This blog post was going to be a report on how the Science is Vital protest outside the treasury went on Saturday – it went very well. In preparation to write it, I went out and bought all the papers to see if and how the event was covered; as I flicked through the large flimsey pages of the Sunday Times I was disheartened to find the editors had decided that their learned readers were not interested in the plight of British science – they would however love to know Simon Cowell’s next career move and that that charming Prince Charles is worried about “Manchines”¹ – and so there was no mention of the rally.

What I did find in the Sunday Times made me so angry that I decided I would write a post rebutting the preposterous statements of Dr Terence Kealey, vice-chancellor of the University of Buckingham², instead. In a segment the newspaper calls “Think Tank” – which in itself is amusing since real think tanks are almost invariably better described as lobby groups – the man who recently said that female students were a perk of the job tells us how cutting the government funding for science will actually result in better science (I’d link to the article but then I’d be encouraging you to give Rupert Murdoch money to read his drivel, which is something I wouldn’t want to do). Here’s my reply.

He begins by praising UK science for all that it has achieved on a shoestring of a budget (my words not his): twice as many Nobel prizes as France and ten more than Germany, but then goes on to state that, happily, there is plenty of room to further shorten the length of our shoestrings.

First he says we should stop giving businesses money for research. I wasn’t aware we did that so I can’t comment on whether it’s a good idea or not. But it seems it might be. Though I would also point out that this is a two-way street and that universities do very well out of industrial collaborations.

He then suggests raising tuition fees, allowing universities to free up money to fund research; in this he’s not alone. Apparently at the moment universities are using their own reserves to top up the miserly funds given to them by the government to educate students, so by making the students pay instead the treasury wouldn’t have to give the universities money for research because the universities would have their own spare cash. The flaw in this plan is that the treasury wants to make quick savings, but students can’t afford to pay £7,000 upfront so the treasury has to loan it to them, meaning all this little plan achieves is diverting money from one recipient to another. The treasury makes no savings.

His next idea, should these two marvellous ideas not placate George, is for the research councils to shut their own units, ones that are separate from universities and therefore, Terence argues, less productive due to a lack of competition for resources. Whilst this idea does avoid some of the pitfalls of cutting university funding it does make some unreasonable assumptions about the value of these institutions and slightly contradicts his previous assertion that freeing up money within universities would help research. Research institutes are very desirable places to work due to their greater resources, this attracts the brightest scientists making them incredibly productive. Take the MRC laboratories in Cambridge for example, where monoclonal antibodies were developed; this brilliant discovery created a tool used by molecular biology laboratories across the world and is also the basis of a new generation of drugs, it’s therefore not surprising that the institute is exceedingly wealthy as a result. These units are not independent from the rest of the UKs research centres, they still have to prove their worth to keep funding and to keep the talented scientists that could easily be poached by ambitious institutes abroad – not all leading scientists want to be shackled by the teaching responsibilities associated with jobs in universities. They are valuable and not to be lost.

He then invokes the laughable but oh so loved Tory myth that when you withdrawal public funding for something the private sector steps in to save the day. He cites IVF which was developed with private money. IVF, I think, is something that has obvious financial benefits and so it would be easy to see why someone keen on making millions would fund such a thing, unfortunately this generosity quickly vanishes when the business man can’t see where the profits are going to come from. And incidentally, the MRC didn’t fund IVF research on ethical grounds. Cuts would result in huge swathes of culturally valuable blue-skies research losing out, meaning that the next graphene would more than likely be found abroad.

You can’t rely on charities like Cancer Research to step into the breach either. Does Dr Kealey think that they’ve been quietly hiding money away, not funding research just because the government give us the bare minimum to function? Of course not, together the charities currently channel over a billion pounds into UK research, I don’t think they are going to find it easy to raise that higher in these straightened times.

He then made me decorate my coffee table with a mouthful of tea: “government funding of research seems to have no economic benefit”, he claims. He cites a 2003 OECD paper for this, well here are a few more recent reports that you may have missed Terence: a 2009 one from OECD, some BIS SET statistics and something the guys at Brunel put together. So no need to use out-of-date reports now is there? How you can claim that no economic gains are made from funding that has resulted in medical breakthroughs, nanotechnology and the internet I have no idea!

I gave up on my cup of tea as the author then decided to use Japan as an example of the futility of governments funding science, thus proving his utter ignorance for the subject on which he was writing. He notes that many of Japan’s Nobel prizes have come after their economy faltered – there are two glaring problems with this. Firstly, Nobel prizes are often awarded many years after the research was carried out – Ernst Ruska only won his physics prize in 1986, half a century after he was involved in the development of the electron microscope. Secondly, Japan leads the world in it’s commitment to science dedicating almost 4% of it’s GDP, this compares to our government’s paltry effort which is just above 0.5%. Along with many other nations including Germany and America, Japan has long recognised the importance of investing in R&D to get out of economic slumps.

Contrary to Dr Terence Kealey’s malformed thesis, British science does not contain excess fat that can be trimmed; it is already a lean mean beast, running on a budget that makes other countries scratch their heads when they see the myriad awards for the quality of our research. There is not a chance that the £6bn we currently invest can be matched by charities and industry, no-one will step into the void. This is particularly true for the more avant garde research that holds no immediate financial returns but nevertheless enriches our lives and creates eureka moments. We should be following other technology based economies and increasing, not decreasing, our investment, the country’s future depends on it.

¹ Prince Charles has written in a new book that he is very concerned about new technology which enables us the link human brains with computers, he believes that the next generation is going to “lose the experience of existence”.

² The UK’s only privately funded university

This weekend myself and a few Brainwavers are heading down to London to protest against the looming cuts to science funding. For a country that already spends less, in terms of GDP, than almost all of it’s technological rivals we really can’t afford to cut funding further. In the words of Sir Patrick Moore, “if we cut funds for science we’ll be shooting ourselves in the foot”. This isn’t just about the jobs of thousands of scientists – most of whom will be able to move abroad – but about a concern for the UK economy, which is so deeply entwined and dependent on technology and knowledge based industries.

Hundreds, or hopefully thousands, of people will be gathering on King Charles Street at 2pm outside the Treasury to demonstrate, we hope you can join us. Please also sign the petition, write to your MP and blog or tweet about this very important issue.

I’ll update this blog after the rally to let you know how it went.

Recently circulated newspaper claims that the common Bed Bug may be able to cure AIDs are false and plainly ridiculous.

In a stunning and systemic display of poor science reporting, on September 2^nd The Independent ran a brief article making these spurious claims. Within just hours, other newspapers around the world were running the same flawed story.

Over the last three weeks there has been a storm of news reporting on the international resurgence of the once-common human bed bug. That this should be considered news is baffling in itself, since pest controllers and entomologists have noted this insectan insurrection for a decade. The general circulation of inaccuracy and misinformation on bed bugs is impressive (see entomologist Richard Naylor’s excellent blog for more details), but the recent AIDs ‘story’ surely tops the lot.

The paper trail leading to this story is convoluted enough that it would be difficult for it to have not missed the mark so very widely, providing what ought to be a textbook example to would-be science reporters in how to not research a story.

The Independent’s article was based on a blog,  which despite it’s title was largely concerned with the problem of bed bug pesticide resistance. The HIV story therein was in turn based upon a recent New York Times article, which referred to a study carried out in 1986. A twenty-four year old study is hardly news.

Even ignoring that the route to the story is worryingly convoluted, it is concerning that such a story can be published when ten seconds’ thought demolishes the scientific basis of the article. AIDs is caused by the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), and cannot survive long outside of a human host. It is therefore intuitively obvious that it should not survive inside an insect such as the Bed Bug, just as it cannot survive in biros, lampshades or clothes hangers. It was because of this that the 1986 study found that they do not transmit HIV, however this doesn’t mean that Bed Bugs have found a successful way of combating the disease. HIV is as relevant to Bed Bugs as are bath towels to the orbit of Jupiter.

By the same logic employed by The Independent’s article, one could claim that tea cups, lampshades and the Turin Shroud are potential cures for AIDs. Obviously, they are not.

The fact that a respectable newspaper, reputed to pride itself on it’s accuracy, has published a sensationalist article with a clear lack of any recourse to research literature is in itself a worrying indictment of scientific journalism. That it has done so in such patently daft fashion is both hilarious and dangerous for public faith in and understanding of science.

This is a guest blog written by Adam Dobson, a Ph.D. student at the University of Sheffield researching the evolutionary basis of pathogen resistance in insects.

Who do you trust with your health?

It seems like a very simple question but there are a lot of different answers, it’s also quite difficult to critique any answer to it, especially if you take personal liberty into account. “The Government” is often the contentious member in your personal healthcare team – some see it as meddling, telling us what to eat or maybe blaming it because your Uncle can’t get Avastin on the NHS – almost everyone has an opinion on the Government’s role in their healthcare requirements.

Funnily though, even if you don’t trust the Government’s suggestion that you should limit your salt intake to 6g a day, you probably trust it to deem who’s trustworthy to look after you.  Pharmacists, Doctors, Clinical Scientists, Physiotherapists etc… I could go on. All are certificated by the Government, which confirms that they meet the strict requirements to practice their medical specialty.

But soon there may be a new set of “professionals” for you to ponder the Government’s recommendation of trustworthiness. The Department of Health (DH) is proposing a registration scheme for practitioners of traditional medicine (acupuncture, herbal medicine, Chinese medicine and so on) which will make them appear endorsed by the Government.

These practitioners do not have training in evidence-based medicine and the proposed regulations will not demand that they have a full knowledge of the body or of the implications of various treatments on that body.  Traditional medicine is by it’s very nature not modern, not advanced, dare I say, not complicated?  A great degree of intelligence and training is required to be a Pharmacist or a Clinical Scientist, and even after the minimum four years these professionals are still limited in what they are allowed to advise upon. I therefore question Government endorsement of people who could not possibly have the in-depth knowledge of physiology to truly appreciate all aspects of the patient’s health.

And yet the practitioners feel qualified to diagnose almost every health problem, most often defying long established medical facts. This is incredibly dangerous as missed opportunities to diagnose cancers or bleeding disorders for example can mean the difference between life and death. Many people will see state regulation of these methods as an endorsement of their validity, which though it may not be strictly true, will see these “professions” gain trust amongst a public not trained to spot spurious claims and practices.

Health is far too important to tolerate far-fetched ideas of spiritual energy centres or herbal cures for serious conditions. There may be some truth to some of the claims made by these specialities, if so, lets test them and if they’re successful they can be integrated into modern medicine, rather than being part of that oxymoron category “alternative medicine”. Furthermore, these regulations should demand medical training from practitioners – three years minimum seems reasonable – after all, then the “professionals” can charge more for their services, everyone’s happy! The DH should go a lot further to ensure that people claiming to be able to treat people’s real medical conditions are highly qualified and capable, not just anyone who can buy some pills off the internet, light an incense stick and set up shop.

The Voice of Young Science (VOYS) are staging a protest outside the Department of Health on Whitehall from 11.30am on 8th September, demanding that practitioners of traditional medicine are not endorsed and validated by the Government. They will be handing out diplomas in old wives’ medicine as a stunt to highlight the ease with which anyone is able to qualify themselves under the proposed regulations.  Please, if you can, go down and support them. Email Julia (jwilson@senseaboutscience.org), the VOYS co-ordinator, for more information or to tell her you’re coming along.

So apparently that milk you just added to your afternoon cup of coffee may be from the daughter of a cloned cow (unless you’re lactose intolerant and it’s soya milk – in which case it’ll be GM soya instead). Before we go any further I’d like to make clear that this does not mean that the cow (or the milk) is GM, as some people (journalists) seem to be thinking.

So why the fuss? Short answer: I have no idea.

Many of the comments that I’ve read on this story talk about consumers knowing what’s in their food, we have a right to know what we’re eating or drinking. But there’s loads of missing information on a milk carton (ironically, one of the things I’ve always wanted to see on a milk carton is a picture of a missing person): the breed of the cow, whether it’s ever been ill, whether it’s parents were ever given antibiotics, whether it lived near a busy road with lots of pollution, whether it drank water with high levels of phosphates, I could go on. With Daily Mail logic I can see how all these factors might affect my milk.

Truth is though, we don’t drink milk from just one cow, we drink the homogenised juice of thousands of cows. Meaning that individual factors are diluted out so much it would make a homeopath blush.

So even if there was something dangerous about drinking the milk that came from a cow that came from a cow that came from a test tube, it would almost certainly be dissipated. I can’t conceive of a real risk from drinking the milk from a cloned cow; twins are clones, many plants including bananas are clones, there is nothing inherently dangerous about any of them (apart from the evil twin syndrome).

We have to be really careful not to let the anti-GM/pro-organic lobbies jump on anything that remotely unsettles the public to further their cause, especially if they twist the science to get there. Rational truthful discussion about the technology is the way forward, props to Professor Robin Lovell-Badge for jumping on the case quickly and getting a lot of media coverage saying that it’s not at all dangerous.

Newsnight covered the LHC last night and had a good little chit chat with Sir David King and Professor Brian Cox about whether science is worth funding. Again.  Skip to 19.45 to catch all the action.

If you can’t see the above content, visit the iPlayer site.

This is the year of Science (yes, with a capital S), the BBC and Channel 4 are awash with great primetime shows covering the history, the people and the facts of science. Those who have chosen not to watch Britain’s Got Talent or Over The Rainbow have been treated, in glorious HD, to the story of how science has shaped Great Britain: from copper-bottomed ships helping us defeat the French in the Caribbean allowing us to hold on to the valuable sugar plantations to the harnessing of steam power that drove the Industrial Revolution and code breaker Alan Turing laying the foundations for the first computer. The contribution of science to modern society is incomprehensible.

And yet numbers of students studying STEM subjects are falling, funding is being cut at our world class institutions and public trust in scientists is dwindling.

Inspiring the next generation of scientists, standing up against spurious claims and promoting the advantages of modern technology are all things that we, as young scientists, have a duty to do. As much as I’ve enjoyed The Genius of Britain, The Incredible Human Journey and Bang Goes the Theory, I realise that these programmes only reach a fraction of the audience, there are many more ways we can reach out and excite people with the wonders of science.

I recently ran a workshop for children where we extracted DNA from strawberries. The kids loved the smell of the fruit and the mess they could make with a pipette, but it was the parents who were asking what exactly DNA is for or how the same molecule can hold the instructions to make such diverse creatures as amoeba, strawberries and humans. Standing up for science is a battle that needs to be fought on all fronts, not just criticising when someone says something stupid but also engaging people so that they understand the facts of science and the issues surrounding it.

There are so many ways you can reach people who don’t usually get the opportunity to meet real scientists and find out how surprisingly normal they are! A variety of methods are needed for different ages and backgrounds, you can be fun and creative, think of unusual events, be random. Science Brainwaves are off to the Green Man Festival in August to host a stall in their Einstein’s Garden, we’ll be presenting science to inquisitive minds, young and old, whilst The Doves and Mumford and Sons play in the background.

So go out and stand up for science, in whatever way you can. What can be achieved is a society where people value science and view it as the essential foundation for the modern world. Without public support, politicians will find it too easy to slash science spending in favour of vote winning gimmicks. Science is core to all of our lives but as the voice of young science the ball is in our court to stand up and make sure it’s appreciated.

There’s scandal at the Food Standards Agency (FSA)!!! They stand accused of being in bed with big biotech industry: whilst they are meant to be independent of both industry and government, they are said to be pushing a pro-GM agenda, of masterminding public PR campaigns to pervert the public’s perception in favour of GM. The FSA have been tasked with setting up a dialogue with the British public to research opinion on GM, to basically find out if the public want GM food on supermarket shelves, but two members of the advisory board have quit in protest of the FSA’s conduct.

The issue of GM is often portrayed as big business on one side wanting to create “Frankenstein” food and a defenceless public on the other having unnatural gunk thrust down their throats. We don’t trust big business instinctively, firms like Monsanto and Bayer are believed to have their HQ in the fiery belly of volcanoes guarded by sharks  (probably genetically modified ones) with fricken’ laser beams attached to their heads.

This image has understandably not helped the progress  of GM, despite much independent academic research contributing to the development of GM, the public still see it as the world domination plan of evil corporations. Not that firms like Monsanto have been shining beacons of good practise of course, there have been incidents, but to take such stubborn opposition on a technology because of the big business which is involved is like not using computers because you quite rightly hate Apple and Microsoft.   

Environmental groups look like the good guys as they stand up to big business and big government, but all they’re really doing is standing in the way of technology that is already helping millions across the globe. I admit, GM is of limited use in this country, but dogged objection to anything possibly “tainted” by the evil hand of a scientist is just ridiculous and anti-progress. The EU has a zero-tolerance for GM in foodstuffs meaning our food bills are higher and research in the field is restricted thanks to a no-go-zone in the world market. I know it’s clichéd to point it out, but there has always been objection to new technologies, it takes time for people to come round to and feel comfortable with yet another “playing god” scenario – but they always do. Most of the world is already enjoying the environmental, economic and health advantages that GM brings.

I think our government should be pushing a pro-GM line, I want progressivism that looks to improve the world through rational means based on experiment and results. Environmental groups are entrenched and anti-progress. Government initiatives should work with and highly regulate the industry, which is leading the innovation in GM, to benefit the world’s poorest and not protect European farmers or the ignorant traditional values of our society’s loud minority.

A dialogue with the public would certainly yield some interesting results, I’d love to know what the public think, but you’re not going to get an unbiased response. For years we have been subliminally told GM is bad: so many restaurants as a matter of course state that their food is free from GM – they might as well also tell us it’s free from arsnic and DDT because there’s just as much (or little) chance of that turning up on your plate too. We live in a world where the word “natural” is thrown around with such abandon that no-one stops to think whether it’s applicable, or even what it means.

I hope our government looks at the science – get’s someone to explain it to them – and then writes a policy that regulates the industry and ensures that the technology is used to benefit people and the environment. Because despite what Greenpeace will have you believe, there are many success stories out there far out-numbering the few (well publicised) bad ones.

255 leading American scientists, including 8 Nobel laureates, have written an open letter calling for an end to the attacks on scientists, particularly climate experts, from politicians and special interest groups.

They clearly state, categorically, that anthropogenic climate change is happening and that everyone should understand how science practise works in order to understand that. I couldn’t agree with them more. Scientists come under extreme public scrutiny whenever their work becomes embroiled in controversial or prominent legislature. Through no fault of their own they get set upon by anyone who disagrees with them, no matter what the reason and all too often it turns ugly.

The problem is that scientists are used to defending their work, it’s what we do every day, but to other scientists. You cannot reason with a columnist from the Daily Express on climate change anymore than you can reason with a Jehovah Witness on the validity of the bible. It’s because they are blind set on not listening, not reasoning and not understanding. Same with politicians, especially American ones, it’s clear why they don’t want us to take action on climate change – they own a frickin’ oil refinery. They can’t disagree with the scientists based on the facts so they have to go after them in other ways; they fund lobby groups to dig up dirt (illegally), cut off funding (as UKIP proposed in their manifesto) and find two tiny little ridiculously insignificant errors in a report thousands of pages long and then hype it up (with the help of those handy right-wing media comrades) until half the country think that all the scientists in the world are actually in on one enormous practical joke.

Many people are calling for a rational debate, which I don’t have a problem with except for the fact that the debate has been going for twenty years now and has only become irrational in the past five, since the politicians decided to actually do something about it. So basically, if you don’t have anything intelligent to say, say nothing at all.