What's New Friday March 13, 2009

WHAT’S NEW   Robert L. Park   Friday, 13 Mar 09   Washington, DC

1. THE HIGGS: LOOK AT IT THIS WAY, NOW WE KNOW WHERE IT ISN’T.
The Fermi National Laboratory announced today that the Higgs boson is not 
all that heavy.  If it was, the Tevatron would have found it.  It must be 
down in the underbrush with all the other debris from proton-antiproton 
collisions. That means there's going to be a lot of sorting out to do 
before it can be identified with certainty. This makes it less likely that 
FermiLab will win the race to the Higgs.

2. SCIENCE ADVICE:  THE "HOLD" ON SCIENCE NOMINATIONS.
Along with the rest of the scientific community, we were elated by 
President-elect Obama’s early choice of Harvard physicist John Holdren to 
be presidential science advisor, and Oregon State marine biologist Jane 
Lubchenco to head NOAA  www.bobpark.org/WN08/wn121908 .  But it is now mid-
March and neither has been confirmed by the Senate.  An anonymous hold has 
been placed on both nominations.  It's widely rumored that Bob Menendez (D-
FL) is using the "hold" to wring concessions on an unrelated issue; others 
say it’s David Vitter (R-LA) for purely ideological reasons related to 
Holdren’s pro-environment stance.  We have no way of knowing. The Senate 
custom of allowing individual senators to delay confirmations with an 
anonymous hold is starkly undemocratic and exposes the nation to 
unnecessary risk.  We have serious scientific issues to resolve.

3. STEM CELLS: GORGIA SENATE PROHIBITS STEM CELL RESEARCH.
In a strict party-line vote, all 34 Republican Senators all voted to ban 
embryonic stem cell research and therapeutic cloning in Georgia, and all 22 
Democrats voted against the ban.  An initial version of the bill defining 
an in vitro fertilized egg as a person was dropped along with criminal 
penalties.  The final bill states that embryos can’t be created in vitro 
for the the purpose of generating new stem cell lines. 

4. THE PRICE OF PORK: OBAMA SIGNS AN UNFORTUNATE SPENDING BILL.
Acknowledging that the bill was imperfect, which is an understatement, the 
president signed a $410 billion measure to fund most government agencies 
through September. The bill included some 8,500 projects inserted by 
individual lawmakers. As usual scientists and academic institutions 
participated in the pig out.  Having promised to eliminate earmarks in his 
campaign, the President paid a political price for signing.  Earmarks 
constitute less than 2% of the discretionary federal budget and many of the 
projects may be valuable, but if they are we can't tell because they've not 
gone through a review process.

5.  LIE DETECTOR:  ALL WE NEED NOW ARE LIARS THAT STINK.
Homeland Security is soliciting sources to look (or sniff) into human odor 
as an indicator of deception.  It’s not totally crazy.  Sweat due to 
nervousness comes from different glands than sweat due to exertion, and has 
a stronger odor.  But this has the same flaw as the polygraph.  It’s not 
clear whether liars or innocents will be more nervous.

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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