Lpsc Policies Options

[JRehling]

Perhaps Alex or other planetary scientists know of a case where someone took the data and "ran with it" (to a journal) before the original scientists could publish it. The only case I know of close to this is the discovery by Brown et.al. of a large Kuiper belt body that was appropriated by another team.
Bob Clark

A different kind of theft would be the decoding of the image transmission by the first Soviet lander on the Moon, and the initial publication of that photo in a British newspaper. That was quite a Cold War coup, but only loosely related to the conference-theft idea.

[edstrick]

At an LPSC in the late 70's, maybe 76 or 77 (one of my first), The Soviets presented science reports from the Luna 24 sample return mission. They were very non-specific about technical details of the spacecraft's sample handling for the core that it drilled, and after one question on what the tape they spiral-wrapped the core with before loading it into the return cannister (wrapped in turn on a spiral drum), they conferred and conferred (including with their handlers) and finally told the audience that "it was not teflon" (or something like that). There was a very obvious general chuckle from the audience.

[Guest_RGClark_*]

I do, however, know of a few scientists who are excessively paranoid about this prospect. But you're right, the paranoid don't usually 'blab' until they're very ready to publish (much to the frustration of their poor students who may want to finish their dissertations, present their work, and move on)!

The irony that I find in this is that I've been accused of "scooping" a scientist, or facilitating that scooping just by talking about pictures from a public website with other scientists, and of course in this arena I'm not a scientist, I'm "press," much as I dislike the label. Some people are just nuts, and there's nothing you can do about it.

--Emily

The importance of the scientific press in informing the public is of course obvious. But I want to suggest the scientific press performs an important scientific function, especially now in the internet age with its rapid dessimination of knowledge and information.
There are so many different scientific disciplines now and so much that is being published in each of them, that no scientist could keep abreast of the research publications in fields beyond their own specialization. However, the scientific press in reporting on important advances in many different fields can make scientists aware of advances beyond their own fields. It frequently happens that research can have applications beyond the field it is concerned with. Then a scientist may read of a scientific advance in a publication of the scientific press that has applications to his field that he would not normally be aware of since he does not read the professional journals in that other field.
I also believe scientists can make important contributions to fields beyond their own specialization. Science journalists can then make scientists aware of the problems and of the progress in other fields that they may have an interest in or an original insight into.



- Bob Clark