more different kinds of data sets together in a legitimate fashion by a technique that has been reviewed by a broad array of peers in the field,” the panel said.

The e-mail messages also contained suggestions that Dr. Mann had purposely hidden or destroyed e-mail messages and other information relating to a United Nations climate change report to prevent other scientists from reviewing them.

by Jocelyn Kaiser

After long and controversial discussions about merging with a university, Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, has decided to remain an independent institution. William Butler, BCM interim president, told faculty by e-mail yesterday that despite "financial difficulties" that led the school to consider joining with Rice University or Baylor University, BCM's board of trustees unanimously voted on Wednesday to "continue as an independent, autonomous institution." Many faculty members at nearby Rice fiercely opposed a merger and months of discussions ended 2 weeks ago. BCM officials then began exploring an alliance with Baylor University in Waco, but BCM faculty members, students, and alumni protested that the Baptist university's religious mission was in conflict with that of the medical school.

The school will now develop "a long-range comprehensive strategy" that will be overseen by a manager to be appointed at the request of creditors, Butler's message says. BCM will also begin searching for a new president.

by John Travis

After running the Royal Institution (RI) of Great Britain for more than a decade, a period in which she spearheaded a controversial and costly physical renovation of the science body’s historic London headquarters, neuroscientist Susan Greenfield found her director position eliminated and herself locked out of an RI-owned flat on Friday night. On Saturday, the trustees who oversee the RI released a statement explaining the apparent cost-saving move, saying it came after a recent review of the body’s governance led them to conclude that “the requirement for the functions of the role of Director as currently defined has ceased to exist.” But Greenfield isn’t going quietly; she quickly released her own statement saying she’s considering legal challenges to her dismissal that may include sexual discrimination charges against the RI.

by Eliot Marshall

Chalk up another patent victory for the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Its hard-hitting intellectual property adjunct—the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF)—appears to have clobbered a biotech partner, Xenon Pharmaceuticals Inc. of Burnaby, Canada, that it says tried to exploit a discovery from Wisconsin’s biochem labs without paying the university some disputed fees.

Researchers at Wisconsin and Xenon collaborated 9 years ago to study an enzyme, stearoyl-CoA desaturase (SCD), whose cholesterol-lowering properties they both patented. Xenon helped finance this research. But a federal appeals court ruled yesterday that Xenon improperly tried to cut its own licensing deal with Novartis, excluding WARF, to create SCD-based drugs. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals backed a lower court that ruled several years ago that Xenon violated a partnership agreement by failing to share income from the Novartis “sublicense” deal. And the appeals court went even further than the lower court.

by Jeffrey Mervis

Two weeks shy of its first anniversary, the Obama Administration still seems to be in campaign mode when it comes to science and math education.

Speaking today at a White House event honoring the nation's top elementary school teachers and scientist-mentors, President Barack Obama gave a stump-like speech about the need "to move from the middle to the top of the pack in science and math education over the next decade." He applauded the growing number of companies, foundations, universities, and organizations investing in myriad programs to improve science, technology, engineering, and  math education, an activity that the Administration has labeled "Educate to Innovate."

by Constance Holden

Temple University psychologist Laurence Steinberg has been awarded the first Klaus J. Jacobs Research Prize. The new award, worth $1 million, comes from the Zurich-based Jacobs Foundation, founded by chocolate magnate Klaus Jacobs. It's designed to further "groundbreaking contributions to the improvement of the living conditions of young people."

Steinberg is well known for his research on adolescent brain development. He's a former director of the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Adolescent Development and Juvenile Justice. And he was one of the experts who wrote a U.S. Supreme Court brief arguing that 16- and 17-year-olds are too immature to be executed for capital crimes (Science, 30 July 2004, p. 596). In 2005, the court abolished the death penalty for these juveniles.

by Jeffrey Mervis

The American Institute of Physics is looking for undergraduates with Potomac Fever. The new AIP Mather Public Policy Intern Program aims to broaden the institute's summer research internships to include students interested in science policy. It is funded through a foundation set up by John Mather, an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, using money from his 2006 Nobel Prize award.

The program hopes to place two upper-level undergraduates in positions on Capitol Hill. The application deadline is 1 February for the 2010 summer program, which runs for 10 weeks. For more information, contact Gary White at gwhite@aip.org.  

*The headline of this story has been changed, see note at end.

by Yudhijit Bhattacharjee

It's an article of faith: the United States needs more native-born students in science and other technical fields. The National Academies' influential Rising Above the Gathering Storm report in 2006 said the nation should "enlarge the pipeline of students who are prepared to enter college and graduate with a degree in science, engineering, or mathematics" to remain competitive. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce had a similar message on the gap in so-called STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) students a year before. President Barack Obama has pushed for more science teachers and training for the same reason.

But a new paper contradicts the notion of a shrinking supply of native-born talent in United States.  "Those who advocate increasing the supply of STEM talent should cool their ardor a little bit," says one of its authors, B. Lindsay Lowell, a demographer at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.

by Jeffrey Mervis

Does the United States need another high-powered panel recommending ways to improve how students learn science and math?

The President’s Council of Advisors for Science and Technology (PCAST) thinks the answer is yes. Late last week, the presidentially appointed body heard from two expert panels and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan about what governments, academic institutions, and the private sector are doing to raise the quality of teachers, improve the curriculum, and close the achievement gap between rich and poor students. Council members pressed witnesses to explain the theory behind their efforts and provide evidence to back up any reported successes. They also solicited advice on how PCAST might make a unique contribution to the raft of existing reports and analyses.

PCAST would like to get a report to the president within 6 months, says Eric Lander, head of the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who will be leading the effort along with Jim Gates, a physics professor at the University of Maryland, College Park. “We have a lot of issues on our plate, but this one is too important to ignore,” Lander said after the 2-day meeting, which ended on Friday.

What aspects of U.S. science education do you think PCAST should focus on?

by Wayne Kondro

Is it "heavy-handed bullying" or simply a "misunderstanding between bureaucrats"? The suggestion that Canada's science minister threatened to punish one of the country's research funding councils over its support of a conference on Palestinian statehood has rekindled debate on a story we reported this summer.

Gary Goodyear, the minister of state for science and technology, this spring asked the Social Science and Humanities Research Council to review its decision to support a June conference at York University in Toronto the United Kingdom on the prospects for peace in the Middle East because of his concern that some of the participants may be biased against Israel. This week the Canadian Association of University Teachers released a memo that describes a conversation between the Council's communications manager, Trevor Lynn, and Goodyear’s chief of staff, Phillip Welford. The memo, from Lynn to the council's president and other senior officials, quotes Welford as saying that the council's actions "will make it hard for the Minister to recommend increased funding for [the council] in the next budget.”