Vince Cable. Photo credit: Alex Folkes/Fishnik.com.

Dr Evan Harris, writing for the Political Science blog on the Guardian, realistically conceded that the governmental budget for scientific research will inevitably be cut to some degree. This “should not shock anyone. Disappoint? Yes. Depress? Yes. Surprise? No,” said Harris, in a plea for us to pull ourselves together. He went on to remind us that all government departments must cut spending by 14% each over the next five years. But if the ring-fence protecting the NHS from severe cuts is expanded so as to include defence and education, this “would require cuts in departments such as BIS (the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills) of 33%.” Nearly the figure that Cable denied.

Meanwhile the Financial Times took a different tack, warning of the implications that reduced funding could have on the UK’s economy and global competitiveness. “In a speech in Cleveland, Ohio, Barack Obama is expected to announce a $100bn package to expand research and development tax credits for companies that invest in innovative technologies,” said the FT. “France, Germany, Brazil and China are all prioritising science and research as vital to their strategies for economic recovery and growth.” Science is a “UK success story: we are world leaders by some measures, and second only to the US by others. This success has been achieved in spite of a smaller investment … than our competitors.” The paper argued that we cannot afford for that small figure to get any smaller, budget cuts or not.

The Campaign for Science and Engineering in the UK (CASE) used its blog to make a similar point to the FT by compiling a list of Cable quotes about science funding, and displaying them alongside those of other world leaders. For example, when Cable said: “How do we economise without damaging science? What reforms are needed to help us achieve more with less?” Angela Merkel said: “[T]he prosperity of a country such as Germany, with its scarce mineral resources, must be sought through investment in research, education and science, and this to a disproportionate degree.”

Cable received some praise for further comments he later made on the matter in a speech at the Queen Mary Bioscience Innovation Centre in London. That, “There is no justification for taxpayers’ money being used to support research which is neither commercially useful nor theoretically outstanding”, was received as reasonable.

“But hang on,” said Exquisite Life, “we already have mechanisms throughout our research system in this country to try and ensure this doesn’t happen.” Cable’s language suggested that money is being wasted but, said Exquisite Life, “That’s not the case. … The problem is, you have to hand out the funding before the research gets done. And there is no nice neat way of ensuring that all the money gets used well.”

Martin Ress, President of the Royal Society, warned: “Cuts would create the impression that UK science is in relative decline and make the UK a less attractive location for mobile talent and investment. They would send a message to the UK’s young people – savvy about trends and anxious about their future – that the UK is no longer at the cutting edge of science. Talent attracts talent, success breeds success.” We await the outcome of George Osborne’s spending review in October; will it disappoint, depress or surprise?

Chilean miners trapped - underground and in an extra-marital relationship.

No related posts.

Scientists at Northumbria University break dancing down.

Are you a man whose dance repertoire features flailing wildly about the dance floor, punctuated by vaguely rhythmic jerks and windmilling arms? Take heart – you might still be attractive to the opposite sex.

According to a team of psychologists from the University of Northumbria, women are more attracted to male dancers who use big movements, body variation and fancier footwork than men whose dance moves involve repetition and minimal movement. “It’s all about body movement. Tilting forward, backwards, left and right and twisting around. It is all about big movements and variation,” Dr. Nick Neave told The Telegraph. “What it shows is strength, suppleness and creativity all of which shows you are a good catch. It is showing off but it really works. What the dancer is saying is ‘I am young, strong, healthy and fit’.”

Watch the BBC‘s interview with Neave.

The news comes from a study, published in the Royal Society Biology Letters, aimed at determining whether humans use “peacock” behaviours to attract the opposite sex. Researchers filmed 19 men between the ages of 18 and 35 dancing to a single beat, and modeled their movements onto an avatar in a 3-D programme. The researchers then asked a group of 35 women to rate the dancing avatars. The study found that women found dancers who exhibited a lot of movement from the torso, as well as dramatic hand gestures and movements with the arms and legs, to be the best dancers. In terms of evolutionary psychology, Neave said, “Dancing mimics what happens in the wild with birds and other animals showing off to potential mates. Like humans they have to prove that they are good parenting material.”

Could David Brent’s Flashdance-MC Hammer fusion be a hit with the ladies? Neave says no: Though Brent is moving around a lot, which women like, his core remains rigid. Not a good sign.

No related posts.

Which book will be adorned with the Man Booker Prize Winner sticker this year? Photo credit: Timothy Valentine

The 138 long-listed titles were whittled down to six, and here they are: “Parrot and Olivier in America” by Peter Carey, “Room” by Emma Donoghue, “In a Strange Room” by Damon Galgut, “The Finkler Question” by Howard Jacobson, “The Long Song” by Andrea Levy and “C” by Tom McCarthy. The prize will be announced on October 12.

The BBC‘s blogger Will Gompertz was generally pleased with the list saying that of the six books “none would look inappropriately dressed if adorned with a Man Booker Prize Winner 2010 sticker.” However, Gompertz did mention that if there ever was a “Man Booker Prize for overlooked novels”, he’d give it to McCarthy’s previous book, “Remainder”.

And Gompertz’s was not the only voice calling for an alternative prize. The Guardian took the “if-only” sentiment to its furthest possible denouement, by actually setting up an alternative prize. “An experiment in literary democracy, the Not the Booker prize.” In this version Guardian readers, rather than the literati’s most distinguished, vote on their favourite books of the year. The Guardian, however, ever hard on itself, saw the flaws in its own attempt at pure democracy. First-up, not everyone reads the Guardian, therefore the alternative list will possibly have a certain cultural bias based on its readership. And anyway, the paper noted, aren’t the writers just getting their friends to vote for them? “Just as you always end up with a government comprised of politicians (surely the very last people you would actually want to control the country), so a literary prize based on voting seems likely to favour writers at ease with self-promotion.” The voting will continue nonetheless.

Other commentators are sticking to the more traditional routine of simply wondering why certain expected authors didn’t make the list. “As we noted previously,” said Daniel Trilling in the New Statesman, “the longlist excluded both Martin Amis and Ian McEwan, two high-profile British authors who published novels this year. Instead, the judges appear to have gone for a serious but diverse mix.” Thus the Statesman seemingly ended on a unusual note: diversity is bad.

Many have noted the non-inclusion of one title in particular, “The Slap” by Christos Tsiolkas. ”This year’s Man Booker judges have failed to shortlist the book that has been finding the most readers and stirring up the greatest debate,” said David Sexton in the Evening Standard. Sexton seemed to criticize the Booker panel for choosing the shortlist based on the books’ perceived literary merits, rather than their commercial popularity. “‘The Slap’, was on the longlist, and has been the second-best-selling new novel in this country over the last two months. It trails only behind Katie Price’s latest ghostwritten effort.”

Sexton might remember, as the Daily Mail does, that last year’s Booker prize-winner “Wolf Hall” by Hilary Mantel has now sold more than half a million copies. If this year’s authors are delighted by the possibility of such riches, then they are keeping it quiet. Jacobson recounted to the Telegraph important information he received from his mother upon being shortlisted. “What she said was ‘Enjoy the now. Don’t think about the next stage’. Very sound. The shortlist is the thing and you are mad to think about anything else,” he said.

Most have noted that the list is generally uncontroversial, unexciting and “safe rather than earnest.” Most that is, with the notable exception of the Daily Mail, who must be given credit for an ability to create shock value where all else fail. “Shocking Fritzl abuse case inspires Man Booker prize favourite” said the Mail‘s headline of nominee Donoghue’s book “Room”. The paper was not as shocked by the content of the rest of the shortlist, however, which includes “19th century slavery, an inquiry into Jewishness and a master-and-slave journey into America’s prisons.”

Dove World’s pastor, Terry Jones, the author of a book entitled Islam is of the Devil and a man of serious facial hair, has said that even the hundreds of death threats he’s received won’t deter him from burning a book that he’s never actually read. In a blog posting on the church’s site, Dove World explained, “We are using this act to warn about the teaching and ideology of Islam, which we do hate as it is hateful. We do not hate any people, however. We love, as God loves, all the people in the world and we want them to come to a knowledge of the truth. To warn of danger and harm is a loving act. God is love and truth. If you know the truth it can set you free. The world is in bondage to the massive grip of the lies of Islam.” Burning the book, the church claimed in a later blog post, is an attempt to “shock the world into focus”.

It’s certainly worked, at least in one sense. General David Petraeus, the US’s top commander in Afghanistan and author of the “hearts and minds” counter-insurgency strategy, warned that the church’s Burn a Koran day endangers the lives of American troops; already, the plan has prompted large-scale protests in Kabul and Jakarta. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton denounced the Burn a Koran Day protest as “disrespectful” and “disgraceful”; Attorney General Eric Holder branded it “idiotic” and “dangerous”. The Miami Herald, in one of its leading editorials Tuesday, condemned the plan as the “worst example yet of anti-Muslim bigotry” and as a “publicity stunt” with “no redeeming virtue at all”.

The AP‘s report on protests in Kabul:

Even the “armed Christian militia”, Right Wing Extreme, that had originally been slated to “guard” the Koran-burning has pulled its support, declaring, “After much thought and prayer the organization’s leadership determined this event does not glorify GOD in way that leads the lost to Jesus Christ.”

But legally stopping the church’s gleeful book-burning is out of the question – as Tunku Varadarajan pointed out on The Daily Beast, Jones and company do have the right to burn the Koran, regardless of international opprobrium. But that sheds an interesting light on the other issue of anti-Muslim prejudice bedeviling the US, that of the so-called Ground Zero Mosque. “Will people who object to this pastor’s plans as offensive or incendiary feel placated if some pundit tells them that the man has a ‘right’ (constitutional, no less) to torch his lot of Qurans?” Varadarajan asked. “If not, they should feel some sympathy for those people who believe that the building of a mosque near ground zero, though constitutionally protected, is not a great idea—being, to them, offensive and perhaps incendiary.” Moreover, the discussion around the book-burning clouds a legitimate free-speech debate: “Burning holy books is not the same as satirizing them, any more than spitting in the face of Muslims is the same as critiquing the tenets of their religion. But what chance has nuance to survive in the face of this latest onslaught?”

Pope Benedict XVI touches down in the UK next week. Photo credit: Rvn88

Much of the argument so far has centered on whether or not the UK taxpayer should foot the bill for the visit – estimated to between £10 and £12 million before policing costs are factored in. “The British public clearly has a problem with the funding of the papal visit, although this could be because they are unaware that in addition to being a religious leader Pope Benedict is also a head of state,” Paul Wolley, director of polling organisation Theos, told The Daily Mail.  “The Pope is visiting at the invitation of the Queen. It is right and proper that the British Government should pay a share of the costs of the visit,” argued Eileen Cole, Catholic Voices.

Others call into question whether the UK should host the Pope at all, given the Vatican’s well-documented recent problems. Julie Burchill at The Independent voiced her distate, “A Church which rails against abortion and then spends decades covering up the most appalling degree of child abuse obviously has no problem with holding two opposing ideas at once – and at least the opposition to termination now makes perfect sense, with hindsight. All those unborn children that could have been molested – what a waste!” Riffing on the Wayne Rooney hooker scandal, Burchill concluded that, “The Pope may well be able to set Wayne and Coleen (both Catholics) back on track but personally, with his track record, I’d rather receive moral lectures from Juicy Jeni.”

The Pope is not only taking flak from secular circles. The Daily Telegraph reported that, “The Catholic Church has been accused of being ‘deeply misogynist,’ intolerant of gay people and ‘monarchical’ in its approach” by members of Catholic Voices for Reform.

But before Benedict shelves his plans he should take comfort from the fact he does have some vocal friends in the UK. “Threats of a citizen’s arrest; protests from survivors of priestly abuse and the gay rights lobby; some spectacular organisational bungling on the part of the Catholic hierarchy in this country: nothing can dent the sheer joy felt by many of Britain’s four million Catholics at the prospect of seeing the Pope in their midst,” stressed Cristina Odone in The Daily Telegraph, who firmly backed the trip. Odone went as far as to suggest the Pope may even convert secular Brits in flocks: “Can Benedict XVI transform the image of the Catholic Church in Britain in his four days here? A poll published this week shows the notion is not as risible as it may seem. People were asked to comment on whether they agreed or disagreed with a series of statements contained in the Pope’s third encyclical letter, Caritas in Veritate. Twelve representative statements, taken directly from the letter, were tested and a significant majority agreed with 11 of them.”

The Google Gods love Lady Gaga. Photo credit: Stephen Carlile via Flickr

Writing about Mel Gibson’s rants or Lady Gaga’s pants is more likely to generate traffic than, say, “a sober report on how nonprofit groups are pursuing investigative reporting”, Kurtz noted. Essentially, Kurtz is getting at the candy versus veggies argument, the one that newspapers have been dealing with for generations: Do you report on creampuff stories in the hopes of grabbing readers’ attention, or do you pursue the healthier, if less tasty stories? But now, with the Internets being ruled by the Google Gods and their minions, the search engine bots, newspapers and news sites face this dilemma virtually every hour. Ulttimately Kurtz argued, brand-name news organizations like The Washington Post or The New York Times can’t “abandon serious news” for the fluffy stuff without risking losing long-time readers. “What they gain in short-term hits would cost them in long-term reputation.”

A hopeful note, but Kurtz doesn’t really address what this may mean for new sites, such as The Periscope Post, that don’t have the same brand draw. Nor does he address the reality of declining subscription rates, both online and in print, of those brand name papers, and the implication that holds for the future of “serious news”.

Fidel Castro speaks
Jeffrey Goldberg, Middle East correspondent for The Atlantic, got some very interesting fan response after a recent article about Iran and Israel and the inevitability of a confrontation between the two: Cuba’s former comandante en jefe, Fidel Castro, read it and wanted to talk to him about it. Cue one of the stranger “road trips” any journalist has probably ever taken.

“His body may be frail, but his mind is acute, his energy level is high, and not only that: the late-stage Fidel Castro turns out to possess something of a self-deprecating sense of humor,” wrote Goldberg. Castro had a lot to say – so much that the article is in two parts – including warning Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to stop “slandering” the Jews. Said Castro, “They have been slandered much more than the Muslims because they are blamed and slandered for everything. No one blames the Muslims for anything.”

Goldberg’s interviews with Castro took place over three days – one of which appears to have been spent at the dolphin show at the aquarium – and is posting his pieces on The Atlantic over the next few days, to be followed up by a larger article in the forthcoming issue of the magazine.

Don’t mess with a good thing
Conservatives aren’t fundamentally afraid of change – they’re afraid of changing a good thing, claimed Dennis Prager, in a piece for conservative site National Review Online. “One unbridgeable divide between Left and Right is how each views alternatives to present-day America,” Prager wrote. “Those on the Left imagine an ideal society that has never existed, and therefore seek to ‘fundamentally transform’ America. When liberals imagine an America fundamentally transformed, they envision it becoming a nearly utopian society in which there is no greed, no racism, no sexism, no inequality, no poverty, and ultimately no unhappiness. Conservatives, on the other hand, look around at other societies and look at history and are certain that if America were fundamentally transformed, it would become just like those other societies. America would become a society of far less liberty, of ethically and morally inferior citizens, and of much more unhappiness. Moreover, cruelty would increase exponentially around the world.” Conservatives see America as exceptional, he claimed, and believe that to change it would mean changing it for the worse. Then he reprints all the lyrics to John Lennon’s “Imagine” and declares that Lennon’s utopia is a conservative’s nightmare.