Science

"For years, climate scientists have been assailed from many sides -- through e-mail hacking, death threats, politician’s demands for documents, Freedom of Information requests (many having the strong smell of a fishing expedition). A Climate Science Legal Defense Fund set up last fall has taken on a formal affiliation with Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, an established nonprofit group offering aid and advice to government whistleblowers and scientists working on environmental issues."

Is the press office helping or hurting journalists' efforts to get science stories right? Newly released email shows that White House and agency "communications people" pressured agency scientists to underestimate the amount of oil flowing into the Gulf during the 2010 BP oil spill. The case offers more evidence that press officers insist on sitting in on journalist-scientist interviews in order to insure the science gets a spin favorable to the administration's political goals. Now a watchdog group has filed a scientific integrity complaint against a NOAA scientist in the incident.

"The bombardment is expected to reach us Tuesday morning, but the threat to satellites and power grids appears to be low."

"The Nuremberg Code, set up to protect the human subjects of research, is being routinely ignored."

"Leading climate scientists have given their support to a Freedom of Information request seeking to disclose who is funding the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a London-based climate sceptic thinktank chaired by the former Conservative chancellor Lord Lawson."

"In an almost unheard-of move, scientists who study the deadly H5N1 bird flu announced a 60-day voluntary moratorium on studying the virus to allow time 'to clearly explain the benefits of this important research and the measures taken to minimize its possible risks.'"

"Mem­bers of Penn­syl­va­nia Gov. Tom Corbett’s admin­is­tra­tion rou­tinely insist their Mar­cel­lus Shale drilling pol­icy is based on science. But doc­u­ments obtained by StateIm­pact Penn­syl­va­nia, as well as inter­views with more than a dozen peo­ple who work both inside and out of state gov­ern­ment, high­light top-level deci­sions to dimin­ish or defund drilling-related sci­en­tific research in the com­mon­wealth."