University of Oxford - Member News
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anjool: - My wife, she died. But no problem, I got a new oneanjool: - My wife, she died. But no problem, I got a new one...read more
from Anjool Malde on 06/28/2008
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A VP Candidate From the Heart of Texas?When my girlfriend told me that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi had suggested that Barack Obama choose Chet Edwards--my former (and George W. Bush's current) congressman--as his running mate, I thought she was pulling my leg. But, she was serious, and--as usual--she was right. Here's the video from Newsweek (although you can watch commercial-free and get the code to embed it in your blog at Brightcove): Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...read more
from Nick Anthis on 06/26/2008
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anjool: - summer interns launch party this Friday: http://AlphaParties.com/?p=event&id=226anjool: - summer interns launch party this Friday: http://AlphaParties.com/?p=event&id=226...read more
from Anjool Malde on 06/25/2008
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I Don't See You, So You Can't See MeApparently, the Bush Administration has adopted a sophisticated new strategy for not dealing with global warming. From The New York Times: White House Refused to Open Pollutants E-Mail The White House in December refused to accept the Environmental Protection Agency's conclusion that greenhouse gases are pollutants that must be controlled, telling agency officials that an e-mail message containing the document would not be opened, senior E.P.A. officials said last week. The document, which ended up in e-mail limbo, without official status, was the E.P.A.'s answer to a 2007 Supreme Court ruling that required it to determine whether greenhouse gases represent a danger to health or the environment, the officials said. The sad thing is that it looks like it sort of worked: This week, more than six months later, the E.P.A. is set to respond to that order by releasing a watered-down version of the original proposal that offers no conclusion. Instead, the document reviews the legal and e...read more
from Nick Anthis on 06/25/2008
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Supreme Court to Address Navy Sonar ExercisesOn Monday, the Supreme Court agreed to hear Winter v. Natural Resources Defense Council, a case regarding the Navy conducting sonar training exercises in the proximity of marine mammals--some of which are threatened or endangered species. A large body of evidence indicates that these sorts of sonar exercises--which generate extremely loud underwater sounds--damage the hearing of these animals and disrupt their behavior, often leading to beached whales. And, at their worst, these exercises have been linked to scores of whale deaths--likely from decompression sickness as the whales panicked and surfaced too quickly. A variety of analogies have been thrown around to describe just how intrusive this noise is to these whales--such as having a highway built next to your house, having a jet land next door, or standing next to a rocket blasting off. Given the players involved, though, maybe the most apt analogy would be that with the level of dangerous and disruptive noise that these animal...read more
from Nick Anthis on 06/25/2008
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anjool: is watching Venus Williams at Centre Court, Wimbledonanjool: is watching Venus Williams at Centre Court, Wimbledon...read more
from Anjool Malde on 06/24/2008
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PRESS RELEASE: "Power to the people: householders get better feedback on energy use from Oxford University"24/06/0824 Jun 2008 -...read more
from Terry Babcock-Lumish on 06/24/2008
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Obama's Support of Corn Ethanol Unlikely to ChangeI've been pretty open here about my support of Barack Obama's bid for the presidency, but one issue I certainly disagree with him on is his support of corn ethanol subsidies. Unfortunately, it looks like that this is one issue he's unlikely to improve on, as The New York Times reports today that ties to the corn ethanol industry permeate the highest levels of the Obama campaign: Mr. Obama is running as a reformer who is seeking to reduce the influence of special interests. But like any other politician, he has powerful constituencies that help shape his views. And when it comes to domestic ethanol, almost all of which is made from corn, he also has advisers and prominent supporters with close ties to the industry at a time when energy policy is a point of sharp contrast between the parties and their presidential candidates. ... Nowadays, when Mr. Obama travels in farm country, he is sometimes accompanied by his friend Tom Daschle, the former Senate majority leader from South Dakota.read more
from Nick Anthis on 06/23/2008
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anjool: thinks Turkey vs Russia in the final would be ironic, given neither country is in Europe..anjool: thinks Turkey vs Russia in the final would be ironic, given neither country is in Europe..read more
from Anjool Malde on 06/23/2008
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anjool: is definitely making the move to sunny Gibraltar in 2009anjool: is definitely making the move to sunny Gibraltar in 2009...read more
from Anjool Malde on 06/23/2008
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from Anjool Malde on 06/21/2008
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anjool: is holiday home hunting in Gibraltaranjool: is holiday home hunting in Gibraltar...read more
from Anjool Malde on 06/20/2008
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The Future of the InternetThis evening, I was watching The Colbert Report--a show that, along with The Daily Show, I've been enjoying much more frequently lately since they began posting full (free and internationally-available) episodes online--and I stumbled across this interview from last night's show with Jonathan Zittrain, a professor of internet law at Oxford: Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...read more
from Nick Anthis on 06/18/2008
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anjool: - just got asked if I was an Old Etonian. So confused.anjool: - just got asked if I was an Old Etonian. So confused.read more
from Anjool Malde on 06/17/2008
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anjool: is luncheoning with the CFO of Coca Colaanjool: is luncheoning with the CFO of Coca Cola...read more
from Anjool Malde on 06/17/2008
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Dr Christian Brand's research on personal travel emissions quoted in Le Monde17/06/0817 June 2008 - Dr Christian Brand's research on personal travel emissions was quoted in Le Monde, stating that 'the richest households consume proportionally more energy than the average, as shown by Christian Brand, a researcher at the University of Oxford. In the sample population studied, 10% of people - generally the most wealthy - are responsible for 43% of emissions of carbon dioxide in the group, while 10% of poorest households produce only 0.1% of emissions'...read more
from Terry Babcock-Lumish on 06/17/2008
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Prof. Linda McDowell awarded Victoria Medal by RGS-IBG for research in socio-economic and feminist geography16/06/0816 June 2008 -...read more
from Terry Babcock-Lumish on 06/16/2008
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from Anjool Malde on 06/15/2008
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from Anjool Malde on 06/12/2008
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A Shout-Out From CJRJust a bit of self-promotion here, but on Friday I got a nice mention by Curtis Brainard in the Columbia Journalism Review blog The Kicker: Yesterday, The Scientific Activist blog (part of the ScienceBlogs.com community) carried a keen-eyed piece of media criticism, turning the rating scheme of The Washington Post's "Fact Checker" blog back on the paper itself. The blog's editor, Nick Anthis, a doctoral student in biochemistry at Oxford University, took issue with a recent Post article by Juliet Eilperin, which claimed a little too much credit for exposing NASA's censorship of climate scientist James Hansen in early 2006. As I pointed out in my post, credit really belongs to Andrew Revkin of The New York Times, who not only broke the story in full detail but also followed it up extensively. I think that Revkin might have felt the same way, based on his comment on my post. You can see all of Revkin's stories on the topic here, and you can read his Dot Earth blog here. I must admit...read more
from Nick Anthis on 06/09/2008
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Dr Peter Bull to present keynote lecture at 16th International Karst Conference and lectures at further events06/06/0806 June 2008 - Dr Peter Bull has been invited to present a keynote lecture at the 16th International Karst Conference in Postojna, Slovenia on 19th June, entitled 'Deep Cave Facies'. Dr Bull will also be presenting a lecture at the 2nd International Crime Science Conference in London on the 17th July, entitled 'The Forensic History of a Sand Grain'. In addition, he will be presenting papers as follows: firstly, to the 17th International Forensic Science Symposium in Melbourne on 9th October, entitled 'Quartz grain studies for forensic applications: an Australian perspective'; secondly, to The Forensic Science Society at their annual conference in November, entitled 'The Role of Experimental Studies for the Interpretation and Presentation of Trace Physical Evidence'.read more
from Terry Babcock-Lumish on 06/06/2008
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Prof. Banister to assess output from Transumo initiative of International Scientific Advisory Board06/06/0806 June 2008 - Prof. David Banister will be spending time in June in the Netherlands assessing the output from the Transumo initiative, as part of the International Scientific Advisory Board. This is part of the BSIK programme of 'Transition towards Sustainable Mobility', which forms the largest research programme on mobility in the Netherlands.read more
from Terry Babcock-Lumish on 06/06/2008
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Prof. Kathy Willis appointed trustee of the World Wildlife Fund UK06/06/0806 June 2008 - Professor Kathy Willis has been appointed as a trustee of the World Wildlife Fund UK. She has also been appointed to the NERC Peer Review College for three years, starting in July 2008.read more
from Terry Babcock-Lumish on 06/06/2008
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Fact-Checking The Washington Post's Claims About Its Role in Unearthing the 2006 NASA Censorship ScandalA report by the NASA inspector general released earlier this week acknowledged that political appointees in the NASA press office censored climate scientists from 2004 to 2006. That would have been interesting news... about two years ago. Yawn. What caught my eye, though, were these claims in an article by The Washington Post's Juliet Eilperin: The probe came at the request of 14 senators after The Washington Post and other news outlets reported in 2006 that Bush administration officials had monitored and impeded communications between NASA climate scientists and reporters. James E. Hansen, who directs NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and has campaigned publicly for more stringent limits on greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming, told The Post and the New York Times in September 2006 that he had been censored by NASA press officers, and several other agency climate scientists reported similar experiences. NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administr...read more
from Nick Anthis on 06/05/2008
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from Terry Babcock-Lumish on 06/05/2008
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More on the Levine Stem Cell ArticleYesterday, I blogged about a recent article correlating a nation's research output related to human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) with its policies on hESC research. There was one particular source of uncertainty, though: As Levine points out, he didn't actually count papers that published results on hESCs, but papers that cited the original hESC paper. Therefore--as he once again acknowledges--he's actually counting papers related to hESC research. Therefore, his results are much more open to interpretation than they would be otherwise. This could be quite interesting, because his results could indicate that restrictive policies inhibit research that's even just related to hESCs. Or, it could just mean that the results would actually be more extreme if he only counted papers actually presenting results on human embryonic stem cells (which isn't as interesting). Additional research would be required to determine which scenario is actually occurring. I posed this in question form to th...read more
from Nick Anthis on 06/05/2008
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Performance in Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research Correlates With National PoliciesThe conclusion stated in the title of this post may seem painfully obvious, but a new study published in Cell Stem Cell by Aaron Levine (assistant professor at Georgia Tech and author of Cloning: A Beginner's Guide) backs it up with some hard data. To come to this conclusion, Levine compared a country's output of peer-reviewed publications from 1998 to 2006 related to human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) with it's overall biomedical science publication output during that period. As a control, he also compared these two values with the country's output of publications related to RNA interference (RNAi)--a line of research that is not politically or ethically charged. The data set for hESCs included all papers citing the initial hESC isolation paper by Thomson et al., the data set for RNAi included all papers citing the original RNAi paper by Fire et al., and the general data set included all papers citing any of 50 research papers randomly selected from a list of influential papers publ...read more
from Nick Anthis on 06/05/2008
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With Nomination Secured, Obama Should Reevaluate Health Care ProposalLast night was a historic night, with Barack Obama finally effectively clinching the Democratic nomination by surpassing the "magic number" of required delegates. Barring any last-minute fight over delegate rules from Hillary Clinton's campaign (something that I think is not likely to happen), Barack Obama in the Democrats' nominee. Of course, we knew from the beginning that 2008 was going to be a trailblazing election--we just didn't know which way it would swing. Although it's been pretty clear since Obama's string of victories in February that he would eventually be the nominee, now it's (almost) official. Obama becomes the first African American major party nominee. But, beyond that, we have someone who is young and inspiring, and a potential agent of change. His nomination has already generated good will toward the US across the globe, and I can personally attest to the near universal interest and enthusiasm toward him that I hear constantly professed here in the UK. All tha...read more
from Nick Anthis on 06/04/2008
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anjool: is in Frankfurt, surrounded by 6ft4 blonde hair blue-eyed clonesanjool: is in Frankfurt, surrounded by 6ft4 blonde hair blue-eyed clones...read more
from Anjool Malde on 06/04/2008
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from Anjool Malde on 06/03/2008
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Climate change and the fate of the amazon: ECI scientists are published in a special edition of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society02/06/0802 Jun 2008 -...read more
from Terry Babcock-Lumish on 06/02/2008
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Gaza Fulbright Scholarships ReinstatedAfter a rapid media outcry, the US and Israel have come together to reinstate the Fulbright Scholarships initially revoked from several students from Gaza due to Israel-imposed travel restrictions. From The New York Times: JERUSALEM -- The American State Department has reinstated seven Fulbright grants offered to Palestinians in Gaza for advanced study in the United States, reversing a decision to withdraw the scholarships because of Israel's ban on Palestinians' leaving Gaza for study abroad. The American Consulate in Jerusalem sent e-mail messages on Sunday night to all seven telling them it was "working closely" with Israeli officials to secure them exit permits. Maj. Peter Lerner, spokesman for the Israeli Defense Ministry's office of civilian affairs, said the Gazans would be granted permits after individual security checks. This is great news for these seven students, although it's probably not much consolation to the several hundreds of other Gazans currently unable to take u...read more
from Nick Anthis on 06/02/2008
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anjool: is working in London, Frankfurt, Zurich, Geneva, Stockholm & Copenhagen, and flathunting in Gibraltar this month.anjool: is working in London, Frankfurt, Zurich, Geneva, Stockholm & Copenhagen, and flathunting in Gibraltar this month.read more
from Anjool Malde on 06/01/2008
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Israeli-Imposed Travel Restrictions Force Palestinians to Lose Fulbright ScholarshipsSomething very unfortunate happened this week. The US had to revoke eight Fulbright Scholarships for students from Gaza to study in the US due to Israeli-imposed travel restrictions. From CNN: The U.S. government has taken Fulbright scholarships away from eight students in the Palestinian territory of Gaza, citing Israeli travel restrictions imposed on the Hamas-ruled zone, a U.S. official said Friday. The scholarships, which bring international students to the United States to study at American universities, will be given to students in the West Bank, said Stacey Barrios, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem. Barrios said the scholarships were taken away because of restrictions that the Israeli government placed on travel in and out of Gaza. Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...read more
from Nick Anthis on 05/31/2008
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Yes, the Voting Rights Act Is Still RelevantFrom today's New York Times: WASHINGTON -- A special three-judge court ruled Friday that Congress acted constitutionally when it extended the law requiring sections of the country with a history of racial discrimination to get federal approval for any changes in voting procedures. The unanimous decision upheld a central provision of the Voting Rights Act, which Congress initially passed in 1965 and has extended several times since, most recently for 25 years in 2006. Section 5 of the law prohibits several states, mostly in the South, and some local government agencies from changing their election practices without permission from the Justice Department or the courts. This is my favorite part, though: Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...read more
from Nick Anthis on 05/31/2008
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anjool: doesn't like "23 and Still Single?" adverts on Facebookanjool: doesn't like "23 and Still Single?" adverts on Facebook...read more
from Anjool Malde on 05/31/2008
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A star-studded cast: Prof Yadvinder Malhi's career is previewed in the Times Higher Education Supplement27/05/0827 May 2008 -...read more
from Terry Babcock-Lumish on 05/30/2008
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anjool: at Zebrano, Gilgamesh & Pangaea tonightanjool: at Zebrano, Gilgamesh & Pangaea tonight...read more
from Anjool Malde on 05/29/2008
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UK Detains Student for Studying TerrorismOh, the things we do in the name of "the global war on terror." And, not just in the US. Here's an example from the UK. From The Guardian: A masters student researching terrorist tactics who was arrested and detained for six days after his university informed police about al-Qaida-related material he downloaded has spoken of the "psychological torture" he endured in custody. Despite his Nottingham University supervisors insisting the materials were directly relevant to his research, Rizwaan Sabir, 22, was held for nearly a week under the Terrorism Act, accused of downloading the materials for illegal use. The student had obtained a copy of the al-Qaida training manual from a US government website for his research into terrorist tactics. The case highlights what lecturers are claiming is a direct assault on academic freedom led by the government which, in its attempt to establish a "prevent agenda" against terrorist activity, is putting pressure on academics to become police inform...read more
from Nick Anthis on 05/28/2008
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Texas Republicans Suppress Black Student VotersWhen I was a student at Texas A&M University and active in politics there, I spent a lot of time on voter registration. Much of this effort was devoted to the community outside of the university, but my primary focus was on students at the university. And, although some people would contend that college students should register to vote from their hometowns, I strongly disagree. At the very least, students should be allowed to choose which location they prefer, but beyond that I believe there's a strong case for students to register at their university location, unless they have a compelling reason to vote in their hometowns. And, on this first point, the Supreme Court agrees (Symm v. US, 1979). I would take that one step further and argue that that college students should be actively encouraged to register to vote at their university location as opposed to their hometown because: Voting by absentee ballot is a pain in the ass and can act as a deterrent; Traveling home to vote is a...read more
from Nick Anthis on 05/28/2008
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from Anjool Malde on 05/28/2008
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from Anjool Malde on 05/27/2008
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anjool: Mr 'Classic Banter' is back in business...1am meal with Joyceanjool: Mr 'Classic Banter' is back in business...1am meal with Joyce...read more
from Anjool Malde on 05/25/2008
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Hello world!Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!read more
from Sam Gyimah on 05/23/2008
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Max Boykoff is interviewed for a piece in the US magazine, Miller-McCune: The Doubt Makers21/05/0821 May 2008 -...read more
from Terry Babcock-Lumish on 05/22/2008
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The Tyndall Centre garden at the Chelsea Flower Show has won a silver medal for their portrayal of the 2050 garden22/05/0822 May 2008 -...read more
from Terry Babcock-Lumish on 05/22/2008
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from Anjool Malde on 05/21/2008
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