Mr Hofmann first produced LSD in 1938 while researching the medicinal uses of a crop fungus.
He accidentally ingested some of the drug and said later: “Everything I saw was distorted as in a warped mirror.”
He argued for decades that LSD could help treat mental illness, but in the 1960s it became a popular street drug.
‘Turn on, tune in, drop out’
BBC news
A tiny chemical “brain” which could one day act as a remote control for swarms of nano-machines has been invented.The molecular device – just two billionths of a metre across – was able to control eight of the microscopic machines simultaneously in a test.
Writing in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, scientists say it could also be used to boost the processing power of future computers.
Many experts have high hopes for nano-machines in treating disease.
“If [in the future] you want to remotely operate on a tumour you might want to send some molecular machines there,” explained Dr Anirban Bandyopadhyay of the International Center for Young Scientists, Tsukuba, Japan.
“But you cannot just put them into the blood and [expect them] to go to the right place.”
Dr Bandyopadhyay believes his device may offer a solution. One day they may be able to guide the nanobots through the body and control their functions, he said.
“That kind of device simply did not exist; this is the first time we have created a nano-brain,” he told BBC News.
This map was constructed by sorting roughly 800,000 published papers into 776 different scientific paradigms (shown as pale circular nodes) based on how often the papers were cited together by authors of other papers. Links (curved black lines) were made between the paradigms that shared papers, then treated as rubber bands, holding similar paradigms nearer one another when a physical simulation forced every paradigm to repel every other; thus the layout derives directly from the data. Larger paradigms have more papers; node proximity and darker links indicate how many papers are shared between two paradigms. Flowing labels list common words unique to each paradigm, large labels general areas of scientific inquiry.
The European Parliament has approved a 54bn euro (£36bn) ($80bn) plan to boost science research in Europe.
Framework Programme 7 (FP7) is designed to support several priority areas of research.
Of the different research categories, information technology gets the biggest chunk of funding, with a 9.1bn euro (£6bn)($12bn) budget.
But research into climate change and energy have received a comparatively small amount of funding in the plan.
The Parliament gave the go-ahead to the plan on Thursday at its second reading. FP7 is due to be formally adopted by the EU on 5 December. The programme is due to run from 2007 to 2013.
Women are being filtered out of high-level science, math and engineering jobs in the United States, and there is no good reason for it, according to a National Academies report released on Monday.
A committee of experts looked at all the possible excuses—biological differences in ability, hormonal influences, childrearing demands, and even differences in ambition—and found no good explanation for why women are being locked out.
“Compared with men, women faculty members are generally paid less and promoted more slowly, receive fewer honors, and hold fewer leadership positions,” the Academies said in a statement.
“These discrepancies do not appear to be based on productivity, the significance of their work, or any other performance measures.”
Female minorities fare the worst, the study found. And the expert panel said the discrepancies are costing the country many talented leaders and researchers and recommended immediate and far-reaching changes to change the balance.
The Dalai Lama has a cold. He has been hacking and sniffling his way around Washington, DC, for three days, calling on President Bush and Condoleezza Rice and visiting the Booker T. Washington Public Charter School for Technical Arts. Now he’s onstage at the Washington Convention Center, preparing to address 14,000 attendees at the Society for Neuroscience’s annual conference.
The mood is tense. The State Department Diplomatic Security Service has swept the hallways for explosives. Agents stand at their posts.
The 14th incarnation of the Living Buddha of Compassion approaches the podium, clears his throat, and blows his nose loudly. “So now I am releasing my stress,” he says. The audience dissolves into laughter.
The Dalai Lama is here to give a speech titled “The Neuroscience of Meditation.” Over the past few years, he has supplied about a dozen Tibetan Buddhist monks to Richard Davidson, a prominent neuroscience professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Davidson’s research created a stir among brain scientists when his results suggested that, in the course of meditating for tens of thousands of hours, the monks had actually altered the structure and function of their brains. The professor thought the Dalai Lama would make an interesting guest speaker at the Society for Neuroscience’s annual meeting, and the program committee jumped at the chance. The speech also gives the Tibetan leader an opportunity to promote one of his cherished goals: an alliance between Buddhism and science.
Last week, the National Academy of Sciences, or NAS, joined with the National Science Teachers Association, or NSTA, to tell the Kansas State Board of Education that it would not grant the state copyright permission to incorporate its science education standards manuals into the state’s public school science curriculum because Kansas plans to teach students that “intelligent design” is a viable alternative theory to evolution. Kansas is scrambling to rewrite its proposal to win over the NAS and NSTA.
The results from a new online survey conducted by Seed Media Group and JWT reveal that Americans have a strong interest in science-related issues.
Seed and JWT have also identified the emergence of a new sub-group they’ve termed “Leonardos.” A Leonardo is a science-savvy person, who is young, educated and an early adopting consumer. Overall these Leonardos have a combined spending power of $40 billion.
More than any other group, these people use scientific information to inform their purchasing decisions and select brands that represent companies with an investment in science.
Other findings from the study show that three out of four Americans are more interested in science than they were five years ago, the biggest reason for this being a concern for the future.
As well, Americans trust scientists more than any other public figures including religious leaders, politicians and celebrities. In fact, only doctors ranked higher in this category.
An unusual meeting of scientists took place in Paris this summer, when scientists gathered to brainstorm about the need for a new science, one that could be as revolutionary as Einstein’s insights were a century ago.
Most scientists assume that the basics of science are known. In terms of big challenges, the conventional wisdom is that few things are left to discover. The remaining options are said to fall into three groups: “grand scientific quandaries” (such as uniting gravity and electricity into one theory) which require a huge investment and first-world infrastructure; “data collection,” which is the field work associated with archeological digs and biological/genetic surveys; and “science-informed problems,” such as combating AIDS or addressing global warming.
Beyond that, many believe the only hard work will be to use existing laws to benefit humankind in new technological ways. Who can argue? After all, today’s models work.
But an emerging group of scientists points to phenomena that current theories do not address well. These problems are exceedingly common and artfully avoided because the science that would account for them just doesn’t exist.
This missing science would describe processes and how entire systems evolve.
via Taipei Times
Summary
There is increasing concern that most current published research findings are false. The probability that a research claim is true may depend on study power and bias, the number of other studies on the same question, and, importantly, the ratio of true to no relationships among the relationships probed in each scientific field. In this framework, a research finding is less likely to be true when the studies conducted in a field are smaller; when effect sizes are smaller; when there is a greater number and lesser preselection of tested relationships; where there is greater flexibility in designs, definitions, outcomes, and analytical modes; when there is greater financial and other interest and prejudice; and when more teams are involved in a scientific field in chase of statistical significance. Simulations show that for most study designs and settings, it is more likely for a research claim to be false than true. Moreover, for many current scientific fields, claimed research findings may often be simply accurate measures of the prevailing bias. In this essay, I discuss the implications of these problems for the conduct and interpretation of research.
1 The placebo effect
2 The horizon problem
3 Ultra-energetic cosmic rays
4 Belfast homeopathy results
5 Dark matter
6 Viking’s methane
7 Tetraneutrons
8 The Pioneer anomaly
9 Dark energy
10 The Kuiper cliff
11 The Wow signal
12 Not-so-constant constants
13 Cold fusion
The Bush administration and the scientific community have never had an easy relationship.
For the past four years, scientists have accused the Bush White House of ignoring widely accepted scientific studies in favor of fringe theories that support the administration’s political agenda. Meanwhile, government officials say scientists are exploiting research for political purposes.
From Wired
A strange life form has been identified in Bradford.
Genetic analysis reveals that the organism is so bizarre and unlike anything else seen by scientists that perhaps it should be placed in its own category of living things.
Most of the cells in your body are not your own, nor are they even human. They are bacterial. From the invisible strands of fungi waiting to sprout between our toes, to the kilogram of bacterial matter in our guts, we are best viewed as walking “superorganisms,” highly complex conglomerations of human, fungal, bacterial and viral cells.
Learning the science behind cocaine, drug testing, and nerve gas can help high school students understand basic biology and chemistry concepts, a NIDA-funded study has found. Test scores of students who were exposed to drug-related modules in science classrooms were higher than scores of students whose science classes did not include the modules.
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