Last swing for Rosetta

As the Rosetta comet-chaser swung by Earth one last time yesterday morning before heading out for its date with the comet, scientists are hoping the mission will help unravel the mysteries of how the solar system evolved.

The European Space Agency’s (ESA) mission controllers confirmed yesterday that its spacecraft Rosetta had skimmed past our planet as planned to pick up another gravity boost before heading out for its rendezvous with comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2014.

Rosetta depends on these gravity boosts in order to reach speeds it would not be able to achieve otherwise, and has previously done two swing-bys of Earth and one of Mars in order to reach its speed at the time of its swing-by yesterday of 13.34 km/s.

By 2014, at a distance of almost 700 million kms from the sun, Rosetta will then release its Philae lander onto the icy nucleus of the comet by using a harpoon to prevent it bouncing off, and which will then begin a series of experiments on its surface.

The Rosetta spacecraft, meanwhile, will orbit the comet for about a year as they both head towards the sun.

Analysing the comet is hoped to unlock secrets about the beginnings of life in the universe. As ESA said, "As the most primitive objects in the solar system, comets carry essential information about our origins. Their chemical compositions have not changed much since their formation, therefore reflecting that of the solar system when it was very young and still ‘unfinished’, more than 4600 million years ago.

“By orbiting Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and landing on it, Rosetta will allow us to reconstruct the history of our own neighbourhood in space. Rosetta will also help to discover whether comets contributed to the beginnings of life on Earth. Comets are carriers of complex organic molecules, delivered to Earth through impacts, and perhaps played a role in the origin of life.”

It is also hoped Rosetta will shed some light on what is causing spacecraft to mysteriously accelerate when they perform these swing-bys, which gain more speed than expected. These accelerations have led some scientists to propose that an “exotic new physics” is the cause, involving modifications of Einsteins’s general relativity.

The video below, courtesy of ESA, helps visualise these swing-bys (although apologies for it being so small).

I think a comment piece on the Guardian today makes a good point of applauding those who got the Rosetta project going for their ability to play the long game:

"Rosetta is a wonderful example of the long view.

"The scientific pay-off from Rosetta could be huge. But contemplate the generosity of vision that made the mission possible. Some of those who lobbied for Rosetta will have died by the time the first results are delivered. Some young scientists who will build their careers on the data from Rosetta were not born when the mission was conceived. If, as Harold Wilson famously observed, a week is a long time in politics, Rosetta is a reminder that we can also think on a celestial timescale."

Top image of Rosetta's second Earth swing-by, by C. Carreau, courtesy of ESA.

"Changing the law" is the only answer to libel in science journalism

How should journalists deal with libel law? “Change the laws”, was the resounding answer from most of the panellists at last night’s Science Fact: Science Journalism and Libel Law public debate hosted by City University. The debate, held to celebrate the launch of the university’s Science Journalism MA course, brought together a panel comprising science journalists, campaigners, and even a lawyer (brave fella). Among the panellists was science writer Simon Singh, who is currently being sued for libel, Bad Science columnist Ben Goldacre, and Sense About Science’s Tracey Brown.

The debate comes at a particularly apposite time in a week where libel has been hitting the headlines. On Tuesday, law firm Carter-Ruck had to back down on its super injunction on behalf of Trafigura after gagging The Guardian and others and impinging on parliamentary privilege. Also this week, Singh successfully won his bid to appeal against a libel ruling made against him.

However, he is currently facing costs in excess of £100,000 and yet another battle against the British Chiropractic Association.

“With libel, it’s not so much the damages as the costs involved,” said Singh. “And the problem with libel in England is that it is expensive and that the laws are unfair.”

Despite this, Singh is hopeful about the state of libel in the UK. “I honestly believe in the next 10 to 12 months there’s a real opportunity to change the libel laws,” he said.

Goldacre, who with the Guardian successfully fought a libel case earlier this year (but which still left the newspaper around £200,000 out of pocket), said the threat of libel is particularly bad for medical reporting.

“Medicine is almost unique in that it’s possible to do a great deal of harm while meaning to do good,” said Goldacre. “It is possible with medicine, even with the best of intentions, to kill. That is why the practise of criticising is so important in medicine. When that process is stifled, you put the public at great risk. You are exposing people to bad quality information.

“Every time someone criticises your practises, they are doing you a favour. But to create a culture where no one is able to speak is murderous.”

And this kind of environment is becoming more pervasive, said Brown, adding: “What Simon’s case has shed light on is the atmosphere of fear.”

But Brown fears editors will use Simon's case as another cautionary tale and be even more reluctant to publish. What's more, journals are now also living under the shadow of libel.

“Do we want to live in a world of euphemism?,” she asked. “All this lawyering is sanitising discussion. This is pushing us into a world where you no longer say what you mean.”

The fact that American states now feel the need to indemnify themselves against UK judges just highlights how bad our libel laws are, said fellow panellist John Kampfner, Chief Executive of Index on Censorship.

Commenting on the Carter-Ruck injunction, Kampfner said: “This has been an astonishing week for libel in the UK. But the danger is that once that fear has been seen off, politicians and others will forget about it. Almost more chilling is the misuse of article 8. Corporations are now using the Human Rights Act for any form of inquiry. There are several high profile cases happening right now and no one is allowed to report on them.

“Unless we change the body of law, we are facing down the end of a barrel.”

However, libel lawyer Duncan Lamont said: “Compared to continental law, we have a wonderful tradition of ‘publish and be damned.’

“Libel is evolving, maybe not as quickly as I would like. But one should never forget that if a journalist gets it wrong it can have disastrous consequence.”

The audience were then invited to put questions to the panel, with one asking what practical advice they would give to working journalists to avoid being exposed to the dangers of libel law.

Brown’s advice was clear: “The only advice I can give is to change the law.”

Kampfner agreed, saying, “They are seriously shocking libel laws, because they are restricting our freedom of expression. I’m not advocating removing our libel laws. You can have some horrible lies said about you, and you are entitled to a defence. You do need strong, robust libel laws. But you need good libel laws.

“Nothing beats getting the facts right. The better your facts, the better your investigation, the more you should be unleashed.”

Singh said journalists ran the risk of making the story bland. “In my case, if I had not mentioned the BCA, I probably would have been ok. But I thought they had a case to answer for. We’ve now got to a point where journalists just have to take out and take out in order to protect themselves.”

Another audience member asked the panel whether or not a newspaper should, if facing a crippling libel suit, let themselves go to the wall in order to prove a point and raise awareness about libel.

“Why don’t newspaper fall on their swords, well, that would mean hundreds of jobs," answered Goldacre. "And it’s not the newspaper who should be making that sacrifice. It’s not the newspapers who should carry the can.

"I could just as easily say, ‘why don’t you sacrifice your job, your house’. But what you really need to do is campaign for a change in the law. The stifling effect doesn’t just hit journalists and newspapers, but it affects everyone’s access to information.”

Futurity: add a dash of salt

As science journalists become fewer and further between, it's only inevitable, it seems, that PR steps into the breach. Futurity is the latest venture to fill the gaping void formerly populated by reporters, comprising of press releases straight from the research centres themselves. The site came about after universities became tired of their research gaining fewer and fewer column inches as science takes a back seat in today’s media.

The site is essentially a collection of unmoderated press releases direct from the university communication departments, untouched by journalistic hands. But what some might say are obvious flaws aren’t actually as clear-cut as one might think. On the one hand, yes, the articles have agendas, their PR writers untroubled about the ethics of bias and balance, and there’s no journalistic moderating force between them and the public to provide a sceptical look at the evidence. But on the other, who's to say that the pieces aren't factually sound, given that they come from highly respected leading US universities, whilst also providing a voice to the science community. The alternative is to simply have less science out there in the public eye – not an attractive option.

Having a journalist write the article should, or at least used to, give some kind of guarantee of accuracy. As Jim Barnett on the Nieman Journalism Lab website has said, “Foremost among them [principles of journalism] is applying some standard of fairness — or as others might call it, skepticism.” That’s not to say that journalists would always be able to pick up errors, due to time and resource constraints, or might even be the ones to slip in mistakes themselves. But without that additional safeguard, it means Futurity should be taken with perhaps a touch more salt than usual.

As SEED’s Evan Lerner has written, “Science journalists may have to rely on actual scientists in assessing the validity of a new finding, but they do have the skills—and an ethical mandate—to speak plainly and honestly about those things and how they might be relevant to the reader. That’s expressly not a publicist’s job. Public relations is about generating positive attention.”

And Charlie Petit, a former science reporter, points out that these articles don’t even make it clear that they are press releases. As it stands, the website looks just like a genuine journalist-produced news site. I’m in no way suggesting that its creators are deliberately trying to mislead the public, but they should explicitly label each article to show that it’s a press release from a university.

But despite all this, I think the website is a good idea in as much as it makes the best of a bad science coverage situation. There’s no reason to believe that the articles, straight from research centres, would be wrong. And as Lerner points out, “Scientists are already responsible for disseminating that knowledge through journals and conferences, so why should they not speak directly to the public as well?”

That’s also the stand of Ben Goldacre regarding science reporting, who said at the recent public debate between him and Lord Drayson that scientists should communicate directly to the public and cut out the science journalists altogether. But as the Daily Mail’s Michael Hanlon pointed out during the debate, just as an army general wouldn’t be the best person to report from Afghanistan, so a scientist wouldn't exactly be the epitome of impartiality.

Although I agree that scientists should involve themselves more heavily with boosting public understanding of science, a journalist should still be in the wings as a safeguard. By all means give scientists greater access to public communication, but bear in mind they are just as fallible as anyone else.

So, will I be using it as a future source of science news? Well… yes and no. Like with any press release in an ideal world, a journalist should check the facts and ascertain its accuracy first. Futurity should be seen more as a starting point than an end product, a springboard of story ideas from which to then investigate and write about. It's a welcome stand in the battle to keep science in the public eye, but one to still be handled with a little caution.