Scoop has an Ethical Paywall
SMC Heads-Up: Evidence in Govt, Fukushima's Ice Wall, Polls
SMC Heads-Up: Evidence use in Govt, Fukushima's Ice Wall, how political polls work
Issue 247 6 - 12 September 2013
Gluckman on use
of evidence in Govt
The Prime Minister's Chief Science Advisor, Professor Sir Peter Gluckman, says there is "little consistency" in the use and respect for research-derived evidence in government and has called for a more systematic use of it in policy formation and implementation.
Sir Peter this week released
the report The Role of Evidence in Policy Formation and
Implementation, which included an audit of
government departments to see how many scientifically
trained advisors they have in-house, their processes around
use of scientific evidence and whether they have a
departmental science advisor.
He also looked at
protocols in place for seeking scientific advice and the
practice of peer review in Government-commissioned
research.
"Worryingly, some officials had limited
understanding of the scientific process of knowledge
production, or were uncertain about it. In addition, they
were not clear on how research-based evidence could be used
to support policy processes," he writes.
"Rather, it
seemed that some preferred to work from their own beliefs or
rely on their own experience. At its extreme, I find this
deficiency to be unacceptable. In part, I think these
deficits reflect the dire need to build some basic
competencies in research methodologies and critical
appraisal skills across the public service, and to bolster
the leadership ranks with people formally trained in the
relevant disciplines."
His recommendations
include:
• The establishment of government-wide formal protocols to guide policy makers in sourcing quality research-based advice.
• The appointment of Departmental Science Ad- visors to major ministries.
Sir Peter's report can be downloaded here.
What was
big in science news this week...
New songbird family discovered, Pacific super volcano, NIWA's rare images
quantum communication, new faults discovered, Ozone
Chilling solution for Fukushima
Japan's government will pour $500 million into an attempt to contain and treat contaminated water at the site of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, after revelations last month that large volumes of radioactive water continue to leak into the ocean.
The plan involves surround the
crippled Fukushima nuclear plant with a mile-long
subterranean wall of ice, a technique that has been used in
the mining industry as a way to prevent groundwater seeping
into mines.
But will the plan work for TEPCO, the
much-criticised energy company struggling to stabilise
Fukushima?
Our colleagues at the UK SMC rounded up
reaction from experts:
Professor Neil Hyatt,
Professor of Radioactive Waste Management, University of
Sheffield, said:
"The idea of the freeze wall
concept is to chill a salt water solution below the melting
point of ice and then pump this through underground pipes.
This causes the local groundwater to freeze, forming a
barrier to the movement of contaminated ground water. A
similar process is used in underground uranium mining, to
prevent flooding of a working area at depth, so the basic
engineering principles are quite well understood. However,
this is a very energy intensive process to maintain, so
there will need to be careful design and trial work to
produce an effective barrier that minimises energy
demand."
Professor Malcolm Sperrin, Director
of Medical Physics and Clinical Engineering, Royal Berkshire
Hospital, said:
"The step being taken by
TEPCO to freeze the ground in order to prevent ground water
transport of isotopes is certainly an interesting approach.
It must be considered a temporary solution since there will
be a considerable cost and effort required to freeze the
ground and then to keep it frozen. However, factors to take
into account will include passage of isotopes through the
frozen wall (since it is likely to be porous), passage of
isotopes around and underneath the ice wall, and, even if
the ice wall is impervious, the contaminated ground water
will eventually build up and flow around the
barrier.
"Some work has been done to examine the use
of frozen ground as containment in non-radioactive
applications but there are very many factors which affect
its efficacy."
Read their comments in full on
the Science Media Centre
website.
The intricacies of political polling
If the political polls are to believed, the Australian Labor Party faces a crushing defeat tomorrow when Australians turn out to vote in their Federal election.
Our colleagues at the Australian
Science Media Centre asked Dr Lyndon Walker, a senior
lecturer in applied statistics at Swinburne University of
Technology, to outline some of the often misunderstood
technicalities of polls...
Basics of
Polling
Australian political polls are
typically conducted by telephone, although larger polling
firms also use face-to-face interviews, and some smaller
polling firms and news agencies use SMS and internet-based
polling. When evaluating the accuracy of a poll, you should
consider who conducted it, and how it was conducted.
Polling conducted, or paid for, by the parties themselves
may not necessarily be as objective as those conducted by
independent organisations. The way in which people are
selected for a poll can also bias the results of the
poll.
Bias - Bias comes from any part
of the polling process that causes the poll results to not
be representative of the population. One of the common ways
this can occur is through selection bias. This is where
different groups have different chances of being selected
for a poll. For example, older people tend to be
under-represented in internet polls since they are less
likely to have access to the internet. One of the ways that
polling firms try to overcome this is with demographic
weighting. The wording and structure of questions can also
create bias. For example, a question that gives respondents
the opportunity to say "don't know" can give different
responses than one where respondents are forced to choose a
preference.
Demographic weighting -
Demographic weighting is a way of analysing poll data to try
to improve the accuracy of the results. It is done by
assigning different weights to the respondents in the poll
so that the responses of under-represented groups are more
heavily weighted than those of over-represented groups. For
example, if the population was 50% male, 50% female, but a
particular poll was 70% male, 30% female, the responses of
the females would be more heavily weighted so that the final
results were more representative of the
population.
Why do different polls with the
same question often have different
results?
It is important to remember that a
poll is a sample of the Australian population. A different
sample of Australians is unlikely to have an identical
result, but if the poll has been done well you would expect
the results to be similar to one another. This is where a
margin of error is useful.
Margin of
error - The margin of error provides a likely
interval for the percentages in the poll. If the poll has
been conducted in an unbiased way, it is likely that the
measurement for the population, such as the percentage of
people preferring a particular party, will be between that
percentage minus the margin of error and that percentage
plus the margin of error. For example if a poll suggests a
party will get 48% of the vote and the margin of error is 3%
then it is very likely that the actual percentage will be
between 45% and 51%.
Sample size -
Political polls typically have a sample size of about 1000.
A larger sample size will result in more precise
measurements as it reduces the margin of error. The well
reported poll should include a statement of sample size.
Policy news and developments
Radio spectrum details
announced
Clean water initiative for low-lying islands
$2.5m injection for new forestry technologies
Exclusion devices for sea lions
$1.5 million into 'whole of family' nutrition
Addressing Pacific climate change
R&D student grants funding
Journos: Getting access to research
The fifth in a series of articles from the new edition of the SMC Desk Guide for Covering Science which is available in full here.
Science news is
frequently driven by publications in the major peer-reviewed
scientific journals. So for journalists covering science,
health and related fields, getting access to research ahead
of time is crucial.
Staying in close contact
with key scientists and press officers and asking regularly
about forthcoming research is a great way to find out what
is coming up. However, we appreciate that this approach can
be time-consuming and sometimes uneven. Here, the SMC can
help.
To help busy journalists navigate the sources
below, the Science Media Centre provides a weekly digest of
upcoming, embargoed research highlights called the
Research Radar. Contact us to sign
up.
Many research journals provide free, early access
to scientific papers to journalists under embargo. You'll
generally be asked by journal publishers to prove your
credentials, often with a letter of introduction from your
editor. Here are some of the main points of
contact:
EurekAlert: An indispensable
resource for thousands of journalists worldwide, the
EurekAlert portal provides
embargoed access to major journals including Science, PLOS
ONE, PNAS and Cell Press, as well as press releases from
scientific conferences and
institutions.
Nature: A prestigious
multidisciplinary scientific journal published weekly.
Nature has an extensive press portal allowing access to
the journal papers, press releases and multimedia resources
as well as to related publications such as Nature Geoscience
and Nature Genetics.
AlphaGalileo: A
web portal providing
journalists with access to science-related press releases,
journal papers and articles from European research
organisations.
Royal Society of
London: The 350 year old Royal Society publishes
numerous journals such as Proceedings B, its respected
biological research journal. Registered journalists can gain
embargoed access to journal papers and associated
resources.
Medical research: Several
major journals publish weekly on
medical science, including UK-based The Lancet and British Medical Journal and US journals The New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of the American Medical Association. Wiley offers embargoed press releases from the Cochrane Reviews, the major source of systematic medical reviews.
Journalists can register
for full free access to the Cochrane Library
database.
Science magazines: Popular
science magazines aimed at consumers can also prove good
sources of stories for more mainstream audiences. As
journalists you can register to receive access ahead of
publication to articles in the likes of New Scientist
and Scientific American.
Local
research: The Royal Society of New Zealand has a
stable of journals covering
everything from agriculture and botany to geology and
zoology. These can be accessed via journal publisher Taylor
& Francis on the InformaWorld web portal.
Department
of Conservation staff publish regular scientific and
technical reports on native species and ecosystems.
Journalists can sign up for notifications on the DOC
website.
Government-commissioned research
reports are regularly posted to the Ministry of Health,
Ministry for the Environment, Ministry for Primary
Industries and other government sites, usually without prior
notification.
A major source for local medical
research is the New Zealand Medical Journal,
which features articles, letters and papers from health
researchers and practitioners on a biweekly basis.
Journalists can register for embargoed
previews.
Quoted: Australian
Associated Press
"It's almost science fiction
... it's phenomenal".
Dad to be Dean on
the ovarian tissue grafts that allowed his
wife to become pregnant
New from the
SMC
SMC moves to new base at
Royal Society HQ:
Fukushima ice
wall: Experts on TEPCO's plan to build a
subterranean ice wall to contain radioactive water
leaking from the Fukushima nuclear power
plant.
Broaband policies and
elections: The AusSMC compares the policies of the
major Australian political parties around the National
Broadband Network.
Super Mario brain boost:
Research reveals playing video games could
reduce cognitive decline in the
elderly. Our UK SMC colleagues gathered reaction to the
Nature paper.
Sciblogs highlights
Some of the highlights
from this week's Sciblogs
posts:
Ethical Skepticism: Elf Eldridge looks forward to this weekend's Skeptics conference in Wellington and floats the idea of "ethical skepticism".
Warming on Pause?: Explaining the supposed slow-down in global warming
Plastic's fantastic cost - Economist Eric Crampton on Dunedin's growing pile of plastic refuse - and the costs of recycling it.
A toothy issue - Ken Perrott on the dentists who oppose water fluoridation and the campaign they are running against it.
Research
highlights
Some of the major research papers that made headlines this week...
Please note: hyperlinks point,
where possible, to the relevant abstract or paper.
3 SEP: Bovine TB sequencing maps spread: UK scientists have used whole genome sequencing of the microbe that causes bovine tuberculosis to map the spread of the disease across Northern Ireland and track farm-to-farm transmission. By combining the genomic sequences of the bacteria with information about when and where the sample was isolated, in addition to data on the movement of cattle from farm to farm, the researchers were able to build a detailed forensic map of bovine TB spread. The data is being presented at an international conference this week.
Society of General Microbiology
3 SEP: Counting deadly viruses: Scientists have now estimated the total number of unknown viruses in wild mammals at a minimum of 320,000, and urge us go after them before another major pandemic catches us unawares. Close to 70% of emerging viral diseases, such as HIV/AIDS, SARS, and influenza, are infections of animals that cross into humans. Collecting evidence of these viruses, or even a majority of them, scientists say, could provide information critical to early detection and mitigation of disease outbreaks in humans.
mBio
4 SEP: Yelling at teens makes things worse: A new longitudinal study has found that instead of minimizing teens' problematic behavior, harsh verbal discipline may actually aggravate it. Using harsh verbal discipline, such as shouting, yelling, or insults, with early adolescents can be harmful to them later on, the study found, with an increased rate of depression, conduct problems and delinquency seen over the following year.
Child Development
4 SEP: Boon from
bottom-trawling?: Fishermen have long argued that,
despite the technique's reputation for destruction, positive
effects from bottom-trawling exist. A new modelling study
provides a theoretical basis for such claims and shows which
type of seafloor ecosystems it can occur in. Trawling gear
can wreak havoc on seafloor life, but the model shows that
in certain circumstances, this much-criticized aspect of
trawling can alter the seafloor food web to stimulate fish
production. The authors call for better understanding of
seabed ecosystems to be seen as an integral part of
successful fishery management.
Proceedings of the Royal Society B
5 SEP:
Anti-aging video games: New evidence suggests that
carefully-designed video games may be able to enhance
cognitive abilities in the ageing. Researchers tested a
group of older adults (60-85 years old) using a specially
designed driving game called NeuroRacer. After four weeks of
training, these older participants achieved multitasking
performance levels higher than those of untrained 20-year
olds, and the cognitive gains lasted for at least 6 months
after training. *Images and video
avail.*
Nature
6 SEP: Gut microbes fight obesity: New research shows that gut bacteria from humans can transmit obesity or leanness to mice inoculated with different microbes. Researchers sampled gut bacteria from pairs of human identical twins where one twin was obese and the other lean. They then introduced these bacteria to germ-free mice. Despite being fed identical healthy diets, mice given the obese twins' gut bacteria became obese themselves, while other mice stayed lean. When exposed to 'lean' microbes later on, this obesity-inducing effect could be blocked in obese mice, as long as they were eating a low-fat, high fibre diet. However when diets were changed to high-fat, low fibre, 'lean' microbes were outcompeted by 'obese' microbes in the gut and obese mice remained fat.
Science
Upcoming sci-tech events
• NZ Skeptics Conference - Wellington Sept 6 - 8
• Suicide Prevention conference 2013 - Auckland Sept 10
• Reinventing astronomy with radio telescopes - Wellington, Sept 10
• NZ Immunisation conference - Auckland Sept 11 - 12
• Linking business with academia - Dunedin Sept 13
For these and more upcoming events, and more details about them, visit the SMC's Events Calendar.
Science Media Centre NZ
Our aim is to promote accurate, evidence-based reporting on science and technology by helping the media work more closely with the scientific community.
The Science Media Centre is New Zealand's only trusted, independent source of information for the media on all issues related to science. Thousands of news stories providing context from and quoting New Zealand researchers have been published as a direct result of our work.
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