In the moments of bliss and validation that some of us felt after the November elections, some members of the lame-duck Congress were frantically making a last-ditch push for their ideological agenda. They didn’t get very far.
However, after reality set in at the White House, plans were being laid for appointments, recess and others, over which the new Congress would have little say. Our bliss was short lived.
It seems scientists will still bear the brunt of administration ideology. In the past week alone, appointees at the EPA have “streamlined” methods for “updating” regulations on air pollution, essentially stifling scientific review of pollutants on public health. This, of course, benefits the petroleum and battery industries, which will now be allowed to avoid scientific scrutiny of pollutants such as lead, ozone, diesel soot, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide and nitrous oxides. Instead, EPA appointees will craft a “policy paper” to regulate the industry. What a crock!
In the same week, scientists received another blow that would deny researchers access to six federal libraries across the country. The EPA has boxed up books that helped toxicologists assess the health effects of pesticides and other chemicals. Another boon to industry at the expense of science.
In a year when our president called for the training of more science and math teachers to educate a new generation to be more competitive in the global economy, he also ordered the editing of tax-funded scientific studies to remove all mention of global warming. Is it possible he still views climate change, like evolution, as an unproven theory?
I began to understand the impact of these policies on young people when my 12-year-old grandson talked to me about college. He said that at one point he wanted to study engineering but now thought business would be a smarter choice. This is a kid who can’t bear to throw away his science projects from the past three years.
What he doesn’t yet realize is that even though their efforts are often quashed by the current political powers in Washington, scientists still have all the fun. What physicist Richard Feynman called the joy of finding things out.
Consider these gems from the past month. Scientific American publishes a new study showing that male chimpanzees woo the oldest females they can find. Anthropologist Martin Muller thinks maybe it’s that older females have higher social rank and are thus entitled to more and better food, making them more likely to conceive and their offspring more likely to thrive. Male chimps, Muller says, may not find the wrinkled skin, ragged ears, irregular bald patches and elongated nipples as alluring, but they’re clearly not reacting negatively to such cues. Britney Spears, eat your heart out.
More serious researchers sampling ice from Siberian lakes discovered fragments of a 1930s influenza strain. Virologist Jonathan Stoye says viruses deposited in the droppings of migratory birds freeze and can survive at low temperatures. But freed by melting ice, they could infect migratory birds and spread to humans. And scientists were able to revive frozen bacteria that sat in an Alaskan pond for 32,000 years. Today’s humans would have no immunity to these bacteria, which could cause a worldwide pandemic. Yet one more reason to take global warming seriously. Also, researchers from Colorado State University sampling water supplies found many genes known to confer resistance against two popular antibiotics. The spread of this DNA, present in certain microbes, could speed the proliferation of resistant strains of tuberculosis and other diseases once thought to be wiped out. Let’s see what the EPA does about this. Will they have the guts to demand modifications to wastewater treatment plants?
And then we have scientists, bless their hearts, to thank for good news about chocolate. Johns Hopkins University researchers studying aspirin told 1,500 volunteers to avoid chocolate, tea, strawberries and red wine. Chocoholics, 139 of them, couldn’t resist cheating and were disqualified from the trial. However, test results showed their blood clotted much slower than the rest of the group. Epidemiologist Diane Becker deduced that a couple tablespoons of chocolate a day could be just as good as aspirin for reducing blood clots. Now there’s a scientist who really knows the joy of finding things out.