Real Science Guide: Report

Showing posts with label Report. Show all posts

Thursday, July 10, 2014

"What We Know" Climate Report From Leading Science Organization Seeks to Persuade Citizens. #FAIL.

AAAS What We Know global warming

The “What We Know” report about climate change issued today by the august American Association for the Advancement of Science is intended to persuade ordinary people that our climate really is changing, we’re largely responsible, and we need to do something about it. Soon.

The report features clear, straight-forward language without overly complex and opaque scientific jargon.

And as the black non-image at the top of this ImaGeo post symbolizes, there is another thing that the report lacks as well: imagery.

In fact, there is not a single image in the report — not one visualization to help us understand what’s happening to our world, not a single photograph to dramatize the impact of climate change on people, not even one little graphic to show a trend in, oh, I don’t know, temperature maybe.

Okay, I exaggerate just a little. The title page does have one ambiguous photograph of someone using a surveying instrument on some ice sheet somewhere, for what reason God only knows.

And true, the “What We Know” web site includes, in addition to the report, a number of videos. One is actually mildly entertaining and effective. It features a mountain biker racing down a trail to symbolize the perilous path ahead and the need to slow down. (Our carbon emissions, of course.)

But the rest consist of talking heads (scientists telling us what they know) intercut with what broadcast journalists call “B-roll” — time lapse video of cars, smoke pouring out of stacks, a little snippet of water pouring into the New York City subway system during Hurricane Sandy — you get the idea.

So here’s some unsolicited advice to the creators of “What We Know” from someone who thinks visual communication is actually an incredibly powerful way to communicate complex information and also connect with the heart as well as the mind: Cliché B-roll can’t change the fact that a talking head is still a talking head. Nor will people necessarily listen, let alone understand or care, simply because those talking heads happen to be scientists.

I’ve never written a post like this here at ImaGeo. I felt compelled to do it because I’m simply dumbfounded that one of the leading scientific organizations in the world decided to launch a public persuasion campaign that lacks one of the most important ways that humans beings can be persuaded: through visual communication.

Is the AAAS not aware that imagery can convey emotion far more powerfully than the written or spoken word, no matter how clear, concise, and free of jargon those words may be? Do they not know that visuals provide an incredible capacity to tell compelling, persuasive stories? Can it possibly be that they haven’t heard about the synergy made possible by the use of words and images together?

And did they not bother to read the literature on visual communication and persuasion?

To offer just one example: “Visual Persuasion,” which appeared in the journal Communication Research Trends in 1999. Here’s a relevant snippet:

…visual images in persuasive messages reduce the information processing burden, make a message more attention-getting, and reinforce message arguments. Also, it is believed that visual images have the superiority in memory over words.

If any of the people responsible for the “What We Know” report read this post, I have a suggestion for you: Try “Google.” It can be really helpful. With the search terms “visual communication and persuasion” you’ll find a lot of helpful tips there for your next campaign.

View the original article here

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Report reveals steep increase in war amputations last fall

The majority of American soldiers undergoing amputation for war wounds last fall lost more than one limb, according to data presented Tuesday to the Defense Health Board, a committee of experts that advises the Defense Department on medical matters.

Military officials had previously released data showing that amputations, and especially multiple-limb losses, increased last year. The information presented to the 20-member board is the first evidence that the steepest increase occurred over the last four months of the year.

In September 2010, about two-thirds of all war-theater amputation operations involved a single limb (usually a leg) and one-third two or more limbs. The split was roughly 50-50 in October and November. In December, only one-quarter of amputation surgery involved only one limb; three-quarters involved the loss of two or more limbs.

The Marines, who make up 20 percent of the forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, were especially hard hit. Of the 66 wounded severely enough to be evacuated overseas in October, one-third lost a limb.

In the first seven years of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, about 6 percent of seriously wounded soldiers underwent amputation.

Wounds to the genitals and lower urinary tract - known as genitourinary injuries - accounted for 11 percent of wounds over the last seven months of 2010, up from 4 percent in the previous 17 months, according to data presented by John B. Holcomb, a trauma surgeon and retired Army colonel.

The constellation of leg-and-genital wounds are in large part the consequence of stepping on improvised explosive devices - homemade mines - and are known as "dismounted IED injuries."

The data were assembled by Holcomb and two physicians at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, where all seriously injured soldiers are taken on their way back to the United States.

The steep increase in both the rate and number of amputations clearly disturbed both Holcomb and members of the board, which met at a Hilton hotel near Dulles International Airport.

Holcomb, who spent two weeks at Landstuhl in December and is a former head of the U.S. Army Institute of Surgical Research, said he had heard of "unwritten pacts among young Marines that if they get their legs and genitals blown off they won't put tourniquets on but will let each other die on the battlefield."

Richard H. Carmona, who was U.S. surgeon general from 2002 to 2006 and is now on the board, said the information was "very disturbing."

He said it has made him ask: "What is the endgame here? Is the sacrifice we are asking of our young men and women worth the potential return? I have questions about that now."

Carmona, 61, served as an Army medic in Vietnam before going to college and medical school. He has a son who is an Army sergeant and is serving in Iraq.

Jay A. Johannigman, an Air Force colonel who has served multiple deployments as a trauma surgeon, said his stint at the military hospital at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan last fall "was different" both personally and medically.

"We see the enormous price our young men and women are paying. It should not be for naught," he said. He didn't want to elaborate.

Why amputation-requiring injuries increased so much in recent months isn't entirely understood. It is partly a function of tactics that emphasize more foot patrols in rural areas. Some people have speculated the mines may be constructed specifically to cause the devastating wounds.

"Do the Marines know? Probably," said Frank Butler, a doctor and retired Navy captain who has spearheaded improvements in battlefield first aid over the last decade. "But they're not releasing a thing. And they shouldn't."

View the original article here

Thursday, April 18, 2013

[Report] Wnt Stabilization of β-Catenin Reveals Principles for Morphogen Receptor-Scaffold Assemblies

Sung-Eun Kim1,*, He Huang1,*,†, Ming Zhao2,*, Xinjun Zhang1, Aili Zhang2,4, Mikhail V. Semonov1,‡, Bryan T. MacDonald1, Xiaowu Zhang5, Jose Garcia Abreu1,3, Leilei Peng2, Xi He1,§

1F. M. Kirby Center, Boston Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA.

2College of Optical Sciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA.

3Instituto de Ciencias Biomedicas, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

4School of Biomedical Engineering, Jiaotong University, Shanghai, China.

5Cell Signaling Technology, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. ?§Corresponding author. E-mail: xi.he{at}childrens.harvard.edu?* These authors contributed equally to this work.

?† Present address: Department of Pathology, University of Buffalo, Buffalo, NY 14203, USA.

?‡ Present address: Veterans Administration Hospital and Department of Pathology, Boston University, Bedford, MA 01730, USA.

Wnt signaling stabilizes ß-catenin through the LRP6 receptor signaling complex, which antagonizes the ß-catenin destruction complex. The Axin scaffold and associated glycogen synthase kinase-3 (GSK3) have central roles in both assemblies, but the transduction mechanism from the receptor to the destruction complex is contentious. We report that Wnt signaling is governed by phosphorylation regulation of Axin scaffolding function. Phosphorylation by GSK3 kept Axin activated (“open”) for ß-catenin interaction and poised for engagement of LRP6. Formation of the Wnt-induced LRP6-Axin signaling complex promoted Axin dephosphorylation by protein phosphatase-1 and inactivated (“closed”) Axin through an intramolecular interaction. Inactivation of Axin diminished its association with ß-catenin and LRP6, thereby inhibiting ß-catenin phosphorylation and enabling activated LRP6 to selectively recruit active Axin for inactivation reiteratively. Our findings reveal mechanisms for scaffold regulation and morphogen signaling.

Received for publication 5 November 2012. Accepted for publication 19 March 2013.

View the original article here

Super-CDMS researchers report possible evidence of WIMPs

(Phys.org) —Researchers working at the Super Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS) facility, located underground in Minnesota's Soudan Mine, are reporting in a paper uploaded to the preprint server arXiv that they've found three events that lie in the signal range of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs). The group also gave a talk detailing their results to an audience at this year's American Physical Society meeting—as part of that discussion, they made it clear the noted events do not rise to the level of discovery, nor do they imply the team has found evidence of the existence of dark matter.

Researchers in several facilities around the world (and aboard the International Space Station) are looking for evidence of WIMPs, because theory suggests that they constitute dark matter, the invisible material believed to make up approximately 85 percent of all matter that exists in the universe. Because WIMPs can't be seen directly, researchers look to events that might prove they exist, such as collisions between WIMPs and atomic nuclei. In order to find such evidence, researchers set up detectors they hope will catch such collisions that occur due to gravitational pull on WIMPs—they are believed to interact only rarely with normal matter through other means.

Super-CDMS researchers report possible evidence of WIMPs
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The Cryogenic Dark Matter Search experiment uses five towers of dark matter detectors like the ones shown here. Credit: Fermilab

Researchers at the Super-CDMS facility have set up eight silicon detectors (cooled to -459.67 degrees Fahrenheit) in the hope of detecting the slight amount of heat given off by a collision between a WIMP and an atom's nucleus. The researchers report detection of three events that might have been the result of such collisions, though they are quick to add that the events might also have been due to something else, such as statistical errors. However, calculations indicate the events are 99.81 percent more likely to be WIMPs than background fluctuations, which translates to approximately a three-sigma level of confidence.

Interestingly, if the detected events do turn out to be the result of WIMP/nucleus collisions, it will mean that WIMPs are much lighter than scientists have been expecting—the detected collisions detected to just 8.6 giga-electronvolts. The researchers note this finding is in line with results from other research efforts, though they also acknowledge that it contradicts the findings of other researchers. Regardless, research at the Super-CDMS facility and elsewhere will continue until WIMP collisions are proven to exist, or not.

More information: Dark Matter Search Results Using the Silicon Detectors of CDMS II. arXiv astro-ph.CO, (2013)
Silicon Detector Results from the First Five-Tower Run of CDMS II. arXiv astro-ph.CO, (2013), arXiv:1304.3706
E. Figueroa-Feliciano's presentation at Light Dark Matter 2013.

cdms.berkeley.edu/

Journal reference: arXiv