He’s 90, but David Perlman still knows his science news

Science writer David Perlman of the San Francisco Chronicle will end a newspaper career that’s lasted 78 years. (!) source

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He is not going to say by 2020 I’m going to reduce emissions by 30%. He’ll have a revolution on his hands. He has to do it step by step.
Rajendra Pachauri • Head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), on the domestic pressures Barack Obama faces on climate cuts. Obama has called for 80% carbon cuts by 2050, but 2020 might be too soon for pushing through such a policy. • source

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Promoting science isn’t just about providing resources. It is about letting scientists … do their jobs, free from manipulation or coercion, and listening to what they tell us, even when it’s inconvenient; especially when it’s inconvenient.
Barack Obama • As he was lifting the ban on embryonic stem-cell research, which lasted for 8-and-a-half years during the Bush years. He claims this is part of a broader initiative to end the government’s limitations on what science can do. Understandably, he’s annoying a bunch of religious conservatives by doing this, but that’s why a Democrat was elected into office! • source

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A MacArthur Fellow poses the question. Carl Safina, in an essay in the New York Times, says that by putting all the attention on the guy who discovered evolution, it’s allowed later advances – Gregor Mendel’s patterns of heredity, DNA, developmental biology, and genetic medicine – to get ignored by those who don’t support the theory of evolution . Safina claims Charles Darwin has unfairly become the talking point. The dude could’ve turned 200 this week, by the way. source

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He was clearly extremely important, his thinking changed the world. We disagree with his conclusions, with the way he made extrapolations, but he was a very careful observer and we’ve got a lot to be grateful for.
Paul Taylor • A spokesman for the rejecting-of-Darwin’s-theory group Answers in Genesis. The group prefers a literal interpretation of the bible. • source

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The man’s still a lightning rod when it comes to that whole theory of evolution he invented. source

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The evidence Scientists recently found sediment from nano-diamonds, and other impact materials, around North American sites. These materials could not be created through average processes, says James Kennett, a scientist at the University of California. source

The evidence Scientists recently found sediment from nano-diamonds, and other impact materials, around North American sites. These materials could not be created through average processes, says James Kennett, a scientist at the University of California.
What they think happened Scientists believe that these materials could have impacted the Earth from space 13,000 years ago, causing diamond “rain” that led to the extinction of the wooly mammoth and the early-human Clovis culture in North America. source

The evidence Scientists recently found sediment from nano-diamonds, and other impact materials, around North American sites. These materials could not be created through average processes, says James Kennett, a scientist at the University of California.
What they think happened Scientists believe that these materials could have impacted the Earth from space 13,000 years ago, causing diamond “rain” that led to the extinction of the wooly mammoth and the early-human Clovis culture in North America.
The impact theorized “Imagine 1,000 to 10,000 atomic bombs detonating within a few minutes over two continents,” says Allen West, co-author of the Science Magazine paper in which the theory was first put forth. We’re not sure if we really want to. It sounds scary. source

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27 Apr 2009 11:13