Stay current on the issue. More here.

Has the Large Hadron Collider destroyed the world yet?

The Ukrainian government offered to lau­nch DSCOVR free of charge, France made a similar offer. But NASA's response so far has been "no thanks."

LAUNCH IT!

WHAT THE HELL IS NASA THINKING?!?!

Seed: Free DSCOVR!

NASA has spent almost $100 million in taxpayer money to build a satellite that is headed for a storage bin in Maryland.

Triana was scheduled for a November flight into space, where it would measure ozone in the Earth's atmosphere while also beaming round-the-clock photos of Earth to the Internet.

But now, some fear it may never fly.

The cause of the costly hibernation: presidential politics and conflicting views -- many of them partisan...

LAUNCH IT!

If for no other reason then tax payers should see some ROI out of the project. This sounds like partisan politics leading to a pair of blinders willfully being put on the public.

POLITICS PUTS $100 MILLION SATELLITE ON ICE

Porting the hacker ethic to the nonvirtual world, magazines like Make and blogs like Boing Boing are making it cool for geeks to get their hands dirty again...

But the hands-on revival is leaving home chemists behind.... “There are very few commercial supply houses willing to sell chemicals to amateurs anymore because of this fear that we’re all criminals and terrorists,” Carlson says. “Ordinary folks no longer have access to the things they need to make real discoveries in chemistry.”

To Bill Nye, the “Science Guy,” says unreasonable fears about chemicals and home experimentation reflect a distrust of scientific expertise taking hold in society at large.

This Wired article is very apropos in light of Decius's CACM article. Apparently between trying to prevent terrorism, meth production, and fireworks accidents, state and federal regulators have pretty much made amateur chemistry illegal in the United States, which is going to do wonders for our future.

There was a debate on MemeStreams about whether product liability and tort law restricted individual freedoms. This is also a perfect example of that.

Wired 14.06: Don't Try This at Home

... "Never, ever talk to the federal government."

] Thomas Campbell Butler, at 63 years of age, is completing
] the 1st year of a 2-year sentence in federal prison,
] following an investigation and trial that was initiated
] after he voluntarily reported that he believed vials
] containing _Yersinia pestis_ were missing from his
] laboratory at Texas Tech University. We take this
] opportunity to remind the infectious diseases community
] of the plight of our esteemed colleague, whose career and
] family have, as a result of his efforts to protect us
] from infection by this organism, paid a price from which
] they will never recover.

The FBI sends a strong message to the scientific community...

] Some scientists now believe they may have finally
] discovered its root. We're all essentially mind readers,
] they say.

So, how well have you developed your sixth sense?

Scientists Say Everyone Can Read Minds

A must-have for mad science laboratories everywhere.

Only you can prevent Gray Goo

As it happens, several significant new books ... could settle the debate right now -- if people take the trouble to read them.

Most public debates in the US seem to fall into this category.

Those looking for some facts to go along with their "rich people will destroy our future" hypothesis could do worse then to look at this information (and they typically do). The reality that we've accepted a several degree temperature increase over the next 100 years regardless of who is counting, coupled with recent revelations about bifurcations in the equilibrium states of oceanic systems. The worst case realistic scenario is in fact rather troubling. Not "we're all going to die" troubling, but certainly "England is no longer really a hospitable place to live" troubling.

Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid.

Archaeologists have found what they believe to be the site of the Library of Alexandria, often described as the world's first major seat of learning.

Library of Alexandria discovered

] Laying a broad basis for possible future prescriptions, the
] President's Council on Bioethics yesterday issued an
] analysis of how biotechnology could lead toward
] unintended and destructive ends.

Comments on the matter from Decius:

I must express some suspicion of this given that we already understand what the administration's perspective of this is. Is this a search for answers, or a hammer looking for a nail?

Some of the NYT's quotes reveal a mixed bag:

For example, this makes sense to me:
"By medicalizing key elements of our life through biotechnical interventions," the report says, "we may weaken our sense of responsibility and agency."

We already do this in many different ways.

On the other hand, I cannot imagine a more foolish luddism then this statement:

It concludes that "the human body and mind, highly complex and delicately balanced as a result of eons of gradual and exacting evolution, are almost certainly at risk from any ill-considered attempt at `improvement.' "

While the wording here is carefully chosen, the message is clear. Obviously there are risks. Everything has risks. It is important to understand risks and avoid them. But by waxing about the perfection of the human being and placing the word improvement in quotes, the author is not really referring to risk management. He stops short of arguing that all activity in this space would be counterproductive only because he can't prove that. He is saying that biotechnology is bad.

What this perspective ignores is that every single technological development in the history of man, from the first wooden spear to the space shuttle, has been an attempt to escape the boundaries of what nature has given us. That is, in fact, fundamentally what makes us human and what differs us from most other animals. We invent technologies which help us adapt to environmental pressures that other species cannot adapt to because they adapt at random and without will.

To claim that we have no reason to continue to expand the boundaries of our capabilities is the same sort of narcissistic bullshit that lead Fukuyama, who made large contributions to this paper, to conclude that we are at the end of political history. This perspective is absolutely ignorant of human nature.

Bush's Advisers on Biotechnology Express Concern on Its Use