In all of the endless discussions about Trump’s twitter use the actual underlying concern is rarely voiced. The source of worry for many is not that we have our first Tweeter-in-Chief: it’s not the act of tweeting and Trump isn't the first president to use Twitter. It’s the lies that are being tweeted, and that concern would exist with or without social media, because Donald Trump is the most shameless, carefree Liar-in-Chief we have ever seen. Right-wing politicians and conservative media kicked truth out of their house years ago. But Trump has taken lying to new levels of mendacity, and since science is really all about accuracy and reason, American scientists have reason to be really concerned:
That is why, in this moment, it is essential for scientists across our nation and across disciplines and institutions to lay out our community’s expectations for how President-elect Trump and Congress should use science to govern. And that is why I am proud to join with more than 2300 other scientists across all fifty states in signing onto an open letter to President-elect Trump and the 115th Congress, urging them to set a high and sturdy bar for integrity, transparency and independence in using science to inform our nation’s policies.
Earlier this year, the Great Barrier Reef was devastated by as record-warm ocean temperatures turned large swaths of this vibrant 1,400-mile habitat into a ghastly white boneyard. Now scientists have finally tallied up the damage. Data released Monday by Australian researchers shows that an unprecedented fraction of the coral in the more pristine northern part of the reef has died, with average mortality rates of 67 percent.
- Mars appears to have a vast, frozen ocean very near its dusty surface ranging across quite a bit of latitude. Human colonists would find it very convenient—or with a little terraforming it could turn the entire region into an endless, lifeless stretch of quicksand. A little further out in the solar system, Cassini will see Saturn’s rings close up starting tomorrow.
- The anti-malaria drug Daraprim became infamous when “Pharma Bro” Martin Shkreli unilaterally hiked the price several thousand percent. PR hacks claimed research and production costs and other nonsense to justify the greed. This week, we learned a few high school students in Australia synthesized the active ingredient for a little less:
The Sydney Grammar boys, all 17, synthesised the active ingredient, pyrimethamine, in their school science laboratory. "It wasn't terribly hard but that's really the point, I think, because we're high school students," one boy, Charles Jameson, told the BBC. The students produced 3.7 grams of pyrimethamine for $20. In the US, the same quantity would cost up to $110,000.