Why climate change lingers on back burner

Psychology's Drew Westen writes in the Huffington Post:

The best scientific evidence suggests that the best way to win public support for comprehensive energy and climate reform is not by presenting the public with the best scientific evidence. It is to talk with Americans in plain, emotionally compelling language that speaks to their values and concerns. ... One striking fact that gets people to sit up and take notice -- for example, that the 10 hottest years on record have all occurred since 1990 -- is worth a thousand policy descriptions.

Geeks invade Hollywood

Following the publication of his book "Hollywood Science: Movies, Science and the End of the World," physics professor Sidney Perkowitz has now come up with a peer-reviewed list of good and bad science fiction movies. Read what the London Times has to say about it.

Neuroscience for animal lovers

Dolphin expert and neuroscientist Lori Marino offers up creative new ways for approaching and teaching science in the May issue of the Academic Exchange. An excerpt:

"One day, unexpectedly, I saw a video that changed the direction of my work forever. It was a video of the annual dolphin drive hunts that take place in Taiji, Japan. In these hunts, over several months, thousands of bottlenose dolphins and other small cetaceans are driven into a cove and hacked to death, their meat sold as a delicacy throughout Asia. The water runs red with their blood amidst the screams of juvenile dolphins who watch their mothers being brutally slaughtered.

"In the three minutes that I watched this video, my perspective shifted."

Read more.

'Mind of a scientist, heart of an activist'

Biology major Alexandra Kamins, Emory's second Gates scholar, plans to study the transmission of disease between humans and animals.

“The odds are that the next pandemic will be one of these diseases, and I want to do my part to stop it,” says Kamins.

Read more in Emory Magazine.

Would Manny Ramirez's Clone Use Steroids?

In a recent opinion piece for "Religion Dispatches," biology's Arri Eisen writes about the confusion over cloning:

Most Americans are against human cloning and most are against the use of steroids in sports. But I think this is because neither these people, nor anyone else for that matter, yet understands what the results and implications of these phenomena entail; as these become clearer, things will change, and I bet that the number of folks against these practices will decrease and over time may well even become a minority.

Continue reading.