What's New Friday November 21, 2008

WHAT’S NEW   Robert L. Park   Friday, 21 Nov 08   Washington, DC

1. DSCOVR: WHAT IS IT THEY DON’T WANT THE WORLD TO SEE?
At a meeting of 44 top climate scientists in Frankfurt, Germany in March, 
it was agreed that observations from the L-1 point, a stable point between 
the Sun and Earth, are essential for assessing changes in cloud cover and 
climate.  The latest plan for the Deep Space Climate Observatory is to 
park it at the L-1 point, from which it could forever stare at the Sun, 
but modify it to prevent it from looking back at Earth.  It sounds like 
the biblical story of Lot. The plan, said to be urged by the Air Force, is 
the latest chapter in the bizarre history of DSCOVR, which was to have 
been launched in 2001.  Instead it was kept in solitary confinement in 
Greenbelt, MD.  From the L-1 point it could have continuously monitored 
reflected and emitted radiation from the whole Earth.  What don’t they 
want us to see?

2.  GM VOLT: THE AUTOMOBILE WE SHOULD HAVE HAD.
Burton Richter, the American physicist who shared the 1976 Nobel Prize 
with Sam Ting, showed up on CNN yesterday afternoon talking about the 
energy crisis.  Renamed "Barton" Richter in the caption, it was clearly 
the blunt spoken Burt who is on the board of directors of Scientists and 
Engineers for America, an organization focused on promoting sound science 
in American Government.  The Chevy Volt, Richter said, could cut US oil 
consumption by 60%, however, CEO Rick Wagoner had ignored his advice and 
pushed the arrogant Hummer, which a young lady in my class described as a 
very large middle finger.  Any bailout of GM should be predicated on total 
conversion to a maker of small high-efficiency vehicles.

3. GINKGO BILOBA: A TIP ON WHERE YOU CAN CUT EXPENSES. 
Annual sales of the herbal remedy Ginkgo biloba in the US are at $249 
million.   It is alleged to prevent memory loss.  It doesn’t.  In its 
first large trial, half of 3,069 volunteers 75 and older were given of 
Ginkgo biloba daily, while the other half were given a placebo.  They were 
assessed for signs of dementia every six months for 6 years.  Neither the 
patients nor the doctors doing the assessment knew which group patients 
were in.  The group getting the placebo actually did slightly better, 
although the difference was not statistically significant.  France is 
planning an even larger study.  Ginkgo has a lot of company.  One after 
another, the most popular herbal supplements, ephedra, Echinacea, St. 
John’s Wort, have failed in double-blind, placebo controlled studies.

4.  CANADA: CONSERVATIVE PRIME MINISTER PICKS A CABINET.
Our friends to the north are going through a transition similar to ours.  
Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party won the election in 
October and is naming a new cabinet.   I hope it goes better for science 
down here.   Canada’s new Minister of Science and Technology, Gary 
Goodyear is neither a scientist nor a technologist; he is a doctor of 
chiropractic.  Worse, he is also an acupuncturist.  I devote several pages 
in my book, Superstition: Belief in the Age of Science, to the complete 
lack of any scientific basis for acupuncture, and to the myth that allowed 
it to gain a foothold in America. I did the same for chiropractic in my 
earlier book Voodoo Science: The Road from Foolishness to Fraud.

THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND.
Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the
University of Maryland, but they should be.
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