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Texas creation vote
MARK EDWARDS/STILL PICTURES
UPFRONT
When the wells run dry THE age-old trek of African women to collect water from distant rivers and dirty ponds is once more a feature of the continent. Millions of women must take the old paths through the bush because an estimated 50,000 recent boreholes, pumps and wells installed with foreign aid are lying derelict for want of basic maintenance. So claims a new report presented last week at the World Water Forum, a triennial summit, in Istanbul, Turkey. “It is not enough to drill a well and walk away,” says report author Jamie Skinner of the London-based International Institute for Environment and Development. “You can rarely declare ‘job done’ with any confidence.” He estimates $300 million of investment has been wasted, undermining the UN Millennium
Development Goal of bringing clean water to half of the world’s estimated billion people still without it. “In the Menaka region of Mali, 80 per cent of wells are dysfunctional,” Skinner reports. “In northern Ghana, 58 per cent require repair.” Key problems, he says, are bad design and poor construction. Aid agencies like to use local contractors, because it provides work and helps local economies. But Skinner says many are slipshod, corrupt or incompetent. Agencies also like to give “ownership” of the water sources to villages, encouraging local people to set up committees to collect fees and pay for maintenance. While fine in theory, this often doesn’t work and when repairs are needed the kitty is empty.
Texas creation vote
Christian clergy who support evolution as “morons”. McLeroy says he does not support calling anyone a moron, but agrees with Bowie Johnson’s arguments. The US National Academy of Sciences statement, he says, is a “theft of true science” and neglects “other valid scientific possibilities”. The vote itself will likely go to the wire, with eight pro-evolution members and seven creationists on the board. Although evolutionists prevailed in an earlier meeting, the creationists slipped in last-minute amendments to the curriculum.
–Plenty of water, for now–
IT SEEMS the gloves are off in the race to find the Higgs boson. Teams at Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois, have recently issued a spate of bold announcements about their search for the Higgs, which is thought to give other particles mass. For example, they claim that the Tevatron has a 50:50 chance of finding the particle. Some researchers at the Large Hadron Collider, due to power up later this year, have apparently had enough. In a talk at CERN last week, Michael Dittmar of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich accused Tevatron teams of exaggerating their prospects, arguing that the sensitivity of
“The rivalry between researchers at the Tevatron and LHC over the Higgs boson is good-natured” their machine has yet to match predictions. Tevatron’s search for the Higgs “was, is and remains hopeless”, Dittmar says. CERN’s spokesman James Gillies 4 | NewScientist | 28 March 2009
stresses that the rivalry between the Tevatron and LHC is good-natured. “They’ve got press release friendly recently, but they’ve had some good stuff to report,” he says. Dittmar’s presentation was his personal view, he adds. Some researchers at the Tevatron have angrily disputed Dittmar’s claims. Tommaso Dorigo at the University of Padua, Italy, was in the audience during the talk. “I felt I was wasting my time listening to him,” he wrote on his blog A Quantum Diaries Survivor.
TENSION is rising prior to this Friday’s crucial vote on whether Texan children should learn about creationism in science lessons. In the run-up to the vote, which will decide the state’s school curriculum, it has emerged that Don McLeroy, chair of the Texas Science Board of Education, recently endorsed a book criticising the US National Academy of Sciences statement on evolution, and recommended it to his fellow board members. In Sowing Atheism, Robert Bowie Johnson describes those of the
Rocket speculation Trajectory of first stage
NORTH KOREA
JAPAN
SE OF SEA JAPAN N Trajectory of second stage
PACIFIC OCEAN
North Korea has warned shipping to avoid two danger zones during its rocket launch window
Trajectory of final stage and satellite
“Danger zones”
SOURCE: ARMSCONTROLWONK.COM
Hostile Higgs
JUST how sophisticated is the rocket that North Korea has announced it will launch in April? The nation has warned shipping away from two “dangerous zones” in the Sea of Japan and the Pacific Ocean between 4 and 8 April, which probably mark the expected splashdown sites of the rocket’s stages (see map, left). David Wright of the Union of Concerned Scientists in
UPFRONT
When the wells run dry THE age-old trek of African women to collect water from distant rivers and dirty ponds is once more a feature of the continent. Millions of women must take the old paths through the bush because an estimated 50,000 recent boreholes, pumps and wells installed with foreign aid are lying derelict for want of basic maintenance. So claims a new report presented last week at the World Water Forum, a triennial summit, in Istanbul, Turkey. “It is not enough to drill a well and walk away,” says report author Jamie Skinner of the London-based International Institute for Environment and Development. “You can rarely declare ‘job done’ with any confidence.” He estimates $300 million of investment has been wasted, undermining the UN Millennium
Development Goal of bringing clean water to half of the world’s estimated billion people still without it. “In the Menaka region of Mali, 80 per cent of wells are dysfunctional,” Skinner reports. “In northern Ghana, 58 per cent require repair.” Key problems, he says, are bad design and poor construction. Aid agencies like to use local contractors, because it provides work and helps local economies. But Skinner says many are slipshod, corrupt or incompetent. Agencies also like to give “ownership” of the water sources to villages, encouraging local people to set up committees to collect fees and pay for maintenance. While fine in theory, this often doesn’t work and when repairs are needed the kitty is empty.
Texas creation vote
Christian clergy who support evolution as “morons”. McLeroy says he does not support calling anyone a moron, but agrees with Bowie Johnson’s arguments. The US National Academy of Sciences statement, he says, is a “theft of true science” and neglects “other valid scientific possibilities”. The vote itself will likely go to the wire, with eight pro-evolution members and seven creationists on the board. Although evolutionists prevailed in an earlier meeting, the creationists slipped in last-minute amendments to the curriculum.
–Plenty of water, for now–
IT SEEMS the gloves are off in the race to find the Higgs boson. Teams at Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois, have recently issued a spate of bold announcements about their search for the Higgs, which is thought to give other particles mass. For example, they claim that the Tevatron has a 50:50 chance of finding the particle. Some researchers at the Large Hadron Collider, due to power up later this year, have apparently had enough. In a talk at CERN last week, Michael Dittmar of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich accused Tevatron teams of exaggerating their prospects, arguing that the sensitivity of
“The rivalry between researchers at the Tevatron and LHC over the Higgs boson is good-natured” their machine has yet to match predictions. Tevatron’s search for the Higgs “was, is and remains hopeless”, Dittmar says. CERN’s spokesman James Gillies 4 | NewScientist | 28 March 2009
stresses that the rivalry between the Tevatron and LHC is good-natured. “They’ve got press release friendly recently, but they’ve had some good stuff to report,” he says. Dittmar’s presentation was his personal view, he adds. Some researchers at the Tevatron have angrily disputed Dittmar’s claims. Tommaso Dorigo at the University of Padua, Italy, was in the audience during the talk. “I felt I was wasting my time listening to him,” he wrote on his blog A Quantum Diaries Survivor.
TENSION is rising prior to this Friday’s crucial vote on whether Texan children should learn about creationism in science lessons. In the run-up to the vote, which will decide the state’s school curriculum, it has emerged that Don McLeroy, chair of the Texas Science Board of Education, recently endorsed a book criticising the US National Academy of Sciences statement on evolution, and recommended it to his fellow board members. In Sowing Atheism, Robert Bowie Johnson describes those of the
Rocket speculation Trajectory of first stage
NORTH KOREA
JAPAN
SE OF SEA JAPAN N Trajectory of second stage
PACIFIC OCEAN
North Korea has warned shipping to avoid two danger zones during its rocket launch window
Trajectory of final stage and satellite
“Danger zones”
SOURCE: ARMSCONTROLWONK.COM
Hostile Higgs
JUST how sophisticated is the rocket that North Korea has announced it will launch in April? The nation has warned shipping away from two “dangerous zones” in the Sea of Japan and the Pacific Ocean between 4 and 8 April, which probably mark the expected splashdown sites of the rocket’s stages (see map, left). David Wright of the Union of Concerned Scientists in