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MUMBAI: In 2008, when Atlanta-based Georgia Tech University bought 250 acres of land in Hyderabad it left many gaping. It did something even more astonishing shortly afterwards: it invited its own faculty members to quit their jobs and consider moving to India. A professor in the computer science department of the university told TOI: ‘‘Each one of us got a formal note. Even more amazingly, he added, all of us were offered the same salary that we were getting in Georgia. It was clearly an offer very few would even think of refusing; given the cost of living in India,...

The Obama administration is now denying U.S. visas to Israeli scientists who work at that nation’s Dimona nuclear reactor. This startling reversal of traditional policy was reported April 7, 2010, in the Israeli website/newspaper NRG/Maariv (link to the original Hebrew here and to an exclusive Pajamas Media translation here). This could be yet another flashpoint in the increasingly sensitive relations between the administration, the American Jewish community, and Israel. The revelation in Maariv came only a day before the arrival in New York of Tariq Ramadan — controversial grandson of Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al Banna — whose visa was...

In a new and ridiculous policy, the US is denying Israeli scientists who work at the Dimona reactor site an opportunity to refresh their knowedge, Joshua Pundit reports: Ma'ariv reported today that the Israeli government was stunned when every nuclear technician at Israel's Dimona reactor who had submitted visa requests to visit the United States for ongoing university education in Physics, Chemistry and Nuclear Engineering had their visa applications summarily rejected, specifically because of their association with the Dimona reactor.

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Scientists say they have found the trigger of a sharp cooling 13,000 years ago that plunged Europe into a mini ice age. Mark Bateman from the University of Sheffield in England said a catastrophic flood unleashed from a giant North American lake dumped large amounts of freshwater into the Arctic Ocean. This led to the shutting down of the Gulf Stream ocean circulation pattern that brings warmth to Europe. "We're talking about a lake the size of the UK emptying very quickly," Bateman told Reuters by telephone. "We don't know the exact period of time but we're...

An award-winning Iranian nuclear scientist, who disappeared last year under mysterious circumstances, has defected to the CIA and been resettled in the United States, according to people briefed on the operation by intelligence officials. Shahram Amiri, a nuclear physicist in his early 30s, went missing last June three days after arriving in Saudi Arabia on a pilgrimage, according to the Iranian government. The officials were said to have termed the defection of the scientist, Shahram Amiri, "an intelligence coup" in the continuing CIA operation to spy on and undermine Iran's nuclear program. A spokesperson for the CIA declined to comment....

(OREM) – A former advisor to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher says scientists and the media have falsified data and exaggerated conclusions suggesting that mankind is behind climate change. Speaking at a forum at Utah Valley University on Tuesday, Lord Christopher Monckton attacked a Brigham Young University geochemistry professor and his colleagues, who have taken state lawmakers to task for over-relying on climate skeptics, like himself, for their information. He accused the BYU scientists of being terrified of “non-political” and scientific arguments refuting mainstream climate science and said “post-normal science” is being practiced the way science was done under Hitler’s...

Obama "Science Czar" John Holdren and the Federation of American Scientists Obama file 98 here Obama "Science Czar" John Holdren, has a history with the communist influenced journal, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Of even more concern are Holdren's deep ties to a related organization, the Federation of American Scientists. Holdren has held important posts in the Federation and still listed as a member of the F.A.S. Sponsor's Board. Like the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, the F.A.S. was founded immediately after WW2, by left-leaning scientists, many of whom had worked in the Manhattan Project to create the U.S. atomic...

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has asked the world's science academies to review work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Work will be co-ordinated by the Inter-Academy Council, which brings together bodies such as the UK's Royal Society. The IPCC has been under pressure over errors in its last major assessment of climate science in 2007. Mr Ban said the overall concept of man-made climate change was robust, and action to curb emissions badly needed. The Inter-Academy Council will convene a panel of experts to conduct the review, and will be run independently of UN agencies. "Let me be...

I was reading Ed’s piece on the apparent attempt by “human-caused global warming” partisans at the National Academy of Sciences to attack their detractors (via the NYTimes, naturally, rather than via actual science or anything), and I came across this bit here (emphasis added): “Most of our colleagues don’t seem to grasp that we’re not in a gentlepersons’ debate, we’re in a street fight against well-funded, merciless enemies who play by entirely different rules,” Paul R. Ehrlich, a Stanford University researcher, said in one of the e-mails. Paul Ehrlich. Leading the attack. Ladies and gentlemen, this battle may be over....

Link only - Humans must be to blame for climate change, say scientists

News headlines vie for attention and it is easy for scientists to grab this attention by linking climate change to the latest extreme weather event or apocalyptic prediction. But in doing so, the public perception of climate change can be distorted. The reality is that extreme events arise when natural variations in the weather and climate combine with long-term climate change. This message is more difficult to get heard. Scientists and journalists need to find ways to help to make this clear without the wider audience switching off.Recent headlines have proclaimed that Arctic summer sea ice has decreased so much...

TORONTO - There are still no leads in the case of an eastern Ontario scientist who disappeared without a trace last month, leaving his colleagues mystified. Lachlan Cranswick hasn't been seen since Jan. 18, when he left work at the National Research Council's Canadian Neutron Beam Centre in Chalk River, northwest of Ottawa. His nearby Deep River house was reportedly left unlocked and his car was in the garage. His wallet, keys and passport have all been accounted for......

Not just content with being Bill Nye, the Science Guy, the nation's leading nerd will take on a new role: Bill Nye, the Political Science guy. Nye said more political ideology is needed among the nation's youngsters. "There just isn't enough political indoctrination in the schools," said Nye. "Sure English class, social studies, history, health, gym, music, and art classes have all been corrupted by the left-leaning educational establishment, but the sciences have been left almost free of demagoguery." Nye said his political science guy character will change that.

FEBRUARY 19, 2010 Fleeting Youth, Fading Creativity The decline of successful young scientists could hurt innovation; tracking peak performance By JONAH LEHRER When James Watson was 24 years old, he spent more time thinking about women than work, according to his memoir "Genes, Girls and Gamow." His hair was unkempt and his letters home were full of references to "wine-soaked lunches." But when Mr. Watson wasn't chasing after girls, he was hard at work in his Cambridge lab, trying to puzzle out the structure of DNA. In 1953, when Mr. Watson was only 25, he co-wrote one of the most...

Iceberg AheadClimate scientists who play fast and loose with the facts are imperiling not just their profession but the planet. By Fred Guterl | NEWSWEEK Published Feb 19, 2010 One of the most impressive visuals in Al Gore's now famous slide show on global warming is a graph known as the "hockey stick." It shows temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere rising slowly for most of the last thousand years and turning steeply upward in the last half of the 20th century. As evidence of the alarming rate of global warming, it tells a simple and compelling story. That's one reason...

Climate scientists are losing ground against deniers' disinformationThe IPCC and scientific community urgently need to focus on rebuilding trust and could learn a few tactics from Barack Obama Joss Garman guardian.co.uk, Monday 15 February 2010 11.54 GMT There's an incredibly powerful movement opposed to action on climate change. Without doubt it had more influence on the outcome of the climate negotiations in Copenhagen than many of the world's countries combined. Obama knew if he signed up to something that would truly deliver significant cuts in global warming pollution, he'd suffer a serious blow from this movement's army of activists and...

Astonishment as scientist at centre of global warming email row admits vital data was not well organised The academic at the centre of the ‘Climategate’ affair, whose raw data is crucial to the theory of climate change, has admitted that he has trouble ‘keeping track’ of the information. Colleagues say that the reason Professor Phil Jones has refused Freedom of Information requests is that he may have actually lost the relevant papers. Professor Jones told the BBC yesterday there was truth in the observations of colleagues that he lacked organisational skills, that his office was swamped with piles of paper...

SNIPPET: "Algiers, 11 Feb. (AKI) - Al-Qaeda has launched a new campaign to recruit university students, scientists and IT specialists in Algeria. "We appeal to undergraduates, chemists, doctors and IT specialists to join our ranks," the terror network said in a statement published on jihadist websites on Thursday. "Remember the massacres that take place every day in Palestine, in Cechyna, Iraq and Afghanistan," said the statement signed by 'Abu Muslim al-Jazairi'. Al-Qaeda is seeking new bomb-makers and medics who can help treat fighters wounded in clashes with Algerian security forces, according to daily El-Nahar. Currently, 80 pecent of young people...

(Mistakes in one out of four Nobel Prize-winning IPCC reports have embarrassed climate change scientists.) A steady drip of unsettling errors is exposing what scientists are calling "the weaker link" in the Nobel Peace Prize-winning series of international reports on global warming. The flaws — and the erosion they've caused in public confidence — have some scientists calling for drastic changes in how future United Nations climate reports are done. A push for reform being published in Thursday's issue of a prestigious scientific journal comes on top of a growing clamor for the resignation of the chairman of the Intergovernmental...

Nature editor Philip Campbell forced out of independent panel after saying there was nothing to suggest a cover up by scientists at the University of East Anglia ‘The scientists have not hidden the data. If you look at the emails there are one or two that are jargon’ - Philip Campbell. A member of an independent panel to investigate claims that climate scientists covered up flawed data on global warming has been forced to resign after sceptics questioned his impartiality. Philip Campbell, editor in chief of Nature, stepped down from the panel yesterday, just hours after its official launch, after...