Political Science:

More nonsense about pencil-necked scientists from those savants on the Hill, via the American Institute of Physics' FYI listserv edition.

Discussing the reauthorization bill (H.R. 1867) for the National Science Foundation, there were several attempts at amendments to limit the increase in the budgets for the NSF or to at least limit the areas in which NSF was allowed to invest taxpayer moneys:

There was far more discussion about an amendment offered by Rep. John Campbell (R-CA-48): "None of the funds authorized under this section may be used for research related to seven activities such as "the accuracy in the cross-cultural understanding of others' emotions" or "archives of Andean Knotted-Sting Records." Said Campbell: "What this amendment does is it says that there are certain things upon which we should not be spending money through this bill during this time of budget deficits, stealing Social Security funds, and increasing taxes." He added, "I understand that there is a process of peer review from which these studies come in the National Science Foundation, and that's all well and good. But our job here is we are the elected representatives and stewards of the taxpayers' money, not the academics in the National Science Foundation, and it is our decision whether or not we wish to spend taxpayers' funds on studies of the social relationships and reproductive strategies of Phayre's leaf monkeys or on bison hunting on the late prehistoric Great Plains. I think we should not do that. I am sure that some believe that these are very fine academic studies. That's excellent. Within the realms of academic halls, they may think a number of things are fine academic studies. That's not the question. The question before us is, do these things rise to the standard of requiring expenditures of taxpayer funds in a time of deficits, proposed tax increases and raiding Social Security funds? I think the answer is a resounding no."

Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA-3) immediately refuted the logic of the Campbell amendment, first quoting a letter from the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the similar position of the Association of American Universities. He then said, "the gentleman [Rep. Campbell] seems to suggest, it seems, that we here in the Congress, with a cursory evaluation of the abstracts from studies, should insert ourselves in the peer-review process. I wonder if the gentleman had looked at chemistry research or physics research in the same way, and do we really want to spend this body's time, and do you, sir, or you, sir, have the expertise to evaluate these studies? That's why we have a peer-review process. That's why we have a National Science Foundation. It is why we have a Science Foundation Board to direct us."

Rep. Vernon Ehlers (R-MI-3) outlined his opposition, telling his colleagues: "you can't always judge the full proposal by the title. This was evident a few years ago when we went through exactly the same charade when discussing the National Science Foundation budget. Some of my colleagues came down to the floor to amend the NSF appropriations bill, and one offered an amendment to remove grants for the study of ATM. This person gave a magnificent speech why we should not spend money at the National Science Foundation or the Department of Energy to study ATM. His argument was, let the banking industry do the research on ATMs. What he didn't know is that the proposal was not on automatic teller machines but the proposal was on studying asynchronous transfer modes, which involves the way computers talk to each other. This research led to a substantial change in the speed at which computers were able to talk to each other. This is a good example of why it is dangerous to just look at titles and make a judgment."

Sigh. Echoes of "why do we need NOAA? We have the Weather Channel to do that."

Ranking Member Vernon Ehlers (R-MI-3) is a Ph.D. physicist, one of only two Members of Congress with scientific degrees.

"Only two members of Congress hold doctorates in the sciences, both in physics: Rep. Vern Ehlers of Michigan ..., and Rep. Rush Holt [(D-NJ-12)] of New Jersey (leader of the congressional Science Coalition and former Congressional Science Fellow). Sadly, the House Science Committee and the Senate Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Space are not considered high profile committees and many of the members assigned to these committees have little expertise in the broad array of scientific issues that come before them, yet they are being asked to determine the direction and funding of federal science."

(Michèle Koppes, 2004-2005 GSA-U.S. Geological Survey Congressional Science Fellow)

Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA-3) is the House Subcommittee on Research and Science Education Chairman.

Hot Spots for Nitrogen:

A 'science highlight' I recently churned out for NSF:

Scientists at the National Center for Earth-surface Dynamics (NCED, http://www.nced.umn.edu/) have recently made a surprising link between topography and biological processes.

Working in the Angelo Coast Range Reserve in Northern California, Dr. Benjamin O’Connor (presently with the U.S. Geological Survey in Reston, VA), discovered that denitrification, a key nutrient process in streams, is controlled by the local landscape in and around the stream. It turns out that the combination of surface topography, the timing and volume of fluid flow and microbial processes all combine to produce areas and times of relatively high and low activity within the same stream, or “Hot Spots and Hot Moments.” Very small stretches of the stream can be responsible for much of the stream’s total loss of nitrogen to the atmosphere. This process is extremely important in watersheds where water quality downstream is of societal concern.

NCED has found that these Hot Spots can be predicted with a combination of high-resolution topography and hydraulic factors predicted from stream bathymetry. This work links to other discoveries showing that nitrogen and light availability affect the spatial distributions of algal blooms through the channel network, whereas recent flooding history determines whether the insects grazing on this algae will be vulnerable to predators like fish.

Advances such as these, coupled with highly resolved spatial data from remote sensing and other sources, provide a new basis for prediction in ecology.



Caption: Local topography controls denitrification “hot spots” such that ~80% of denitrification takes place in only ~16% of stream length in the Angelo Coast Reserve.

(Thanks to Chris Paola, Miki Hondzo, and Mary Power for corrections to the text...)

A Stormy Past:

A 'science highlight' I recently churned out for NSF:

Scientist Jeffrey Donnelly, of the Coastal Systems Group at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), is looking closely at the mess left by hurricane storm surges--not the mess left by Katrina on the Gulf Coast, but the mess left in the New York City area. He has found not just one, but at least ten layers of sand left behind by likely hurricanes in the last seven hundred years.

Dr. Donnelly hopes to reconstruct the history of intense storms in the Southern New England and Long Island by looking at the deposits left by land-falling hurricanes and storm surges in backbarrier salt marshes and kettle ponds found at different heights throughout the area. So far, his group has found sand layers that correspond to the known great storms of 1991, 1954, 1938, 1893, 1788 and 1693 AD. Many additional layers indicate prehistoric storms that date back to 1642–1477, 1434–1347, 1316–1257, and even to 1190–1034 AD and earlier.



While considered rare in the New York City area, land-falling hurricanes have likely occurred many times throughout the past ~3500 years. With six severe storms, likely hurricanes, in the past 700 years, the frequency of land-falling hurricanes in the New York City area is equal to that of southern Rhode Island, and higher than that of southern New Jersey. Initial findings suggest that alternating periods of frequent and infrequent hurricane activity have occurred in the past, possibly tied to changes in climate. The times of high hurricane activity in western Long Island are 3500–3050 years before present (BP) and 2200–900 BP, nearly synchronous with high activity observed in the Caribbean and northern Gulf Coast.

Estimates of past storm strengths and frequencies are extremely valuable to researchers trying to tease out the influence of human activities on climate.