Elsevier = evil

Along with SOPA and PIPA, our government is contemplating another acronym with deplorable consequences for the free dissemination of information: RWA, the Research Works Act. This is a bill to, it says, “ensure the continued publication and integrity of peer-reviewed research works by the private sector”, where the important phrase is “private sector” — it’s purpose is to guarantee that for-profit corporations retain control over the publication of scientific information. Here are the restrictions it would impose:

No Federal agency may adopt, implement, maintain, continue, or otherwise engage in any policy, program, or other activity that–

(1) causes, permits, or authorizes network dissemination of any private-sector research work without the prior consent of the publisher of such work; or

(2) requires that any actual or prospective author, or the employer of such an actual or prospective author, assent to network dissemination of a private-sector research work.

This is a blatant attempt to invalidate the NIH’s requirement that taxpayer-funded research be made publicly available. The internet was initially developed to allow researchers to easily share information…and that’s precisely the function this bill is intended to cripple.

Who could possibly support such a bill? Not the scientists, that’s for sure; and definitely not the public, unless we keep them as ignorant as possible. The corporations who love this bill are the commercial publishers who profit mightily from scientists’ work. And first among these is Elsevier, the gouging publisher scientists love to hate.

If passed, the Research Works Act (RWA) would prohibit the NIH’s public access policy and anything similar enacted by other federal agencies, locking publicly funded research behind paywalls. The result would be an ethical disaster: preventable deaths in developing countries, and an incalculable loss for science in the USA and worldwide. The only winners would be publishing corporations such as Elsevier (£724m profits on revenues of £2b in 2010 – an astounding 36% of revenue taken as profit).

Since Elsevier’s obscene additional profits would be drained from America to the company’s base in the Netherlands if this bill were enacted, what kind of American politician would support it? The RWA is co-sponsored by Darrell Issa (Republican, California) and Carolyn B. Maloney (Democrat, New York). In the 2012 election cycle, Elsevier and its senior executives made 31 donations to representatives: of these, two went to Issa and 12 to Maloney, including the largest individual contribution.

So Elsevier bought a couple of politicians to get their way. It’s typical unscrupulous behavior from this company; at least they stopped organizing arms trade fairs a few years ago, so we know their evil can be checked by sufficiently loud public opinion.

Tell your representatives to kill RWA. It’s another bill to benefit corporations that will harm science.

(Also on Sb)

How to inflame a young man’s passions

Hey! Remember that seven year old blogger who writes about paleozoic creatures? He’s going to be eight, and he knows what he wants for his birthday: A trip to the Field Museum at the University of Chicago. Friends and family are trying to raise money so he can go.

Wait a minute…I haven’t been to the Field Museum, either, despite having been to Chicago several times in the last few years. What’s wrong with me? I should be telling you to pay for my trip!

No, I’ll be altruistic: contribute to the young man’s dreams and inspire him to be a scientist when he grows up. I’ll just try to get their on my own — I’m a big boy now, I have an income and everything.

(Also on Sb)

Once again, I am embarrassed to be an American

I have really been looking forward to seeing David Attenborough’s latest, Frozen Planet, here in the US. I’ve seen brief snippets of the show on youtube, and like all of these big BBC nature productions, I’m sure it’s stunning. And then I hear that the Discovery Channel has bought the rights! Hooray!

But wait, experience cautions us. Remember when American television replaced Attenborough’s narration with Sigourney Weaver? And <shudder> Oprah Winfrey? And when the Oprah version dropped the references to evolution? What kind of insane butchery would they perpetrate this time around?

Well, the word is out. The Discovery Channel only bought 6 of the 7 episodes. They dropped the seventh because…it talks about global climate change.

Goddamnit.

It’s not just our dimbulbs in government, it’s active collusion by the media to suppress scientific evidence because it might be unpopular with our undereducated booberati. Jerry Coyne suggests that you contact the Discovery Channel’s viewer relations page and express your displeasure. I will not be watching a neutered version of the program on Discovery; instead, I’ll wait until I can pick up the BBC DVDs.

You know what else is annoying about this? My wife and I are having a pleasantly quiet evening at home, and what she’s been doing is watching youtube videos…of David Attenborough. She’s been gushing over these spectacular videos all night long, and I swear, I’m beginning to feel pangs of manly jealousy. At least I get to tell her that the American media has decided that he’s seditious and dangerous.

And that will probably make him even more attractive. I can’t win.

Just to end on a more pleasant note, Mary almost orgasmed over this one. You’ll like it too. Too bad the Discovery Channel thinks you hate reality.

(Also on Sb)

Mad scientists, start drooling

The future is arriving fast. Here are the instructions for assembling a $500 home molecular biology laboratory — you can do it! And it’s getting cheaper all the time!

The widespread and increasing availability of second-hand professional laboratory equipment or inexpensive new commercial surrogates means that it is now unchallenging to set up a fully functional molecular laboratory for less than $500 in equipment costs. Coupled with the presence of sources for all reagents and supplies needed in formats that are safe for general use, the work presented here demonstrates that capacity to set up functional molecular biology teaching modules is well within the reach of even the smallest educational facilities. When coupled with outsourced PCR product Sanger sequencing available from commercial sources at prices approaching $5/reaction, the capacity of such “home labs” to start undertaking research of real potential scientific value—such as surveys of microbial biota in unusual environments—at negligible costs should not be underestimated. Similarly, the potential for setting up labs of this type for medical applications in emerging countries may be worth considering. While current best methods have moved to real-time and array-based high throughput, contamination resistant methods, the methods demonstrated here were “state of the art” for clinical and research molecular diagnostics in the Western world only some 15 years ago.

Hmmm. The kids have flown, I’ve got more space than we know what to do with…maybe this summer I should tinker with setting up something like this.

(Also on Sb)

Stephen Jay Gould

I completely missed this, because I was distracted: Jerry Coyne celebrated the life of Stephen Jay Gould this past weekend — Gould’s birthday was 10 September. I did not know that. It’s the same as my wife’s! I knew there was something in the stars that attracted me to her. Of course, it’s going to be awkward now when every year on 10 September I wake up, turn to my wife, give her a kiss, and announce “Happy Stephen Jay Gould’s birthday, dear! Let’s celebrate by reading some of his essays!”

In the spirit of Coyne’s essay, I will say that I greatly appreciated the man. I didn’t know him well — I met him a grand total of twice — but I loved his essays, and they’re one of the things that inspired me to go into biology. I subscribed to Natural History magazine specifically for his column, and I let the subscription lapse after he died (I wonder how much of that magazine’s circulation was built entirely around that one author). I’ve read all of his books, even his turgidly bloated last, The Structure of Evolutionary Theory — I have to say the quality of his work declined over the years as he seemed to become incapable of editing anything, and every stray thought he had just had to go into every sentence (parenthetical asides inside parenthetical asides…yeah, that was his style).

The two great popularizers of my college years were Gould and Dawkins. I know there was some conflict, maybe even rivalry between them, but I didn’t see it. To me, Dawkins was always about clarity and a style that was always lucid; Gould was about the richness and complexity of biology, with a style that reflected that view, for good or ill.

The chief scientific influence Gould had on me was primarily through one book, Ontogeny and Phylogeny. I think it was his first book, and probably his best: he was the evolutionary biologist who really got how important development was to understanding the process. I’m sure this is partly me reading more into him, but frequently when I read his work I got the impression that there was a developmental biologist trying to emerge from the shell of the snail systematist.

I’ve still got his books on a shelf in my office, and I still read them occasionally, for inspiration. I also still use them in my classes. Just last week, I had my freshman students read “Carrie Buck’s Daughter” as part of an assignment in bioethics, which brings to mind another characteristic of Gould: he was a marvelously humane writer.

(Also on Sb)

Bill Nye is good

Go watch this video of Bill Nye explaining global warming to a Fox News babbler. You can see why he’s a national treasure: he cocks those eyebrows, he clearly thinks he’s dealing with a knucklehead, but he goes on to slowly and carefully explain the science to him. All those years of children’s programming pay off perfectly when dealing with our conservative media — treating the announcers like small angry children is just perfect.

You can also see the shortcomings of television, though. The patient, thorough approach bumps up against the tiny time windows and short attention spans all too soon.

(Also on Sb)