NEWS OF THE WEEK
CELEBRATING SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING EVENTS: First national festival aims to engage students, teachers, and the general public
HE FIRST USA Science & Engineering Festival, an effort to inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers, is set to take place at multiple sites across the U.S. this month. Scheduled to run from Oct. 10 to 24, the festival is designed to engage students, teachers, and the general public by bringing attention to how science and technology intersect with our daily lives (usasciencefestival.org). The festival is the brainchild of biochemist-entrepreneur Larry Bock, who was inspired by science festivals he has attended in Europe and Asia. “Those events are more like music, art, or literary festivals than they are science fairs—celebrations of science and engineering,” Bock says. Noticing that the U.S.
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STEVE RITTER/C&EN
EPA’s Paul T. Anastas helped kick off the festival with a hands-on activity at the Marian Koshland Science Museum in Washington, D.C.
VIRGINIA REIGNITES FRAUD PROBE CLIMATE SCIENCE: Attorney general
NEWSCO M
again subpoenas documents of researcher
A Cuccinelli
NEW ORDER demanding that the University
of Virginia hand over reams of documents and e-mails sent to or from climate researcher Michael E. Mann while he worked at UVA was issued by Virginia Attorney General Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II (R) on Sept. 29. Mann, now director of Pennsylvania State University’s Earth System Science Center, was employed at UVA from 1999 to 2005. To comply with a Virginia Circuit Court ruling in August that stopped his earlier attempts to get the data from UVA, Cuccinelli has narrowed his fraud investigation. The new order—a state subpoena—focuses solely on a $214,700 state grant on which Mann was a coinvestigator. It omits four federal grants that Cuccinelli sought to probe earlier (C&EN, Sept. 6, page 56). In the new order, Cuccinelli says two of Mann’s papers, published in 1998 and 1999, are the basis for the fraud probe. WWW.CEN-ONLINE.ORG
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had no equivalent, Bock created a regional festival in San Diego in 2009. It was so successful that he decided to take it to the national level. “Everything is meant to be hands-on, interactive, fun, and entertaining,” Bock adds. “It should be a blast.” The festival kicked off at the University of Maryland, College Park, on Oct. 10 with a concert called the “Powers of Ten: A Journey in Song from Quark to Cosmos.” Held on the date 10/10/10, the event featured a set of science-related songs performed by more than 250 children and adults. The festival will conclude with an expo on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 23–24. The expo will feature some 1,500 interactive exhibits, student competitions, and 75 science-themed stage shows performed by musicians, comedians, and dancers. Other marquee events include “Lunch with a Nobel Laureate” and the “Nifty Fifty,” in which leading U.S. scientists and engineers will visit schools to speak about the area of science or engineering they are passionate about and discuss career opportunities. The American Chemical Society is one of more than 550 companies, federal agencies, schools, and other organizations participating in the festival. “This festival is a model with a message that rings true anywhere in the country,” ACS Executive Director and CEO Madeleine Jacobs says. “We need to connect our science with the public, and we need to do it in a way that conveys the thrill of discovery and the sense of pride in making the world a better place.”—STEVE RITTER
“The grant application references Dr. Mann’s prior work, including two papers … which have come under significant criticism and which Dr. Mann knew or should have known contained false information, unsubstantiated claims and/or were otherwise misleading,” the order says. Those two papers gave rise to what Cuccinelli calls “the now notorious ‘hockey stick’ graph.” The oncecontested graph is a favorite target of many climatechange skeptics. Nonetheless, other scientists have produced temperature reconstructions similar to Mann’s (C&EN, Dec. 21, 2009, page 21). “The attorney general continues to harass Michael Mann and other climate scientists simply because their results don’t fit with his political views,” says Francesca Grifo, director of the Scientific Integrity Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. UVA says in a statement that it will challenge Cuccinelli’s new order. “University leaders are disappointed that the institution must continue to litigate with the attorney general, but will continue to stand for the principles the University has articulated since … April and to support academic communities here and elsewhere.” The university says that thus far, it has incurred $352,875 in legal fees connected to Cuccinelli’s orders, paying them from private funds.—CHERYL HOGUE
OCTOBER 11, 2010
