Open Science Thread

OK science geeks, start your political engines! If you can handle differential equations or molecular biology, you have the problem solving skill set this nation desperately needs after eight years of willfully ignorant mob rule. Scientists and Engineers for America are eager to help with the rest:

SEA is holding a workshop to train scientists to run for office on May 10th at Georgetown University. If you are a scientist or engineer and have been considering running for office or working on an election campaign, then join us for a crash course on how it’s done.  ... read the rest w/video

• The entire state of Florida may be on the verge of falling for the Dover Trap thanks to creationist sympathizers in office. Woe to we taxpayers in the Sunshine State who will get stuck with massive legal bills. Oh, and while you're visiting my good friend Ed Brayton, show your support for this post where he threw an Obama/racist out of his house.
• Those silver-tongued global warming hoaxsters have conned a sheet of Antarctic ice the size of Ireland into going along with their climate change scam. Seriously, do conservatives ever get tired of being laughably wrong, or do they get some kind of sick masochistic kick out of it?
• Here's one for you sociologists out there to debate: Nothing says "I love you" to Iraq's most underprivileged poor like bombs and a Hellfire Missile fired into their modest homes, right?
• The White House sure does have either terrible luck or suffer utter incompetence when it comes to the science of information storage. And these clowns are managing the most sophisticated electronic gizmos for collecting, archiving, and analyzing databases full of the world's deadliest terrorists? Oh yeah, I feel safer.
• New data suggests mallards can carry H5N1 but not appear ill. Other species act as sentinels by dying, but mallards show that the 'sick birds don't fly' theory just ain't so.

  By experimentally infecting wild ducks, we found that tufted ducks, Eurasian pochards, and mallards excreted significantly more virus than common teals, Eurasian wigeons, and gadwalls; yet only tufted ducks and, to a lesser degree, pochards became ill or died. These findings suggest that some wild duck species, particularly mallards, can potentially be long-distance vectors of highly pathogenic avian influenza virus (H5N1) and that others, particularly tufted ducks, are more likely to act as sentinels. (Keawcharoen et al., Emerging Infectious Diseases)

  Bird and poultry spread of H5N1 continues, even if you are not hearing much about it. By the way, there's a duck-rice association.

  Concentrations of ducks, rice paddies and people are primarily responsible for outbreaks of potentially deadly bird flu across Asia, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation said Wednesday.

  – DemFromCT