With $4 gasoline, people are thinking seriously about their commute, and whether it makes sense to move closer to work. To help you do the math, the wonderful Ironman has build a new web-based tool. Plug in the pertinent numbers - price of gas, length of commute, etc. - and you'll find out the cost of staying where you are compared with getting a place in town.

(h/t James Hamilton)

Scientists and Engineers for America, an organization pushing to include scientific issues in this fall's election discussion, has launched a web site that allows you to check on the science-related positions of the federal elected officials and candidates in your area.

SEA published a poll this week suggesting that voters say science is important to them. I've a bit of a quibble with the way the poll question was worded:

On a scale that goes from 0 to 10, where 0 is not at all important and 10 is extremely important, how important do you think it is that America makes public policy decisions that are based on science and technology to solve problems we face today, like global warming, energy, public education, and health care?

The obvious answer is yes, but the devil here is in the details. People whose political views lead them to positions that lie outside the scientific mainstream do see themselves as rejecting science. They instead tend to  seek out minority scientific views, outside the mainstream, that support their political views. So I don't think you should make too much of the poll result. But the underlying effort to include science in the political dialogue is refreshing.

As the fall campaign warms up, we'll get back to you with stories discussing New Mexico candidates' responses to the SEA. 

As this morning's story noted, the summer rains are starting, and this week's drought monitor notes that we can start to see the results:

Texas and New Mexico:  This was one of the few areas of dryness and drought that received substantial, drought-easing precipitation last week, though there were a few notable exceptions. Anywhere from 1 to several inches of precipitation induced 1-classification improvements for sizeable portions of Texas and eastern New Mexico. Amounts were quite heavy in a few isolated areas, most notably across inland areas near the far southeastern Texas coast, and at a few sites along the Rio Grande River in and near Val Verde County. In most areas, however, precipitation totals were less impressive (between 0.5 and 2.0 inches), and most of south-central and far southern Texas recorded little or no rainfall.

 The map still looks a bit grim, though:

As a science journalist, the most interesting stories to me are the ones where questions are unsettled. I think this reflects a common public misunderstanding about science - the textbook notion that scientists have crisp answers to everything, and that if they don't, they're not doing their jobs. But the most interesting science is out where things get fuzzy.

Our monsoon season has always been one of my favorite examples of this. It's fuzzy, lacking the crisp onset and predictable patterns of the Indian monsoon, where all of a sudden the sky lets loose and you know it's started. Here it zigs and zags, surges and wanes. But at the ends of the season, you know something fundamentally different has happened than the weather the other 10 months of the year.

Another crack at it in this morning's paper: Arguing over the Monsoon.