Tag: allotrope

Science in the news: why does it really matter

Akshat RathiLeave a comment

Most of what is written in a newspaper on a daily basis makes no difference to the life of the common man the people on the streets. Indeed some have even argued that news is actually bad for you

That, though, doesn’t stop people from engaging with news. And, despite the struggles of the news industry, more people read news today than they did when the internet did not exist. This should not be surprising, because the price to read even quality writing has plummeted.

But the lack of a good business model, not surprisingly, has caused a lot of pain to journalists. A new debate has broken out among some veteran science journalists about the work that science journalists ought be doing but don’t. The main criticism is that science in the news is nothing but “pretty entertainments about mummies, exploding stars and the sex life of ducks”.

This, Dan Vergano of USA today, finds to be a problem. He feels that science journalists should instead focus on aspects of the news that should matter to people, such as “whether Iran really will have the bomb, whether Quantitative Easing will spark inflation or whether Peak Oil is a real concern”. Dan thinks in these dark times science journalists have formed a ghetto and that is hurting readers, who deserve better.

I’m sympathetic to some of the points raised. But, even though I’m new to the business of news, I can see some clear problems in Dan’s arguments. (Many of those have been pointed out in these comments).

For example, Dan should be addressing editors, rather than reporters. After all editors are the gatekeepers of news. But because he doesn’t make that clear, a lot of reporters have felt compelled to answer Dan. And rightly so.

There is also a problem with treating the news audience as Dan does. The nebulous idea of a reader who likes politics, sports, science, health and everything else on the news menu is just wrong. When the only way to find out who read your work was through expensive surveys conducted once every year, it made sense to assume such a reader to be your audience. Today, though, that is not true. (Perhaps not accepting that fact is the bane of a good business model to fund journalism).

Third, and this is the reason I was compelled to write this post, is that few journalists outside Dan’s “ghetto” understand the importance of science in the news. That though doesn’t stop readers from devouring science news. The fact is that science news, at least that written well, evokes a sense of wonder among readers. And few in the business of news really understand the value of that.

Oh wow, a duck’s penis is like a corkscrew!

Our sense of wonder, as Jesse Prinz aruges in a beautiful essay, may not have evolved out of any purpose but has been the source of the impetus behind humanity’s greatest achievements. Readers of science news may not always be able to put it such eloquent words as Prinz has done, but deep inside they connect with that feeling.

Three things usually appeal to our sense of wonder: art, science and religion. Religion is newsworthy, but not for its aspects that cause wonder. And perhaps art journalists (if they even exist today) have more to complain than science journalists when it comes to being featured in the news.

This leaves science news (and thus science journalists) to take on the responsibility of satisfying our readers’ wonder-tastebuds. And, you know what, science journalists are doing a splendid job at that.

This is one reason that The Economist’s readers time and again vote for the science and technology pages as their favourite in the weekly newspaper. Apart from that, I don’t have numbers to back me here but I’m willing to bet that, in those expensive annual surveys (some of which still happen) if the right questions are asked, readers will say that they love reading about science because it is wonderful.

As the world has got richer, and that it has despite the recession, and technologies like the internet has left a little more time at hand, it shouldn’t be surprising that more of us are feeding our innate curiosities. I have a feeling that despite the many problems that the world faces today, we might be living in a golden age. A different kind of enlightenment, if you will, where, not just the rich few understand and investigate the workings of the world, but the masses do so too.

Science and the news that it creates, even in its current shape, I contend is fuelling that age.

Modern humans’ ancestors

Akshat RathiLeave a comment

All scientific evidence points to the fact that, if you go far enough back, all life on Earth is related through common ancestry. Turns out that applying the same sort of analysis shows that all humans alive today are descendants of one man and one woman who walked our planet thousands of years ago. For several decades, there has been debate about when these ancestors, popularly known as Y-chromosomal Adam and mitochondrial Eve, existed. Two studies published this week find that there is a good chance Adam and Eve may have existed about the same time, evolutionarily speaking.

Genetic Adam and Eve may have walked on Earth at the same time. The Conversation, 1 August 2013.

Image credit: FurLined

Midday meals for schoolchildren in India: More good than harm

Akshat RathiLeave a comment

On July 16th at least 23 children in the Indian state of Bihar died after eating a midday meal that was provided for free by their school. Nearly as many are in critical condition in a local hospital. Tests have revealed that adulterated cooking oil, perhaps containing pesticides, is likely to blame. A government inquiry has determined that the principal of the school, who is in hiding, must be held responsible for the bad ingredients or unsafe methods used in preparing these meals.

This event is horrific, without a doubt. Yet its damage could be even worse, if it raises too many doubts about the value of a largely successful programme. The midday-meal scheme, which began on a small scale decades earlier, received the support of India’s Supreme Court in 2001. Since then most Indian states have adopted it, offering free meals to children in state-run or state-assisted schools. More than 120m children, including many who would otherwise go hungry, receive these meals every school day.

According to a recent analysis by Farzana Afridi of Syracuse University and the Delhi School of Economics, at a cost of three cents per child per school day, the scheme “reduced the daily protein deficiency of a primary-school student by 100%, the calorie deficiency by almost 30% and the daily iron deficiency by nearly 10%.” Ms Afridi also found that, after controlling for all other factors, the meals scheme has boosted the school attendance of girls by 12%. Abhijeet Singh of Oxford University found that, in some parts of India where children were born during a drought, the health of those who had been brought into the meals scheme before the age of six was compensated for earlier nutritional deficits.

What the disaster in Bihar has done, at the very least, is to highlight some of the pitfalls of the scheme. As with any programme of this size in a country rife with corruption, the meals scheme is riddled with problems. The corruptible state is not alone in funding the programme; it is joined by private companies and NGOs. Corruption exists not just among state entities but among the supporting agencies too, as was demonstrated in 2006 when a Delhi NGO was caught dipping into rice that was meant for midday meals. In the states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, where the levels of malnutrition are among the highest in the country, it was found that only three-fourths of the food meant for children reached them. Food is often stolen by the administrators’ faking their students’ attendance. Beyond that, reports of adulteration—not only with shoddy or unsafe foodstuffs, but including finding worms, lizards and snakes—are common.

Next month, the Indian government will be voting on a food security bill which aims to provide food to 60% of the entire population, by means of a public distribution system. This one school’s tragedy comes at an especially crucial moment, when officials ought to be forced to inspect the leaky pipeline of distribution. At the same time it will be important to bear in mind: This scheme has done a lot more good than harm.

First published on economist.com.

Image credit: GlobalPartnership for Education