Salon.com > Frank Eltman

Alan Alda isn’t interested in your scientific mumbo jumbo

Wed, 01 May 2013 12:02:00 +0000

STONY BROOK, N.Y. (AP) — Among the procedures Army surgeon Hawkeye Pierce performed on "M.A.S.H." was an end-to-end anastomosis.

Most of the viewers, actor Alan Alda concedes, had no idea he was talking about removing a damaged piece of intestine and reconnecting the healthy pieces.

Today, the award-winning film and television star is on a mission to teach physicians, physicists and scientists of all types to ditch the jargon and get their points across in clear, simple language.

The former host of the long-running PBS series "Scientific American Frontiers" is a founder and visiting professor of journalism at the Stony Brook University Center for Communicating Science, which has just been named in his honor.

"There's no reason for the jargon when you're trying to communicate the essence of the science to the public because you're talking what amounts to gibberish to them," Alda said in a recent interview with The Associated Press.

A better understanding of science, Alda said, can benefit society in ways great and small. Physicians can more clearly explain treatments to patients. Consumers can decipher what chemicals may be in their food. And lawmakers can make better decisions on funding scientific research.

Sarah Palin holds unscripted interview in New York

Thu, 17 Feb 2011 21:15:00 +0000

Sarah Palin is still thinking about running for president in 2012. She said there should be no new gun control measures enacted because of Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' shooting.

She stood firm in her claim that President Barack Obama's health care reform effort could lead to "death panels." And she poked at first lady Michelle Obama for urging new mothers to breast feed.

The former Republican vice presidential candidate and Alaska's ex-governor sat for a wide ranging interview Thursday at the annual meeting of the Long Island Association, a business group outside New York.

Palin agreed to an unscripted question and answer session with the association's president, Kevin Law, who pressed her on gun rights, her potential presidential aspirations, her propensity for communicating through Facebook and her role as a contributor on Fox News.

Reporters were permitted inside to cover the New York event, unlike many Palin speaking engagements where reporters have been banned.

It was Palin's first major public appearance since Giffords was critically wounded and six people were killed at an event in her Tucson, Ariz., congressional district. Palin came under withering criticism following the shootings because she had published campaign literature advocating the ouster of Giffords and other House Democrats by placing their districts in the crosshairs of a gun.

Serial killer theory returns in beach corpses case

Mon, 24 Jan 2011 19:40:00 +0000

All four bodies found near a desolate stretch of barrier island have been identified as prostitutes who advertised online, and county officials have returned to their theory that the deaths were the work of a serial killer.

Officials on New York's Long Island, where the bodies were found strewn along a quarter-mile stretch of marshy grasslands, overgrown shrubbery and sea grass, would not say Monday whether they had identified any suspects.

On Monday, officials with the police and the district attorney's office identified three women as Maureen Brainard-Barnes, of Norwich, Conn., Melissa Barthelmey, of the Bronx, and Amber Lynn Costello, of North Babylon, on Long Island.

Authorities last week identified the first of the four women as that of Megan Waterman, a 22-year-old Craigslist escort who disappeared June 6.

District Attorney Thomas Spota said that he believes they are victims of a serial killer, and that the women were killed elsewhere and dumped at the site. The bodies "were probably were in that location for some period of time," he said.

Police Commissioner Richard Dormer had initially said a serial killer may be to blame, but authorities later backed away from that assertion, saying all possibilities were being investigated.

New York plans burials for 20 unclaimed veterans

Fri, 07 Jan 2011 19:45:00 +0000

Anderson Alston served as an Army master sergeant in World War II. Private Frederick Hunter was a soldier from 1968 to 1971. Myron Sanford Mabry was in the Navy from May 1960 to July 1971. All of them died recently in New York City with no one to claim their remains.

Ordinarily, they would have been quietly buried in a potter's field, their graves unmarked. Instead, they and 17 other veterans who died in recent months will receive full military honors at a mass funeral this weekend, including prayers over their flag-draped coffins, bagpipers, the playing of "Taps" and local congressmen offering condolences.

The mass service Saturday at Calverton National Cemetery on eastern Long Island -- the largest of it kind in U.S. history, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs -- is part of a national initiative in recent years to clear a massive backlog of unburied or unclaimed cremated remains of both veterans and non-veterans.

"Our government promised every veteran a decent burial; that doesn't include sitting on a shelf in some funeral home basement," said Fred Salanti of Redding, Calif. The retired Army major is the founder and executive director of the Missing in America Project, which strives to provide a respectful funeral for any veteran who received an honorable discharge.

N.Y. businessman pleads guilty in $413 million Ponzi scheme

Fri, 29 Oct 2010 20:13:00 +0000

A New York businessman has pleaded guilty to charges he orchestrated a $413 million Ponzi scheme that victimized thousands of clients.

Nicholas Cosmo pleaded guilty to mail and wire fraud charges Friday. He faces up to 40 years in prison when he is sentenced in February.

Cosmo is the former head of the Long Island-based Agape (uh-GAH'-pay) World and Agape Merchant Advance in New York City. He was arrested in January 2009.

Investors believed they'd make returns as high as 80 percent a year from interest collected on short-term loans to businesses. But he admitted using much of the money for personal investments in commodities futures trading that later tanked. Prosecutors estimate investors lost more than $195 million.

Another Bombardier jet has landing gear problem

Wed, 29 Sep 2010 15:03:38 +0000

Two planes made by Canadian manufacturer Bombardier have had to make emergency landings in less than a week because of a landing gear problem.

A Skywest Airlines plane landed Tuesday at General Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee after the cockpit crew reported that only two of the three sets of landing gear would lower. All 36 passengers and three crew members aboard the Bombardier CRJ200 deplaned safely.

Last Saturday, Delta Connection Flight 4951, operated by Atlantic Southeast Airlines, made an emergency landing at John F. Kennedy International Airport because of problem with its landing gear. There were no injuries in that incident.

In addition to the latest incidents, Federal Aviation Administration documents reveal at least three other landing gear problems with Bombardier jets since 2008.

Bombardier spokesman Marc Duchesne did not immediately comment on the latest problem in Milwaukee, but said Tuesday that there are no issues with the landing gear on the CRJ series planes.

"These aircraft are in service with more than 60 airlines over the world," he said. "The aircraft has logged more than 27 million flight hours and more than 22 million takeoff and landing cycles, so these are very good and reliable aircraft."

N.Y. teen on trial in hate crime stabbing death

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 12:41:00 +0000

Opening statements were expected Thursday in the murder trial of a teenager accused of fatally stabbing an immigrant from Ecuador, a case that sparked a federal probe of police responses to hate crimes on eastern Long Island.

Prosecutors say the killing was the culmination of a campaign of violence by teenagers against Hispanics.

Jeffrey Conroy, 19, was among seven teenagers implicated in the November 2008 killing of Marcelo Lucero, but the only one charged with murder. Prosecutors say he admitted plunging a knife into the victim's chest during a midnight confrontation near the Patchogue train station.

Conroy has pleaded not guilty to both murder and manslaughter as hate crime charges.

Four of his friends from Patchogue-Medford High School have already pleaded guilty and agreed to testify against him. They face long prison terms -- perhaps 10 years or more -- but the exact terms will be decided after Conroy's trial, said state Supreme Court Justice Robert Doyle.

Prosecutors contend the teenagers targeted Hispanics for more than a year. The four teens who pleaded guilty to hate crime-related charges admitted participating in assaults on Hispanics before the Lucero killing, attacks they euphemistically referred to as "beaner-jumping."