Open Letter to the American People

Text of Open Letter to the American People (PDF), published on September 25, 2008.

This year's presidential election is among the most significant in our nation's history. The country urgently needs a visionary leader who can ensure the future of our traditional strengths in science and technology and who can harness those strengths to address many of our greatest problems: energy, disease, climate change,
security, and economic competitiveness.

We are convinced that Senator Barack Obama is such a leader, and we urge you to join us in supporting him.

During the administration of George W. Bush, vital parts of our country's scientific enterprise have been
damaged by stagnant or declining federal support. The government's scientific advisory process has been distorted by political considerations. As a result, our once dominant position in the scientific world has been shaken and our prosperity has been placed at risk. We have lost time critical for the development of new
ways to provide energy, treat disease, reverse climate change, strengthen our security, and improve our economy.

We have watched Senator Obama's approach to these issues with admiration. We especially applaud his emphasis during the campaign on the power of science and technology to enhance our nation's competitiveness. In particular, we support the measures he plans to take – through new initiatives in education and training, expanded research funding, an unbiased process for obtaining scientific advice, and an appropriate balance of basic and applied research – to meet the nation's and the world's most urgent needs.

Senator Obama understands that Presidential leadership and federal investments in science and technology are crucial elements in successful governance of the world's leading country. We hope you will join us as we work together to ensure his election in November.

The letter is signed by 61 Nobel Prize recipients.

Scientific explanation for Red States

The Voice of Bad Science, an article by Ben Rothke, says what I've believed all along -- that Americans are dumber than a sack of hair.

... Americans are woefully uneducated in the rudiments of basic science. This ignorance makes these types of consumers prey for supplement companies. The fact that tens of millions of American’s believe in government conspiracies, Bigfoot and Roswell are dubious signs. Lawrence Krauss writes in “Stop the Flying Saucer, I Want to Get Off” that “mountains of statistics suggest that the public is far more susceptible to scientific nonsense than political nonsense. More than half of Americans are unaware that the earth orbits the sun and takes a year to do it”.

Although the article is ostensibly about radio advertising, I can't help but draw parallels to why there are so many John McCain supporters or why there are so many dittoheads.

Virtual telescope yields virtual image

A scientific consortium has managed to zoom in on the super-massive black hole, Sagittarius A* , which is at the center of our galaxy.

The astronomers linked together radio dishes in Hawaii, Arizona and California to create a virtual telescope more than 2,800 miles across that is capable of seeing details more than 1,000 times finer than the Hubble Space Telescope.

According to the article in e! Science News, the 2,800-mile angular resolution has the ability to actually see the event horizon of the black hole -- the point where nothing, even light, can escape.

I was somewhat disappointed that there weren't any pictures of the event horizon, so I've posted my own close-up image.

One Candidate on Science and Technology

Back on January 10, I had mentioned Sciencedebate 2008, which hoped to get the presidential candidate to weigh in on science and technology issues.

So far, only Barack Obama has stepped up to the plate. John McCain, however, is said that he intends to respond.

Scientists and Engineers for America has more on this issue.

Why they're hot

A EurekaAlert.org piece, New research reveals why chili peppers are hot, offers an interesting evolutionary explanation as to why chili peppers are hot.

Conventional thought says that the fruit of a plant is tasty so that animals will eat and disperse the seeds. Chili peppers are sort of an exception to this rule. The current theory, which is based upon research on wild chili plants in Bolivia, indicates that the capsaicin in a chili evolved to protect the seeds from Fusarium infections. Fusarium, a fungus that invades fruits through wounds, is a leading cause of seed mortality.

At higher elevations, where moisture is high and Fusarium fungus is rampant, the scientists found that 100 percent of the plants produced hot chilies. In the drier lowlands, where fungus is less of a problem, only 40 percent of the plants produced fiery fruits. The remainder spent more resources developing thick seed coats, which protect against the devastating ant populations common to lower areas.

Capsaicin in chilies, one of the first plants domesticated in the New World, may have been used to protect human food from microbial attack long before refrigeration or artificial preservatives were available. So habanero peppers must be nature's super preservative.

Does Word 2008 Suck?

I've been using the new Microsoft Office 2008 Suite for well over a year, and I've been of several minds about it. My first reaction was one of dislike -- the new interface just didn't do it for me. Although I've since adjusted to it, I still thrash around looking for some commands. Styles, which I thought I knew pretty well, also threw me for a loop in the new version.

After producing some documents in Word 2008, however, I grew to like some of the improvements, such as the improved way of working with header and footers.

Recently, however, I was helping a student with his 670-page Master's thesis, which was produced in Word 2003. I couldn't open (or thought I couldn't) his file in Word 2008. My next-cube-neighbor couldn't either, but he could open it using Office 2008 on his Mac laptop. So, he created a 2008-combatible (i.e., docx) file for me, and I got the same results. It really turned out that the file could load -- it just took 17 minutes to actually open!

In an experiment, I used VMware to open another XP session within my current one. I have Office 2003 installed under that session. Despite all of the inherent disadvantages of running Office under a virtual machine, Word 2003 was able to open it almost instantly.

Making a long story short, I think that Word 2008 had a real problem with the styles that the student was using. Most of his styles were variations of the normal tag, and I've read on Woody's that this type of "direct formatting in very large documents usually causes corruption."

Apparently this corruption only flummoxes Word 2008.

Dispatch from the Taliban Nation

In a bit of belated reading, I came across a March 6, 2008, item from gallup.com. Do Muslims Want Democracy and Theocracy? is an excerpt from the book Who Speaks for Islam?

The book is the product of a mammoth six-year study in which the Gallup Organization conducted tens of thousands of hour-long, face-to-face interviews with residents of more than 35 predominantly Muslim nations — urban and rural, young and old, men and women, educated and illiterate. It asks the questions everyone is curious about: Why is the Muslim world so anti-American? Who are the extremists? Is democracy something Muslims really want? What do Muslim women want? The answers to these and other pertinent, provocative questions are provided not by experts, extremists, or talking heads, but by empirical evidence — the voices of a billion Muslims.

So, when asked about democracy, most Muslims want a democracy, but one based upon Sharia, which is a code of law based on the Koran.

In only a few countries, such as Jordan, Egypt, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh, do the majority want Sharia to be the only source of legislation.

Interestingly, a 2006 Gallup Poll in the US finds that a majority of Americans want the Bible as a source of legislation.

• Forty-six percent of Americans say that the Bible should be "a" source, and 9% believe it should be the "only" source of legislation.
• Perhaps even more surprising, 42% of Americans want religious leaders to have a direct role in writing a constitution, while 55% want them to play no role at all. These numbers are almost identical to those in Iran.

Welcome to the Taliban Nation. Leave your sandals at the door.