August 27, 2011
Jatinder Ahluwalia’s career of scientific misconduct has cut a swathe through academia over the last 15 years but is now approaching its end-game as Imperial College reviews the award of his PhD.
At Cambridge University he lost his studentship funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council at the end of 1997, and was dismissed from the graduate studies program in 1998. He then went on to “earn” his PhD at Imperial College after which he was employed at University College London. An investigation at UCL found that not only had he faked experimental results but also that he had sabotaged the experiments of some of his colleagues. He resigned or was dismissed by UCL in 2009 but then turned up as a senior lecturer at the University of East London. As retractions of his papers and allegations by co-workers mounted, UEL also investigated and Imperial College started checking the experiments which had led to the award of his PhD. Earlier this year he “left” UEL. Retraction Watch has documented the entire, sorry story.
This week another paper of his was retracted and Imperial College announced that the results on which his PhD were based could not be replicated. Imperial will now set up a committee to review the award of his doctorate.
The academics asked to independently re-run the experiments were unable to replicate the findings published in the paper Activation of capsaicin-sensitive primary sensory neurones induces anandamide production and release and so the authors decided to withdraw this from the Journal of Neurochemistry. The findings also formed the basis of Dr Ahluwalia’s PhD. The College has therefore written to Dr Ahluwalia to notify him that it believes it has grounds to investigate the validity of the data in his PhD. It will be convening a panel to review the award in accordance with its policy for investigating allegations of research misconduct.
I find it an incredible waste that in so many cases of scientific misconduct there is such a great deal of misplaced creativity and ingenuity – and even hard work – which goes into the misconduct and in then covering it up.
Tags: Cambridge University, Imperial College London, Jatinder Ahluwalia, Retraction Watch, Scientific misconduct, University College London, University of East London
Posted in Science, scientific misconduct | 2 Comments »
August 26, 2011
When plagiarism is not plagiarism
The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Peshawar, Dr Azmat Hayat Khan was found guilty of plagiarism by a three-member committee of the Higher Education Commission that was constituted to probe the matter. The Higher Education Commission had submitted its report to the Governor of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa who is also the Chancellor of the university.
For apparently political reasons, no action has so far been taken against the Vice Chancellor. Instead the University went on the attack. First they attacked the complainant, Mohammad Zubair, an assistant professor at the UoP Law College. They suspended him and have now dismissed him and are going through a paper exercise to strip him of his law degree. Now they have attacked the Higher Education Commission for finding their beloved Vice Chancellor guilty. The defence of the Vice Chancellor is ingenious. First they have objected to the procedures followed by the Commission in not interrogating the Vice Chancellor. Since they felt this argument was probably a little weak they then redefined plagiarism so that the Vice Chancellor’s plagiarism was no longer plagiarism!!
The University has effectively created a Cheaters Charter. It has reinvented and redefined a plagiarism “threshold” of allowable copying as being 19% for scholarly articles and 25% for theses. And since – they claim – the Vice Chancellor only cheated to the extent of copying 18% of his book from others – what he did was not plagiarism!!
From being a case of the Vice Chancellor’s plagiarism this has now escalated to become a case of blatant corruption at the highest levels of the University and not excluding the Chancellor – who is of course merely taking a political position as the Governor of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.
The ethical standards of the University of Peshawar are beginning to stink.
Pakistan Today reports:
The University of Peshawar issued a clarification on a news item pertaining to plagiarism stating certain elements from a political group were involved. ….
The HEC thus already had jumped to conclusions without inquiring into the matter which shows a partial approach and mala fide intentions. This in fact was the only inquiry in history in which the author under investigation was not called before the committee. The plagiarism policy of HEC point number eight section“E“ clearly reads that the author under investigation must be provided opportunity to justify the originality of their concepts. …..
The HEC Plagiarism policy states plagiarism cases be dealt by respective universities and the threshold is setup by the concerned University in light of the Quality Assurance guidelines of HEC. The percentage of allowed threshold decided by meeting of the Advance Studies and Research Board of University of Peshawar in light of HEC Quality Assurance guidelines, in its meeting held on 25/11/2009 was 19% allowed matching (threshold) for published research articles and 25% for thesis.
The plagiarism allegations against the Vice Chancellor were looked in HEC recommended software and the result was shown to be 18%. This is the same software which is being used all over the country and by HEC. The same document was checked manually and the matching percentage of Kulwant Kaur Book “Pak Afghan relations” to that of Dr Azmat Hayat Khan book was 17%. …….
The press release stated the case was in court and an unbiased decision would be issued because the author would get a chance to explain his point of view and the facts of the matter. It said the University of Peshawar considered the HEC’s recommendation of a penalty and the press conference organized by them as contempt of court (against PHC decision) and will take the case to legal corners. It claims that the victimizing campaign is spear-headed by Zubair Mehsud. The press release denied Zubair was being targeted, as claimed by a newsreport, for raising his voice against the VC.
The press release said ex-Law College faculty member Zubair had been terminated for engaging in political activities against the VC’s directives and the used of defamatory language when issued show cause notice to explain his position on the matter.
But the demands on the Governor to replace the tainted Vice Chancellor are continuing to grow.
Tags: Azmat Hayat Khan, Cheaters Charter, Higher Education Commission of Pakistan, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Mohammad Zubair, Plagiarism, University of Peshawar
Posted in Corruption, Education, Ethics, Pakistan, Politics, scientific misconduct | 2 Comments »
August 26, 2011
Spanish priests in the New World were once a little wary of chillies – considering them an aphrodisiac and something which could inflame passions and therefore possibly a creation of the devil. They preached against indulgence in something “as hot as hell’s brimstone”. The opposition by the priests may have helped chillies gain popularity.
Women drying chillies image: news.bbc.co.uk
Chillies are known to be helpful against hypertension and against pain. They are antimicrobial and aid salivation. It is thought that capsaicin is an effective defense against a fungus that attacks chili seeds. In fact, experiments have shown that the same species of wild chili plant produces a lot of capsaicin in an environment where the fungus is likely to grow, and very little in drier areas where the fungus is not a danger. Perhaps a liking for chillies is one of the key features distinguishing humans from other mammals. Family legend has it that my own liking of chillies results from my grandmother coating my thumb in chillie powder as an infant to try and stop me from sucking it!!
But the list of medicinal benefits that chillies can provide is growing.
Now comes evidence in a new paper that chillies are effective against sinus inflammations as well.
Jonathan A. Bernstein, Benjamin P. Davis, Jillian K. Picard, Jennifer P. Cooper, Shu Zheng, Linda S. Levin. A randomized, double-blind, parallel trial comparing capsaicin nasal spray with placebo in subjects with a significant component of nonallergic rhinitis. Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, 2011; 107 (2): 171 DOI:10.1016/j.anai.2011.05.016
The authors conclude: This is the first controlled trial demonstrating intranasal capsaicin, when used continuously over 2 weeks, rapidly and safely improves symptoms in rhinitis subjects with a significant NAR component.
Science Daily
Hot chili peppers are known to make people “tear up,” but a new study led by University of Cincinnati allergy researcher Jonathan Bernstein, MD, found that a nasal spray containing an ingredient derived from hot chili peppers (Capsicum annum) may help people “clear up” certain types of sinus inflammation.
The study, which appears in the August 2011 edition of Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, compares the use of the Capsicum annum nasal spray to a placebo nasal spray in 44 subjects with a significant component of nonallergic rhinitis (i.e., nasal congestion, sinus pain, sinus pressure) for a period of two weeks.
Capsicum annum contains capsaicin, which is the main component of chili peppers and produces a hot sensation. Capsaicin is also the active ingredient in several topical medications used for temporary pain relief. …. This is the first controlled trial where capsaicin was able to be used on a continuous basis to control symptoms. It is considered a significant advance, “because we don’t really have good therapies for non-allergic rhinitis,” says Bernstein, adding that in previous trials the ingredient was too hot to administer without anaesthesia.
Tags: Capsaicin, medicinal properties of chillies, Nasal congestion, Nasal spray, Rhinitis, sinus inflammations
Posted in Food, Medicine | 2 Comments »
August 26, 2011
There is a clear disconnect between global coal consumption (and therefore carbon dioxide emissions) and global temperatures.
Of course we must take into account that these are only real data over the last 10 years and are not generated by computer models and have not been validated by the IPCC!!
Quote of the week at WUWT 22nd May 2011
“People underestimate the power of models. Observational evidence is not very useful,” adding, “Our approach is not entirely empirical.” John Mitchell, principal research scientist at the UK Met Office
P Gosselin at NoTricksZone has the “heretical” story:
Global Coal Consumption Jumps Almost 50% – Yet Global Temps Drop!
A recently released BP report here shows that global coal consumption has risen over the last 10 years by almost 50%. So wouldn’t you think that all those millions of tons of emitted CO2 (food for plants) as a result would drive the global temperatures up? Have temperatures risen along with all that extra coal burning?
No they haven’t. In fact they’ve dropped slightly over the same period. So go figure!
In the above chart the blue line shows global coal consumption, data taken here, Review of World Energy. According to the report, India and China alone are responsible for 90% of the world’s coal consumption increase, while renewable energy in the 2 countries plays nary a role. According to BP figures, global CO2 emissions rose 5.8% in the year 2010. ……..
Read source report
Tags: carbon dioxide emissions, climate, Coal, coal consumption, coal consumption disconnected from global temperature, Energy, Fossil fuel, global temperature, IPCC, John Mitchell
Posted in Alarmism, Climate, Energy | Comments Off on Coal consumption increases almost 50% in 10 years and has no impact on global temperature
August 26, 2011
An earlier post reported that the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Peshawar, Dr Azmat Hayat Khan had been found guilty of plagiarism by a three-member committee of the Higher Education Commission that was constituted to probe the matter. The complainant, Mohammad Zubair, an assistant professor at the UoP Law College was suspended by the University. Now Noor Aftab at The News reports that the actions against Zubair have turned nasty and the University is trying to cancel his degree in retaliation:
A teacher who raised voice against alleged plagiarism by the Vice Chancellor of University of Peshawar now himself faces hard times , as somewhat controversial internal Fact Finding Inquiry Committee, constituted to probe authenticity of his own LLM degree, has recommended cancelling his degree. ….
…. Assistant Professor Muhammad Zubair said he approached HEC on March 10 and Governor House on March 16 this year to raise issue of plagiarism by the University of Peshawar vice chancellor. “The university administration got infuriated over it and an inquiry was launched on March 17 and I was suspended on March 20 to mute my voice against illegal act of the University of Peshawar vice chancellor”, he said.
Some small hope for Zubair lies in that the Civil Society has started a movement against the plagiarism of the Vice Chancellor Dr Azmat Hayat Khan, reports Pakistan Today.
After the alleged involvement of University of Peshawar (UoP) Vice Chancellor Azmat Hayat Khan in plagiarism, the Joint Action Committee of Civil Society against Plagiarism on Thursday announced to launch ‘Save Peshawar University’ movement to stop any such future incidents. Idrees Kamal, Dr Syed Alam Mehsood and office bearers of other civil societies told a press conference that plagiarism was not only an academic dishonesty but it also challenged the moral norms of the society. …
The committee said that ‘zero tolerance for plagiarism’ was the slogan often raised on various literary platforms. The Supreme Court chief justice termed literary plagiarism as a legally punishable crime, it added.
Idrees Kamal and Dr Syed Alam Mehsood expressed their disapproval of the relevant authorities’ negligence in the matter. “Azmat Hayat (Khan) is still enjoying the office and the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governor is a silent spectator”, they said, adding that if the vice chancellor was allowed to continue as head of UoP it would be a disgrace and the university might get blacklisted internationally.
But I am very pessimistic about Zubair’s prospects. He is fighting a losing battle against a powerful establishment and he will likely have his law degree cancelled. Whether civil society in Pakistan can or will mobilise itself sufficiently to make any difference, either in protecting him or in having any sanctions levied against the plagiarising Vice Chancellor, is is very doubtful. Zubair does seem to have some support in society and at least in one newspaper but the blogosphere is probably not sufficiently developed or influential in Pakistan to have much impact.
Tags: Azmat Hayat Khan, Civil Society, Higher Education Commission of Pakistan, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Muhammad Zubair, Plagiarism, University of Peshawar
Posted in Education, Ethics, Pakistan, scientific misconduct | 2 Comments »
August 25, 2011
Subterranean rivers are the stuff of mythology and there is something dark and mysterious and yet wonderful about them. Greek mythology includes the Styx, Phlegethon, Acheron, Cocytus, and Lethe as rivers within the Underworld. The Saraswati River is believed to have drained the north and northwest region of India in ancient times, supporting over 16,000 settlements. Although the river does not have a physical existence today many still believe that it flows underground. The River Fleet is London’s largest subterranean river. Forced underground by the city’s burgeoning populace the river still flows from its source in Hampstead Heath to its mouth where it joins London’s main waterway, the Thames. The longest known subterranean river was the Disu Subterranean river in Du’an, Guangxi Province, China – until now.
Forbes / AP: Sao Paulo
A huge underground river appears to be flowing thousands of feet beneath the Amazon River, Brazilian scientists said Thursday. Valiya Hamza of Brazil’s National Observatory said researchers found indications the subterranean river is 3,700 miles (6,000 kilometers) long, about the same length as the Amazon on the surface. Hamza said the discovery of the possible underground river came from studying temperature variations at 241 inactive oil wells drilled in the 1970s and 1980s by Brazil’s state-run oil company, Petrobras.
He said the “thermal information” provided by Petrobras allowed his team of researchers to identify the movement of water 13,100 feet (4,000 meters) under the Amazon River.
map of the amazon river image - 2.bp.blogspot.com
Their findings were presented last week in Rio de Janeiro at a meeting of the Brazilian Geophysical Society. The apparent underground river has been named after Hamza, honoring him as the head of the research team that found the signs of the flowing water. He said the existence of an underground river that also flows west to east would mean that the Amazon rain forest has two drainage systems – the Amazon and Hamza rivers.
There is much about the earth we still don’t know that we don’t know.
And the sense of wonder will remain alive as long as that is so.
UPDATE! Dr. Hamza explains the discovery in an email “interview” with The Hindu.
Tags: AmazonRiver, Brazil, longest subterranean river, River Fleet, River Hamza, Subterranean river, underground river
Posted in Brazil, Geosciences | 5 Comments »
August 25, 2011
The much awaited results from the CLOUD experiments at CERN have now been published in Nature and show that cosmic rays can influence cloud formation – as Henrik Svensmark has hypothesised. This mechanism – ultimately dependent upon the sun – is far more credible as an explanation of the climate variations seen in recent times than dubious computer models based on implausible forcings due to carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Cloud formation may be linked to cosmic rays Kirkby, J. et al. Nature 476, 429-433 (2011).
Nigel Calder (via GWPF) writes:
Long-anticipated results of the CLOUD experiment at CERN in Geneva appear in tomorrow’s issue of the journal Nature (25 August). The Director General of CERN stirred controversy last month, by saying that the CLOUD team’s report should be politically correct about climate change (see my 17 July post below). The implication was that they should on no account endorse the Danish heresy – Henrik Svensmark’s hypothesis that most of the global warming of the 20th Century can be explained by the reduction in cosmic rays due to livelier solar activity, resulting in less low cloud cover and warmer surface temperatures.
Willy-nilly the results speak for themselves, and it’s no wonder the Director General was fretful.
Henrik Svensmark (born 1958) is a physicist at the Danish National Space Center in Copenhagen who studies the effects of cosmic rays on cloud formation. His work presents hypotheses about solar activity as an indirect cause of global warming; his research has suggested a possible link through the interaction of the solar wind and cosmic rays. His conclusions have been controversial as the prevailing scientific opinion on climate change considers solar activity unlikely to be a major contributor to recent warming, though it is thought to be the primary driver of many earlier changes in climate.
I cannot do any better than reproduce Nigel Calder’s explanation of the CERN experimental results:
Jasper Kirkby of CERN and his 62 co-authors, from 17 institutes in Europe and the USA, announce big effects of pions from an accelerator, which simulate the cosmic rays and ionize the air in the experimental chamber. The pions strongly promote the formation of clusters of sulphuric acid and water molecules – aerosols of the kind that may grow into cloud condensation nuclei on which cloud droplets form. What’s more, there’s a very important clarification of the chemistry involved.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: CERN, CLOUD experiment, clouds, cosmic rays, global warming, Henrik Svensmark, Jasper Kirkby, Nigel Calder, solar effects on climate
Posted in Alarmism, Climate, Science, Solar science | 8 Comments »
August 25, 2011
The August solar cycle 24 forecast from NASA is unchanged from the previous month though the maximum has increased to 69 from the 64 forecast about 6 months ago.
The current prediction for Sunspot Cycle 24 gives a smoothed sunspot number maximum of about 69 in June of 2013 (same as last month). We are currently over two and a half years into Cycle 24. Four out of the last five months with average daily sunspot numbers above 40 has raised the predicted maximum above the 64.2 for the Cycle 14 maximum in 1907. This predicted size still make this the smallest sunspot cycle in over 100 years.
NASA - Solar Cycle 24 forecast
Solar Cycle 24 continues to invite comparisons with Solar Cycle 5.
Tags: NASA, solar cycle, Solar Cycle 24, Solar Cycle 5, Solar variation, Sun
Posted in Science, Solar science | 1 Comment »
August 25, 2011
Even making allowance for the fact that it is August when “silly season” stories come to the fore, this nonsense does not bring much credit to the authors, Columbia University, Nature or the sponsors of the “study” who include the U.S. EPA, the brother of George Soros and the Environmental Defense Fund. Gullible journalists who are short of copy and create headlines from this kind of junk science are plentiful.
Civil conflicts are associated with the global climate Solomon M. Hsiang, Kyle C. Meng & Mark A. Cane, Nature 476, 438–441 (25 August 2011) doi:10.1038/nature10311
pdf version here
The Guardian leads –
Climate cycles linked to civil war, analysis shows
Cyclical climatic changes double the risk of civil wars, with analysis showing that 50 of 250 conflicts between 1950 and 2004 were triggered by the El Niño cycle, according to scientists.
Researchers connected the climate phenomenon known as El Niño, which brings hot and dry conditions to tropical nations and cuts food production, to outbreaks of violence in countries from southern Sudan to Indonesia and Peru.
Solomon Hsiang, who led the research at Columbia University, New York, said: “We can speculate that a long-ago Egyptian dynasty was overthrown during a drought. This study shows a systematic pattern of global climate affecting conflict right now. We are still dependent on climate to a very large extent.”
JunkScience gives it short shrift:
Weather causes war, a new study claims. So should we limit CO2 emissions and give peace a chance? Make love not CO2?
The study published in this week’s Nature claims to correlate El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycles with wars around the world during 1950-2009. The study’s intended implication, then, is that if only we can stop climate change (i.e., limit CO2 emissions), peace will be at hand.
The study’s major problem, however, is that even if there is a statistical correlation (pardon the redundancy) between ENSO events and wars, the study authors failed to examine any of the actual socio-political circumstances surrounding the wars. To insinuate weather cycles as a cause of or contributor to war simply because they can be correlated is to mindlessly exalt numerology over socio-political reality.
Next ENSO cycles are real and result in actual weather phenomena. Extrapolating the actuality of ENSO to the dubious hypothesis of catastrophic manmade global warming, is yet another leap of faith. The goal of this research is to link CO2 emissions with national security. That is, we don’t just have to wish for world peace anymore; we can stop burning fossil fuels, cooling our homes, driving SUVs, eating meat, etc. It is merely a ploy to tug at the consciences of conservatives who, as a tribe, otherwise generally oppose Al Gore-ism.
Tags: climate, climate and conflict, El Niño-Southern Oscillation, global warming, Junk Science, Nature (journal), non-science
Posted in Climate, Environment, Media, Non-Science, Politics | 1 Comment »
August 24, 2011
Man-made carbon-dioxide emissions are of little significance in the global concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the effect of carbon dioxide concentration on global climate is of even less significance. In fact it is much more likely that CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere follow global temperature rather than the other way around.
Nevertheless there are perceptions of fossil fuel fired power plants being terribly polluting and of being the dominant source of man-made emissions while hydro-power plants are perceived as being totally non-polluting. These perceptions are mainly based on pre-determined political positions and not necessarily on measurements or reality.
A new study from Brazil looking at the impact of hydro power plants and the Balbina dam has been published in the Journal of Geophysical Research. One caveat of course with many such studies is that it is not based on measurements but on some measurement followed by hypotheses built into computer models. Nothing wrong with that of course but the weakness with many model results – as with climate models – is that the results can neither be verified or dis-proved by measurements.
Kemenes, A., B. R. Forsberg, and J. M. Melack (2011), CO2 emissions from a tropical hydroelectric reservoir (Balbina, Brazil), J. Geophys. Res., 116, G03004, doi:10.1029/2010JG001465
Swedish Radio P1:
Electricity from hydropower can lead to several times the emissions of greenhouse gas emissions than produced from fossil fuels. At least from hydro-electric dams in the rain forest areas, according to a new study from Brazil.
The Balbina dam, which was built fifteen years ago, is located north of Amazonas state capital Manaus. When the rain forest area here was flooded large amounts of organic material ended up at the bottom of the pond. Rotting vegetation then caused large emissions of carbon dioxide and methane. According to this study this corresponded to three tonnes of carbon dioxide per megawatt-hour of energy produced, which is almost ten times that of a coal-fired power plants, and just over half of the emissions from burning fossil fuels in the city of São Paulo.
A recently published study of 85 hydroelectric dams in the world shows that emissions vary between different ponds, depending on size, age and what kind of soil is soaked. How big emissions Swedish hydroelectric dams produce has not yet been studied, but estimates indicate that they are significantly lower than from those in tropical areas in Brazil says Professor Philip Fernside of Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia (INPA) in Manaus. “It is true that dams in tropical areas such as the Amazon produces more than ponds in temperate climate, but there are emissions in these areas also” says Philip Fernside.
A pdf version of the paper is here.
Tags: carbon dioxide, emissions from hydro plant, fossil fuel power plant, Hydro power plant, Journal of Geophysical Research
Posted in Brazil, Energy, Environment | 1 Comment »
