Tweets from NASW's Fall 2008 annual meeting

Find out what's happening at the workshops through this live Twitter feed, reported by NASW's graduate travel fellows. Join in at #sciwri08. Page should refresh every 60 seconds; if not, try hitting the F5 key.

• Tue., Nov. 11, 2008 1:57:31 PM PDT by Nancy Shute:
  Tweets from Mars prove a huge hit. Here's the scoop from Wired: http://is.gd/6Xp9


• Fri., Oct. 31, 2008 8:18:18 AM PDT by carolmorton:
  Reading N.Kristof racial bias column with material heard at CASW-http://tinyurl.com/662ugy


• Tue., Oct. 28, 2008 4:48:45 PM PDT by Christy Fricks:
  JK-there is a tiny trend toward "primacy"-more votes when listed first on a ballot


• Tue., Oct. 28, 2008 4:39:12 PM PDT by Christy Fricks:
  JK-mentions the impact of the book, "The American Voter"


• Tue., Oct. 28, 2008 4:37:06 PM PDT by Christy Fricks:
  JK- 5 tastes-How academics study voting, designing ballots fairly, exit polls, pre-election polls, causes of candidate choices


• Tue., Oct. 28, 2008 4:35:05 PM PDT by Christy Fricks:
  CASW-Jon Krosnick, (JK) The Science of Polling


• Tue., Oct. 28, 2008 4:11:57 PM PDT by rlichtenfeld:
  LB: shift funding away from "marketing" trials to trials meaningful to doctors/patients. This is actully happening in Italy.


• Tue., Oct. 28, 2008 3:54:41 PM PDT by rlichtenfeld:
  Giant holes where safety studies and risk management should be. Conflict of interest report also redacted. Scary, scary stuff.


• Tue., Oct. 28, 2008 3:47:25 PM PDT by rlichtenfeld:
  LB: Many times the results don't agree with the conclusion. This is why my professors are always at me to skip the end of articles


• Tue., Oct. 28, 2008 3:45:22 PM PDT by rlichtenfeld:
  LB: A study funded by the tobacco industry is 90% more likely to claim second-hand smoke has no ill effect than non-TI funded ones


• Tue., Oct. 28, 2008 3:40:37 PM PDT by rlichtenfeld:
  Cost of a "complete spontaneous bowel movement" under a former anti-constipation drug: $155. That's a hell of an expensive poop.


• Tue., Oct. 28, 2008 3:38:19 PM PDT by rlichtenfeld:
  I now know what a "complete spontaneous bowel movement" (CSBM) is. My cookies look far less appealing.


• Tue., Oct. 28, 2008 3:26:59 PM PDT by rlichtenfeld:
  37 percent of drug vs. drug studies do not disclose from where they get their funding. Journals still publish these papers.


• Tue., Oct. 28, 2008 3:23:33 PM PDT by rlichtenfeld:
  LB: "It's fun to see who funds these studies - Merck, who makes a statin, and McDonalds, which causes the disease."


• Tue., Oct. 28, 2008 3:20:57 PM PDT by rlichtenfeld:
  A study funded by a drug company is four times as likely to find favorable results for the drug than non-industry funded studies.


• Tue., Oct. 28, 2008 3:16:06 PM PDT by MSNHealthEditor:
  Happy to see science writers conference embrace Twitter. Some thoughts on how well it worked http://tinyurl.com/6ot9fa #uwmcdm


• Tue., Oct. 28, 2008 3:15:53 PM PDT by rlichtenfeld:
  LB opens with the "cycle of bias in research" Why should we care? Bad studies get into many sources,people need to trust research.


• Tue., Oct. 28, 2008 3:12:28 PM PDT by rlichtenfeld:
  Lisa Bero, UC-SF, takes the stage to talk about faulty clinical trials, drug companies and what we should do to make trials better


• Tue., Oct. 28, 2008 3:08:05 PM PDT by sciencegeekgirl:
  SP: balloon analogy for universe isn't accurate based on current data. Infinite and flat, not finite and closed.


• Tue., Oct. 28, 2008 3:05:56 PM PDT by loxosceles:
  SP: big bang included all matter we can see, but not necessarily all matter that exists


• Tue., Oct. 28, 2008 3:03:10 PM PDT by loxosceles:
  @sciencegeekgirl: IMO sound bites come from tweeting live rather than limits. A 140-char summary afterwards would be different!


• Tue., Oct. 28, 2008 2:53:30 PM PDT by sciencegeekgirl:
  SP: SNAP will also be able to see gravitational lensing due to dark matter. Tiny effect, but average over lots of galaxies.


• Tue., Oct. 28, 2008 2:51:44 PM PDT by rlichtenfeld:
  One of the people who animated Star Wars helped animate SP's presentation. It's cute - people laugh at satellites beaming graphs.


• Tue., Oct. 28, 2008 2:48:34 PM PDT by Christy Fricks:
  I love Perlmutters cool presentation videos.


• Tue., Oct. 28, 2008 2:43:55 PM PDT by sciencegeekgirl:
  SP: Space-based telescope gets rid of thermal noise, dust, atmosphere, blurring =better spatial spectral resolution than ground.


• Tue., Oct. 28, 2008 2:41:18 PM PDT by Christy Fricks:
  SP-in the end it is possible to address a chain of measurement problems if we can build a new telescpe just for this


• Tue., Oct. 28, 2008 2:39:11 PM PDT by Christy Fricks:
  SP-We came to the conclusion that we are going to have to build a new space telescope.


• Tue., Oct. 28, 2008 2:37:55 PM PDT by Christy Fricks:
  SP- discussing ways to ensure good measures on supernovas


• Tue., Oct. 28, 2008 2:37:05 PM PDT by sciencegeekgirl:
  SP: They're trying to take data to help the theorists. But data isn't that great yet. Struggling to define standard candle.


• Tue., Oct. 28, 2008 2:32:31 PM PDT by sciencegeekgirl:
  It's interesting how much the Twitters lend themselves to the soundbites. Hard to communicate complex ideas in 140 characters.


• Tue., Oct. 28, 2008 2:27:48 PM PDT by loxosceles:
  "everybody talks about the dark energy but nobody does anything about it" -Saul Perlmutter


• Tue., Oct. 28, 2008 2:27:31 PM PDT by Christy Fricks:
  SP-Everybody talks about the dark energy but nobody does anything about it. *audience laughs*


• Tue., Oct. 28, 2008 2:27:19 PM PDT by sciencegeekgirl:
  SP: Everybody talks about the dark energy but nobody does anything about it.


• Tue., Oct. 28, 2008 2:27:16 PM PDT by rlichtenfeld:
  CP: "The names might be the best part of all this." Theorists will "cheerfully admit" that they're doing an intellectual exercise.


• Tue., Oct. 28, 2008 2:25:13 PM PDT by Christy Fricks:
  SP-72% dark energy, 24% dark matter, 4% atomic matter


• Tue., Oct. 28, 2008 2:24:36 PM PDT by Christy Fricks:
  sp-Most of the universe is made up of new energy that we used to call dark energy


• Tue., Oct. 28, 2008 2:24:35 PM PDT by rlichtenfeld:
  SP: Forget the Big Crunch, universe is *accelerating*. "Better get your astronomy done while you can; the universe is taking off."


• Tue., Oct. 28, 2008 2:24:27 PM PDT by sciencegeekgirl:
  SP: Expansion of universe is accelerating -- galaxies getting further away -- better do your astonomy now while you still can!


• Tue., Oct. 28, 2008 2:24:03 PM PDT by Christy Fricks:
  SP-We live in a universe that is very unlike what we thought it was.


• Tue., Oct. 28, 2008 2:22:26 PM PDT by rlichtenfeld:
  The fate of the universe explained to us as a function on a graph. I find myself wishing I were better at the whole "math" thing.


• Tue., Oct. 28, 2008 2:21:15 PM PDT by sciencegeekgirl:
  SP: Search through the blue specks that are 4 billion light years away for one that gets brighter -- that's your supernova.


• Tue., Oct. 28, 2008 2:19:19 PM PDT by rlichtenfeld:
  SP wanted to give us a talk on "How to measure the fate of the universe with tools you can find in your own house." Awesome.


• Tue., Oct. 28, 2008 2:19:05 PM PDT by sciencegeekgirl:
  Perlmutter: Wavelengths of light also expand as they move thru space, so blue becomes red = redshift.


• Tue., Oct. 28, 2008 2:16:58 PM PDT by Christy Fricks:
  SP-Supernovas have a characterizable brightness.


• Tue., Oct. 28, 2008 2:14:53 PM PDT by Christy Fricks:
  SP-A practical point: Light takes time to travel. the sun=8min, nearest star=4 yrs, nearest galaxy cluster=65 mill years,


• Tue., Oct. 28, 2008 2:14:21 PM PDT by sciencegeekgirl:
  Perlmutter: Some myths about the big bang here: http://tinyurl.com/6pg9zj - Brief answers to cosmic questions.


• Tue., Oct. 28, 2008 2:12:17 PM PDT by rlichtenfeld:
  A mind-boggling idea: the universe is expanding. Universe is infinite already, but the space between entities is getting larger.


• Tue., Oct. 28, 2008 2:12:05 PM PDT by sciencegeekgirl:
  Perlmutter: Expansion isn't like explosion getting bigger and filling space but the distances between galaxies getting bigger


• Tue., Oct. 28, 2008 2:10:23 PM PDT by Christy Fricks:
  SP-A mind boggling idea--the Universe is expanding, take a minute, just think about it.


• Tue., Oct. 28, 2008 2:09:33 PM PDT by rlichtenfeld:
  SP: Einstein relied on the "fudge factor" to make his equations work; failed to take into account that the universe is expanding.


• Tue., Oct. 28, 2008 2:09:12 PM PDT by Christy Fricks:
  SP-Einstein did what we've all done at some point, he put in a 'fudge point'


• Tue., Oct. 28, 2008 2:07:44 PM PDT by Christy Fricks:
  SP-First they asked the philosophers Aristotle: the universe must be finite.


• Tue., Oct. 28, 2008 2:06:54 PM PDT by Christy Fricks:
  SP-I've always imagined that the first human beings wandered out of their caves and looked at the sky and wondered...


• Tue., Oct. 28, 2008 2:06:48 PM PDT by rlichtenfeld:
  - Saul Perlmutter, UC Berkeley, takes the stage to talk to us about dark energy."...This ties back to some fundemental questions."


• Tue., Oct. 28, 2008 2:06:16 PM PDT by Christy Fricks:
  CASW-Stalking dark energy's dark secrets with Saul Perlmutter (SP)


• Tue., Oct. 28, 2008 2:04:51 PM PDT by rlichtenfeld:
  - Afternoon sessions are starting. Three sessions, no break. Time for some power-tweeting!


• Tue., Oct. 28, 2008 12:38:21 PM PDT by EJ Gertz:
  Atkinson: But [terrorists] go simple is better too, sometimes. [car door remotes to blow up bombs in iraq]. Game of cat and mouse.


• Tue., Oct. 28, 2008 12:36:08 PM PDT by EJ Gertz:
  Atkinson is holistic: "Simple is better." Tech, sniffer dogs, simple measures like jersey barriers all have role.

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