The best science videos – powers of ten

Sorry for the lack of blogging lately, I spent most of my free time over the last month working on a feature on Dublin’s internet cafes for The Dubliner magazine. I’ve a few things lined up for the blog now, including a post on where the balance of evidence lies regarding the effects of one-parent families, same-sex parents and other family issues, and – if I can figure out the techy stuff – a series of podcast interviews with leading scientists based in Ireland. For now, I’ll resume with the first of a series of great online science videos – few will inspire an interest in science and an awe at the universe more than the classic ‘powers of ten’ clip.

Summer blues

The LG Viewty cameraphone I complained about before did quite a superb job – for a phone – when it came to this common blue butterfly (Polyommatus icarus) that I snapped in some long grass beside a tidal inlet a few miles west of Galway city last June. This is a female – while the wings of the male are almost entirely blue apart from a black and white fringe, the female’s wings are brown with blue dusting near the body, as seen here. More from Butterfly Conservation.

David Bellamy talking nonsense again

David Bellamy was in town on Monday, visiting a school in south Dublin to promote biodiversity and make some predictably erroneous claims on climate change, as he’s prone to. Let’s examine what he said about the science of climate change based on the Irish Times report.

Ronan McGreevy writes in the Irish Times: [Bellamy] said a period of global cooling had already begun, citing evidence that the Alps had more snow last winter than at any time for the last 26 years.

I have no idea if the Alps had more snow last winter than at anytime over the past 26 years, but it’s irrelevant. We’ve heard the same line trotted out before about Antarctica gaining ice and this being evidence against global warming, and it’s been pretty thoroughly discredited. A simple look at a map like the one below shows that while, yes, some areas of the planet have gotten colder (the blue), most have gotten warmer (the red). Localised cooling doesn’t mean the overall globe isn’t warming.

This map shows the difference in surface temperature in 2006 compared to the average from 1951 to 1980. Map based on data from NASA GISS Surface Temperature Analysis, available at: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/

Claims that the earth has been cooling in the past ten years have been knocking about recently. They typically refer to the fact that 1998 is the hottest year on record, and that this record has not been broken since. But the explanation for this is quite simple: there was an exceptionally strong El Nino in 1998, which produced temperatures that were abnormally warm and above even the current warming trend.

The only other thing Bellamy was quoted as saying in relation to climate change was: “The argument [for man-made global warming] is going downhill. Climate change is a completely natural thing. It is based on the sun, and at the moment we are into the 24th sun cycle and there has been no sunspots for two years.”

It’s hard to even know what point Bellamy is making here, but he seems to be saying that the sun was behind rising temperatures in the last few decades rather than greenhouse gases. This has been rebuked many times (variety of sources here).

According to the Met Office:

“There is some evidence that increases in solar heating may have led to some warming early in the 20th century, but direct satellite measurements show no appreciable change in solar heating over the last three decades.”

In 2007, a study by the Naval Research Laboratory at NASA concluded that “if anything,” the sun contributed “a very slight overall cooling in the past 25 years.”

The sun does play a crucial role in our climate, but it’s just one player. As New Scientist points out in this excellent synopsis of the sun’s role in climate change:

“According to solar physicists, the sun emitted a third less energy about 4 billion years ago and has been steadily brightening ever since. Yet for most of this time, Earth has been even warmer than today, a phenomenon sometimes called the faint sun paradox. The reason: higher levels of greenhouse gases trapping more of the sun’s heat.” So the sun is just one component of climate – temperatures can be very hot even if the sun’s activity is diminished because of the huge role greenhouse gases play in trapping whatever solar heat is available.

News reports like the Irish Times’s on Bellamy’s visit raise interesting questions about journalism. I don’t believe there should be a need to defer to journalistic “balance” when one side of an argument is supported by vastly more evidence than another. But in an incidence like this, when some simple research would make it clear that Bellamy’s claims are unsupported by evidence, shouldn’t the Irish Times have reported this evidence and given more weight to it?

Bobby Aylward TD doesn’t understand evidence

Update: When I first posted this earlier today, I mistakenly claimed the TD in question was Liam Aylward, when in fact it was his brother Bobby. Liam is an MEP for the Ireland East constituency, while Bobby is a TD and the subject of the Sunday Times article mentioned below - apologies for the mistake.

Another week, another example of political ignorance towards science and evidence. Last week it was Dublin City Council and busgate, now Fianna Fáil TD Bobby Aylward seems to think a Sunday Times experiment on his reaction times when driving after two pints proves it’s safe to drive after a few “social pints”. Aylward is one of the backbench Fianna Fáil TDs opposing stricter drink-driving laws.

Mark Tighe and Colin Doyle write in the Sunday Times:

Both Aylward and Richard Oakley, a Sunday Times journalist, were required to complete a series of emergency stops on a simulator at three different speeds. The drivers were tested sober and again after consuming two pints of beer, which put them over 50mg but below 80mg, the current limit.

After two pints of Guinness Aylward’s performance was better at all three speeds tested. Oakley’s was better at two. Scientifically the results are meaningless, for a few different reasons. Firstly, only two people people were tested – there’s no way the results could be extrapolated to the general population with such a tiny sample size. Secondly, both the subjects and those running the experiment knew when alcohol had been consumed and when it hadn’t – the experiment was neither “blind” nor “double blind”. Both drivers could have just consciously made more of an effort the second time around. And for simulator results to be transferrable to the actual road there would need to be solid evidence that the simulator in question accurately mimics road conditions – I have no idea if there is or not.

Of course the Sunday Times isn’t claiming the experiment was scientific.  But Aylward seems to think the results validate his opposition to stricter drink-driving limits:

““I’ve said all along that people in rural areas are capable of having a pint or maybe two and be quite capable of driving home.”

Presumably people in rural areas metabolise alcohol differently than those in urban areas.

Aylward added: “People who have had a social pint will not cause an accident. They are of no danger to anyone.”

As opposed to people who have an unsocial pint, right Bobby?

Speaking to the Sunday Times, a Road Safety Authority spokesperson stressed the test was not scientific, and added that the “overwhelming body of scientific evidence” shows that even one drink impairs driving.

One thing that’s been glaringly obviously in this whole debate is the lack of real evidence offered by rural backbench TDs and publicans to support their position – unless, of course, you count ignorant statements that people in “rural areas” who have a “social pint” or two can still drive perfectly well as evidence.

Busgate vote a kick to the teeth of evidence-based policymaking

On Monday night, the elected members of Dublin City Council voted by 35 votes to 11 to suspend the evening “busgate” until January. Busgate is the regulation that has prohibited cars from using the area around College Green during the morning and evening rush hours. It was introduced in July of this year. Under the changed rules, the morning busgate will still remain in place. The council’s vote was called after local businesses claimed their trade had dropped sharply since the busgate was introduced. They alleged that restrictions on driving had encouraged consumers to visit car-friendly shopping centres in the suburbs rather than come to the city centre.

In making their case, councillors opposed to the busgate pointed to claims by the Dublin City Business Association that business had dropped by 30 per cent since the busgate was introduced. If this is what our councillors believe to constitute evidence, we should be worried.

As far as I can tell, no effort was made to find or produce independent, statistically sound evidence on whether there has actually been a decline in business, or to separate the effects of economic decline from any effects of the busgate. It seems 35 members of Dublin City Council essentially accepted the word of a vested interest group without any attempt to independently verify their claims. Would the council members just accept the word of say, a factory owner, that the effluent he was pumping into sea was clean?

It wouldn’t have been terribly difficult to get some decent stats on the issue. My research-design skills are quite rusty, but some basic research could have: compared the financial performance of similar businesses inside and outside the city centre for a period that covered the four months since the busgate was introduced and the four months before; examined whether there had been any increase in business in outer-city shopping centres since the busgate began and surveyed customers at these centres to see how many had previously shopped in town; compared any decline in the performance of Dublin city centre businesses to those in other Irish cities without a busgate; and considered any existing international research on the effects on local businesses when busgate-like measures are introduced. Any figures for financial performance should have been independently audited.

None of this was done. Either 35 members of the council don’t understand the notion of solid evidence, or they succumbed with remarkable speed to a small group of business lobbyists. Or both.

The idea that government policy should be based on solid evidence doesn’t sound revolutionary, but it still seems to be ignored. An evidence-centred approach to policymaking would start by seeking solid research on the effects and effectiveness of a policy. Of course evidence isn’t the panacea of making policy – it can’t consider ethics or ideology, for example. Regardless of its effects on business, some might argue that concerns about climate change demand restrictions on cars in Dublin. And even if the evidence indicates a particular drug is harmful, for example, many would say people should still be allowed to take it on grounds of personal freedom. Fair enough.

But policymaking also needs to be informed by solid evidence about existing realities and the likely effects of new policies. Thirty five city councillors voted against the busgate primilary because of its supposed impacts on city centre businesses, and they did so with no solid data to back them up. If they can succumb to corporate interests and flimsy evidence so quickly early in their term, how are we to expect them to competently and rationally handle the many other policy challenges that no doubt await them?

Have a read of  Labour’s Neil Ward’s excellent blog post on this topic here. Neil works for the Labour Party.

Disclosure: I am a Green Party member.

Mushrooms & clouds

Time to buy a proper camera – despite my five megapixel LG Viewty being really handy for getting decent snaps when out and about, it doesn’t really cut it when the light is fading. I’m looking for help identifying two rather different things – clouds and mushrooms.

I took the picture of the clouds in Galway last Friday just before dusk.  I have no idea what type of cloud it is, and the fine folks at the Cloud Appreciation Society seem unsure too. It appears to have the wispyness of a cirrus and the bulk of a cumulus, but nothing in my Cloudspotter’s Guide resembles it.

Anyone have any ideas?

Next up: mushrooms. If Paul Sterry’s Complete Irish Wildlife is anything to go by, I’m guessing the pointy cylindrical mushrooms are the shaggy ink cap, Coprinus comatus. The book says they’re typically seen in “troops” in grassy areas between August and October, so that fits the bill. If it is the shaggy ink cap it will liquefy and blacken as it gets older, the first of which also happened to Michael Jackson, the second of which didn’t.

It’s the last photo of the wide cone-shaped mushroom that has me stumped – any ideas?

Is science filmmaking dead?

Well, is it? Where do you go for your fix of science TV? Most of the documentary channels are brain-dead. The various Discovery channels seem to exclusively broadcast dumbed-down documentaries about serial killers and big machinery with little actual science content, while the amusingly titled Discovery Science channel frequently runs shows about hauntings and UFOs. The National Geographic channels are only slightly better, with nowhere near the quality of photography, journalism and depth of science content as their sister magazine.

I’ve just had a quick look at RTE’s list of current factual programmes (click on ‘TV programmes’ here) and only one – CSI Fada, even touches on anything scientific, and even that just apes the current trendiness for vaguely scientific shows about murders. When was the last time RTE commissioned or produced an original series on science?

The one broadcaster making excellent science television is the BBC. The BBC Natural History Unit’s latest offering – Life – is predictably superb, though some have accused it of anthropomorphism (if you think the BBC is guilty of this, though, let’s just wait to see what Disney’s wildlife film unit comes up with).

A look at the BBC’s list of current science programmes reveals a pretty decent selection, with plenty of natural history shows. But the BBC is a general broadcaster and it doesn’t have a dedicated science channel -  it’s still pretty much impossible to sit in front of the telly and flick to a channel where you know you’ll find in-depth and engaging science TV.

Hello

What’s the longfielder?

It’s a blog about natural history, science and society, with a particular focus on Ireland, where I live.

Who are you?

Lenny Antonelli, a 23 year old journalist based in Dublin. I work for Construct Ireland, a magazine focused on sustainable building, energy and architecture. I’ve also done freelance work for the Irish Times, the Sunday Tribune, the National Green Pages, Science Spin magazine and a few other publications. My portfolio website, still in development, is here. I’m also a member of the Green Party.

What can we expect to read here?

Musings on Irish natural history and wildlife, the big science issues of the day, the role of science in society, and probably lots of pictures of clouds.

What do you know about science anyway?

Well, I don’t believe a science qualification is necessary to have an intelligent opinion about science – we rely too much on experts rather than trying to understand and engage scientific issues ourselves. But if I was drunk and boasting I’d probably tell you I scraped a first in marine science (by 0.3%) from NUI Galway. I specialised in zoology, and my thesis was rivetingly titled The Effects of Flow Regime on Epifaunal Encrusting Communities in a Bay in the West of Ireland.

What’s with the weird title?

I named the blog the longfielder after Cynthia Longfield, a little-celebrated Anglo-Irish entomologist. You can read about her life here.

No, I meant you.

Oh, right. Well unfortunately picking it was beyond my control, but a colleague once told me an odd name will get you remembered in journalism. So that’s what I keep telling myself.

To your knowledge, is interviewing oneself a sign of any medical condition?

Well I’m not a doctor but I don’t believe so. But interviewing myself is something I’ve done in my head more than once before.