Gct Bahrain

A former University of Washington AIDS researcher committed scientific misconduct by altering images and fabricating data, a UW investigation found.

Investigators recommended that Scott J. Brodie be banned from future employment at the university. All his research is now “viewed with suspicion” and subject to independent verification, according to a UW Investigation Committee Report.

“Accepted scientific practices do not allow a scientist to falsely label an image as suits his or her fancy simply because such work is conducted in the scientist’s lab; to do so is instead a gross deviation of accepted scientific practices,” the investigators wrote.

Investigators found that Brodie falsified data in 15 instances - in published and unpublished journal articles, and grant proposals. The research in question included cellular responses to the HIV virus.

The 16-month investigation of Brodie was unusual and disheartening, said Denny Liggitt, chairman of the UW’s Department of Comparative Medicine and one of the three investigators who reviewed Brodie’s work.

Not only did it cast doubt on Brodie’s own work, but it also created problems for many other researchers who relied on his data, Liggitt said.

“The problem with things like this is that people build on someone else’s knowledge. It wastes money, it wastes time and it can lead science in a wrong direction,” Liggitt said. “Even the smallest misguidance can cripple a very large investigation.”

The 2003 report on Brodie, a former research assistant professor at the UW, was released Tuesday, after The Seattle Times last week won a case in King County Superior Court involving the release of the documents.

The Times in January requested all findings of academic misconduct at the UW, dating back five years. Under the pseudonym “John Doe,” Brodie filed a lawsuit against both the UW and The Times seeking to halt release of his records.

Brodie is now living and working on the East Coast. His Seattle-based attorney couldn’t be reached for comment late Tuesday.

In denying Brodie’s request for a preliminary injunction stopping release of the records, Judge William Downing said that because a “thorough investigation” found a public employee had engaged in research misconduct, “the public certainly has a legitimate interest in knowing that outcome, the underlying facts and the process by which they were found.”

The information was released under the state’s Public Disclosure Act, which acknowledges the public’s interest in open government by allowing access to certain records.

Brodie graduated from the UW in 1982 and got a doctorate in veterinary medicine from Washington State University in 1989. He later got a doctorate in infectious diseases from Colorado State University and was briefly an instructor at Harvard University.

He was recruited to the UW in 1996 to direct the retrovirus laboratory of Dr. Lawrence Corey, head of the UW’s virology division in the Department of Laboratory Medicine, Brodie told investigators.

Liggitt said the investigation began when a rival researcher, who was reviewing a paper Brodie submitted for publication, noticed some anomalies and notified the federal Office of Research Integrity, which, in turn, notified the UW in August 2002.

Investigation documents describe an unusual “sequestration” process that followed the next month. A team of doctors and security personnel confiscated nine computer hard drives from Brodie’s lab, as well as computer disks, lab notes and office files. Two doctors went to Brodie’s home and took away his home computer.

In December 2002, Brodie was ordered to work at home. The keys to his lab and his swipe card were confiscated. The next month, with all the evidence removed to other “secure locations” at the UW, Brodie was allowed back on campus. Brodie resigned in June 2003, and the investigation concluded in December of that year.

“It was a very traumatic investigation to be involved with,” Liggitt said. “We got to look at the underbelly of science.”

Liggitt said the investigators wanted to be extremely thorough to give Brodie the benefit of the doubt. But the more they looked into the case, the more problems they found. It became clear that Brodie had been increasingly manipulating computer images and falsifying data as time went by, Liggitt said, though it was hard to detect.

The UW’s Investigation Committee Report concluded that Brodie had committed scientific misconduct in many ways, including falsifying a figure in a paper submitted for publication. In a series of increasingly sharp rebukes, the investigators found that “Dr. Brodie falsified this figure and also that he did so knowingly and purposefully. Honest error was not involved.”

The investigators said Brodie deliberately manipulated an image of a single cell into “two distinct images presented as different types of cells” in order to make a point in a paper.

Even if the false information is presented in “good faith belief that the work could be created if attempted,” it’s wrong to do that, they said. In one case, the false information involved work submitted to the journal Science. “Science is a journal devoted to the practice of science, not science fiction,” the investigators wrote.

Corey said even though Brodie used faulty methods, his conclusions were found to be correct by other scientists - at least in the paper that spurred the investigation. That paper found the HIV virus continues to replicate in certain cells, even in people taking potent antiretrovirals. “Did he set back crucial research? The answer is no,” Corey said.

In written responses and interviews with the investigators, Brodie at times denied the allegations, at other times claimed images were “inadvertently mislabeled,” and suggested lab technicians could have been responsible for mistakes.

During one meeting, he said some primary source data had disappeared and might have been lost during a move between buildings.

The investigators, however, said they found Brodie’s responses “disingenuous” and “damning,” and noted that “publishing false scientific information in the public record is material because it harms the progress of science.”

They noted that none of the evidence implicated any of Brodie’s colleagues “in his acts of scientific misconduct.”

The investigators concluded that because Brodie is no longer employed at the UW, no immediate employment action was required - only that he “be banned from any future employment or contractual relationship with the UW,” the report said.

The UW turned over its results to federal investigators, who have not yet issued any findings.

In the past five years, the UW has launched two far-reaching investigations into academic misconduct, one of which is the Brodie case. No information is available on the second case, which remains under investigation.

In other, smaller investigations, the UW found problems in the work of at least three other researchers but didn’t conclude that those researchers had deliberately falsified data.

UW spokesman Norm Arkans said incidents of academic misconduct are extremely rare but are taken seriously when they arise, as the extensive investigation of Brodie shows.

Liggitt said scientific-journal editors have become increasingly concerned about the ease with which images can be manipulated through computer programs such as Photoshop. He said an image can often impress a reviewer or make a point that a lot of narrative cannot - and the old adage that an image is worth a thousand words rings true.

He said medical research and HIV research in particular is highly competitive, with the National Institutes of Health making cutbacks and many researchers competing for limited funding. Getting published can help bolster a researcher’s push to land the next grant, he added.

“It’s ugly out there,” Liggitt said. “There are a lot more desperate people because of the cutbacks.”

Carol M. Ostrom: 206-464-2249 or costrom@seattletimes.com

Nick Perry: 206-515-5639 or nperry@seattletimes.com

Makes about 1 ½ cups

1 cup pitted oil-cured or Kalamata olives

½ cup prepared tapenade (see Kitchen Note)

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

2 teaspoons finely grated lemon zest ¼ teaspoon fresh ground black pepper

1 tablespoon chopped fresh basil

Chop olives coarsely by hand. Combine with prepared tapenade, olive oil, lemon zest, pepper and basil. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate up to 48 hours. Serve as a topping for crostini.

Times Kitchen Note: Prepared tapenade is sold in jars and can be found on the condiment aisle with other olive products. Many stores with large deli or prepared foods departments also sell their own version.

Lori Douglas opens the top drawer of her filing cabinet at Seattle’s Sealth High School and runs her fingers over a row of file folders, one for each senior who may not graduate because of the Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL).

It’s her job to help them pass, and she’s signed up many of them for special math classes or other extra help. For those who are recent immigrants, however, she’s not sure what to do. No matter how hard they work, she says, most haven’t been in the country long enough to have much - if any - chance of passing a 10th-grade exam in English.

And that, she says, is “extremely unfair.”

That’s a sentiment shared by many of her colleagues in Seattle and across the state who are concerned about the roughly 2,000 students who probably won’t graduate because they don’t know enough English.

“If you or I lived in a country less than one year, we’d never pass,” said Sid Glass, Douglas’ counterpart at Ballard High. “There has to be some accommodation for these students.”

It’s also a sentiment questioned by those who think that students shouldn’t earn a diploma until they can demonstrate the required skills in reading, writing and math - in English.

“In truth, if they go out there with a diploma, and they’re clearly four to five years behind, what will that diploma really do for them?” asked Ricardo Sanchez, board chairman of the nonprofit Latino/a Educational Achievement Project (LEAP).

The issue is under discussion at the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, which expects to announce recommendations to the Legislature soon.

“We are weighing the balance between the needs of those students and the meaning of a diploma, what a meaningful diploma is,” said spokesman Nathan Olson.

Students who are learning English have a lower passage rate on the WASL than any other group reported - including students in special education (who have more options), and students who live in poverty.

Just 29 percent of students classified as English Language Learners (ELL) or bilingual had passed reading and writing on the WASL by last spring, when they were juniors, counting only those students who weren’t behind in credits. That’s compared with 72 percent of low-income students, and 84 percent of the class as a whole, again counting only those on track to graduate.

In the past, immigrant students could graduate as long as they passed all required classes and met other graduation requirements such as community service. Classes often are designed specifically for students learning English.

Starting this school year, however, all students, with the exception of some in special-education programs, also must pass reading and writing on the 10th-grade WASL, or an approved alternative, to earn a diploma. (They must pass an additional math class if they fail math on the WASL.)

That requirement holds whether a student was born in Washington state - or arrived last month.

The goal is to ensure that a high-school diploma means something.

Many immigrant students work tremendously hard, said Nancy Steers, assessment coordinator for the Seattle Public Schools and a former ELL teacher, and deeply value the importance of a good education. But working hard, she said, doesn’t mean they’ve gained enough proficiency to earn a diploma.

Yet that means some students, if they arrived a year or two ago, have no hope of graduating on time.

A growing body of research suggests it takes anywhere from three to seven years for newcomers to master “academic” English, which is more nuanced and requires more vocabulary than conversational English, according to Tom Stritikus, an associate professor of education at the University of Washington who studies bilingual and English-language issues.

It’s important to have high standards for English-language learners, he said, but “holding people accountable after one or two years doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

When it comes to evaluating schools under the federal No Child Left Behind law, even the state superintendent’s office has tried to convince the U.S. Department of Education that WASL scores of immigrant students shouldn’t be counted for up to three years. But diplomas are a different matter.

In Seattle, there are about 50 students who probably will meet all other graduation requirements but probably won’t graduate because they don’t know enough English to pass the WASL, said Janet Blanford, who works with administrators in all the high schools.

In the Yakima School District, roughly one-quarter of the graduating class is in the same situation, according to Superintendent Ben Soria.

“All the WASL does is affirm what we already know - that they haven’t mastered English,” he said.

Soria will be in Olympia today with a group of fellow superintendents from the Yakima Valley, who will continue to press for more leeway for students in areas where poverty is high, and a high percentage of students are recent immigrants.

They don’t want to lower standards, but they want more time to help students reach them.

In Seattle and Yakima, Soria, Douglas and others wonder whether there’s a middle road between a diploma and failure.

Some suggest that English-language learners be allowed to graduate under a system that’s similar to what’s in place for students in special-education programs.

Special-education students, for example, can earn a diploma if they pass the fourth- or seventh-grade WASL instead of the 10th-grade test, if that’s what their teachers judge is appropriate for them. They receive a diploma titled a “certificate of individual achievement” rather than a “certificate of academic achievement,” but they graduate all the same.

Last year, Sanchez’s organization lobbied the Legislature to open “career and college readiness centers” where students who don’t graduate because they fail the WASL can continue their studies for free on nights and weekends.

“Give them that path, and let them work toward it,” Sanchez said.

Some programs for nongraduates already exist at community colleges, and, under Washington law, students can continue in high school up to age 21.

But educators say many students don’t want to stay in high school that long - and the other options aren’t always clear to them.

At Sealth last month, Abdiwali Olad, 18, said he hopes to pass the WASL so he can go to South Seattle or Highline Community College next fall.

He moved to Iowa from Somalia in 2005. Last year, he moved to Seattle, where he lives with his brother.

“I’m trying to do my best,” he said.

Alison Yount, who teaches ELL classes at Sealth, says Olad comes in after school every day for extra help, speaks three languages in addition to English, assists his classmates and couldn’t afford college without a scholarship.

It’s students like him she’s worried about - and how the WASL might cause them to give up their dreams.

Linda Shaw: 206-464-2359 or lshaw@seattletimes.com

YAKIMA - A teenager who was shot by a homeowner in an apparent burglary is linked to a gang-related killing, and a man the homeowner held at bay was being sought in a methamphetamine case, police said.

Jason Moore, a father of two and owner of a welding business, said he pulled into his drivewayon Nov. 19, noticed a strange car parked outside the house and

the back door kicked open, got a .45-caliber handgun for which he had a concealed weapons license and found two strangers in his bedroom.

Out of the corner of his eye, he said, he could see one holding his own 12-gauge shotgun.

“I fired one round and he went down,” Moore said. “I immediately dialed 911 and told them not to move.”

The one he shot turned out to be a 17-year-old who was arrested last month for investigation in the shooting death of Esteban Robles.

The other man was identified by police as Francisco Javier Aceves, 21, who has been wanted by the U.S. Marshals Service since March. He and four others were indicted in a case involving meth purchases by undercover agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Aceves pleaded for his life, but the teenager “said he was a gang member and that he was going to get guys to come to my house and kill me,” Moore told the Yakima Herald-Republic. “It’s just scary to know that there were two people that bad in my house and in my bedroom.”

Both were being held for investigation of first-degree burglary, and police Sgt. James S. “Scot” Levno said the teenager could also be charged with felony harassment.

Neither would say “why they picked me, why they picked my house, how they knew to come to my house that day,” Moore said. “I was real mad and pretty scared.”

Since then, Moore said he had gotten his wife a concealed firearms license.

Robles was shot once in the stomach as he was watching a fight between two gang members on Oct. 22. A witness identified the teenager and an adult as the shooters, but both were released because the information ended up “not being credible,” Levno said.

The adult had an alibi and was cleared by investigators, while the teenager who refused to answer questions and asked for a lawyer, Levno said.

“He was never charged but was also never cleared as a suspect either,” Levno said. “He is still a person of interest.”

- - -

Information from: Yakima Herald-Republic,

http://www.yakima-herald.com

Seattle-area home prices declined in September compared with August, adding to a national trend: the largest quarterly decline in the 21-year history of the S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Indices.

Seattle’s decline, however, was slight. September prices were down 0.2 percent from August. This follows a dip of 0.1 percent in August from July.

On an annual basis, Seattle home prices climbed 4.7 percent for the year ended in September. That ties it with Charlotte, N.C., for the highest appreciation among the 20 metropolitan markets in the S&P Case-Shiller price report.

In the third quarter, prices nationally declined 1.7 percent from the second quarter and 4.5 percent from the third quarter of 2006.

All-league football

(Selected by coaches or players unless otherwise noted.)

KingCo 3A

Offensive player of year - Gino Simone, Skyline

Defensive player of year - Eric Biege, Skyline

Lineman of year - David DeCastro, Bellevue

Special teams player of year - Peter Nguyen, Bellevue

Coach of year - Steve Gervais, Skyline

Assistant coach of year - Chad Barrett, Skyline

FIRST TEAM OFFENSE

QB Jake Heaps, So., Skyline; RB Peter Nguyen, Jr., Bellevue; RB Tyler Washburn, Sr., Skyline; WR Gino Simone, Jr., Skyline; WR Phil Tushar, Sr., Skyline; TE Riley Gervais, Sr., Skyline; OT David DeCastro, Sr., Bellevue; OT Tom Swanson, Sr., Skyline; G Brandon Barron, Sr., Skyline; G Ryan Ransavage, Jr., Mount Si; C Nathaniel Willingham, Sr., Skyline; K Curtis Stensland, Sr., Newport.

FIRST TEAM DEFENSE

DL Grant Engel, Jr., Skyline; DL Jeff Chapman, Sr., Mount Si; DL Evan Bull, Sr., Skyline; DL Jake Luwe, Jr., Newport; ILB Riley Gervais, Sr., Skyline; ILB Blake Gibbs, Sr., Newport; OLB Eric Biege, Sr., Skyline; OLB Tyson Riley, Jr., Mount Si; CB Mitch Gottschalk, Sr., Skyline; CB Bobby Wenger, Sr., Newport; S Gino Simone, Jr., Skyline; S Collin Bennett, Sr., Newport; P Paul Vanderwulp, Sr., Skyline.

SECOND TEAM OFFENSE

QB Patrick Rooney, Sr., Sammamish; RB Brett Kirschner, So., Interlake; RB Blake Gibbs, Sr., Newport; WR Brian Biccum, Sr., Sammamish; WR Jacob Kemmerer, Sr., Issaquah; TE Alex Hiebert, Jr., Mount Si; OT Robbie Marlow, Sr., Liberty; OT David Slingwine, Sr., Interlake; OT Jack Gala, Sr., Mercer Island; G Jared Warren, Sr., Issaquah; G Ned Schooler, Sr., Newport; C Dillion Reagan, Jr., Issaquah; K Gavin Schumaker, Fr., Issaquah.

SECOND TEAM DEFENSE

DL David DeCastro, Sr., Bellevue; DL Jaren Warren, Sr., Issaquah; DL Nathaniel Willingham, Sr., Skyline; DL Michael Nelson, Jr., Mount Si; DL Peter Becker, Sr., Liberty; ILB Graham Maxwell, Sr., Mercer Island; ILB Robbie Marlow, Sr., Liberty; OLB Ryan Somers, Jr., Skyline; OLB Rusty Haehl, Sr., Bellevue; CB Parker Griffin, Sr., Mount Si; CB Justin Whitman, Sr., Liberty; S Robby Chavez, Sr., Skyline; S Grant Gellatly, So., Issaquah; P Justin Evans, Sr., Interlake.

HONORABLE MENTION

Mount Si - Sean Snead, Frank McLaughlin. Mercer Island - Phil Seda, Chris Kaestle. Interlake - Matt Allan, Dylan Amell, Patrick Lindsley, Josue Rodriguez, Frank Silva, Alan Lampe, Evan Spading, Chris Motley. Issaquah - Sean Stuby. Newport - Alex Kairis, Jacob Anderson, Reece Anderson, Blake McDonald. Sammamish - Billy Mitchell, Cameron Akana, Chris Lider. Bellevue - Jack Gervais, Eric Nelson, David Kanongataa, Cam Warren, Jamal Atofau. Skyline - Jon Hardwick, Anthony DeMatteo. Liberty - Josh Spurgeon, Shane Brown, Greg Ericksen, Alec Ernst.

Here is a text of the Israel-Palestinian agreement to formally restart Mideast peace talks, as read to the U.S.-organized peace conference at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., Tuesday:

The representatives of the government of the state of Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization, represented respectively by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and President Mahmoud Abbas, in his capacity as chairman of the PLO executive committee and president of the Palestinian Authority, have convened in Annapolis, Maryland, under the auspices of President George W. Bush of the United States of America, and with the support of the participants of this international conference having concluded the following joint understanding:

We express our determination to bring an end to bloodshed, suffering and decades of conflict between our peoples; to usher in a new era of peace, based on freedom, security, justice, dignity, respect and mutual recognition; to propagate a culture of peace and nonviolence; to confront terrorism and incitement, whether committed by Palestinians or Israelis.

In furtherance of the goal of two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security, we agree to immediately launch good-faith bilateral negotiations in order to conclude a peace treaty resolving all outstanding issues, including all core issues without exception, as specified in previous agreements.

We agree to engage in vigorous, ongoing and continuous negotiations and shall make every effort to conclude an agreement before the end of 2008.

For this purpose, a steering committee led jointly by the head of the delegation of each party will meet continuously as agreed.

The steering committee will develop a joint work plan and establish and oversee the work of negotiations teams to address all issues, to be headed by one lead representative from each party.

The first session of the steering committee will be held on 12 December, 2007.

President Abbas and Prime Minister Olmert will continue to meet on a biweekly basis to follow up the negotiations in order to offer all necessary assistance for their advancement.

The parties also commit to immediately implement their respective obligations under the performance-based road map to a permanent two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict issued by the quartet on 30 April, 2003 - this is called the road map - and agree to form an American, Palestinian and Israeli mechanism led by the United States to follow up on the implementation of the road map.

The parties further commit to continue the implementation of the ongoing obligations of the road map until they reach a peace treaty. The United States will monitor and judge the fulfillment of the commitment of both sides of the road map.

Unless otherwise agreed by the parties, implementation of the future peace treaty will be subject to the implementation of the road map, as judged by the United States.

Frustrated by the slow pace of reforming the way sheriff’s deputies are supervised and disciplined, King County Sheriff Sue Rahr wants authority to bargain labor contracts directly with the deputies’ union.

Under the county charter, County Executive Ron Sims represents the county in contract talks with the King County Police Officers Guild, which represents deputies.

Rahr, an elected official, proposes that the charter be amended to put her in charge of negotiations with her employees. “I’m being held accountable for the management of my organization, but somebody else is bargaining the contract,” Rahr said.

Some key recommendations made by the Sheriff’s Blue Ribbon Panel on police misconduct and discipline last year haven’t been implemented because they are the subject of negotiations, now under way, with the deputies union.

The contract will determine, for example, whether a program is created to work with troubled deputies, whether an independent oversight office will review the way complaints are handled and whether deputies will undergo regular performance evaluations. The current three-year contract expires at the end of December, but a new contract isn’t expected to be completed until sometime next year.

Rahr, the Metropolitan King County Council and County Executive Ron Sims have taken steps to implement panel recommendations that don’t require changes in the union contract, such as hiring more sergeants to supervise deputies, improving officer training and posting citizen complaint forms and a policies and procedures manual on the Web.

Her proposal to negotiate her own contracts has the backing of former County Executive and Blue Ribbon Panel Chairman Randy Revelle. The panel, preparing a progress report on its 2006 recommendations, will consider Wednesday whether to back a charter amendment.

Sims, then-Prosecuting Attorney Norm Maleng and the County Council appointed the Blue Ribbon Panel at Rahr’s request last year in the wake of articles in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer alleging officer misconduct and breakdowns in discipline and accountability.

Sims’ labor liaison, Kathi Oglesby, says it makes sense for the county executive to continue to represent management in contract talks with all of the county’s 30-plus bargaining units. “We need to make sure that salary improvements and those kind of things fit in with the whole county budget, because he’s responsible for that,” she said.

Sims negotiates contracts with union-represented employees of other elected county officials, including judges, the assessor, the prosecuting attorney and the County Council. Representatives of the elected officials are present during talks and help direct county bargaining strategy, Oglesby said.

Rahr said her top priority in the negotiations is to implement the Blue Ribbon Panel’s recommendations, while the executive’s highest goal is to contain health-care costs. “It’s difficult to get my top priority to really be the top priority,” she said.

Oglesby acknowledged Sims’ commitment to controlling health costs for the county’s 14,000 employees. But, she added, “I would not say that the Blue Ribbon task-force issues are not also top priority for the executive. I would say that’s a shared priority.”

Chris Vick, attorney for the Police Officers Guild, declined to discuss bargaining issues. But he said deputies are concerned about the possible makeup of the Office of Independent Oversight proposed by the Sheriff’s Blue Ribbon Panel.

“This group, like probably every police group, is most concerned that the process not be politicized,” Vick said. In too many cities, including Seattle, he said, investigations of complaints against police are reviewed “by somebody who doesn’t have the foggiest idea what he’s talking about.”

Rahr and Revelle have made pitches to the county Charter Review Commission for a charter amendment giving the sheriff authority to negotiate with her employees. The commission is scheduled to tell the County Council in May what charter amendments it thinks should be put up for a public vote.

Keith Ervin: 206-464-2105 or kervin@seattletimes.com

WASHINGTON - Sen. Trent Lott, a 35-year Capitol Hill veteran who staged a political comeback after losing his Senate leadership post because of racially insensitive remarks, plans to resign by year’s end.

By resigning, the Senate’s No. 2 Republican will avoid an ethics rule that takes effect by the end of the year, allowing him to pursue a lucrative lobbying job after a year’s wait rather than after two years.

The Mississippi senator is the latest veteran GOP lawmaker to announce plans to depart Congress after the party lost its majority to Democrats in the 2006 election. Former House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert quit Monday night.

Lott is the sixth GOP senator to announce plans to leave the divided chamber, which is mired in partisan conflict that is expected to worsen as the 2008 campaign heats up.

“We’ve had this great experience for these 35 years, but we do think that there is time left for us to maybe do something else,” Lott said of the decision he made with his wife, Tricia. Lott, who was elected to the House in 1972 and moved to the Senate in 1988, said he had no health problems.

But the timing of his departure fueled speculation that Lott, 66, was leaving to join the parade of former lawmakers who turn to lobbying to cash in on their experience and connections.

An ethics bill passed by Congress and signed by President Bush this year doubles, to two years, the “cooling-off” period senators must wait after leaving Capitol Hill before they can lobby their former colleagues.

While Democrats face an uphill battle to capture Lott’s seat, his departure is a symbolically deeper wound to Republicans. Lott has served as a member of either the House or Senate Republican leadership for 19 of the past 27 years, and he is leaving midterm after winning his fourth six-year term last November.

“If I were 20 years younger, I’d be mounting my horse saying, ‘Let’s get this majority back,’ ” Lott said in his hometown of Pascagoula, Miss.

In the post-World War II era, only two senators have left midterm for life in the private sector, according to the Senate Historian’s Office. David Boren, D-Okla., became a university president in 1994 and Albert “Happy” Chandler, D-Ky., left the Senate to become commissioner of Major League Baseball in 1945. Others who left midterm moved to other public posts or were driven from office by scandal.

Lott’s departure is equally stunning because of his political comeback after allegations of racial insensitivity drove him from the leadership.

Poised to become majority leader, Lott praised Sen. Strom Thurmond’s 1948 segregationist presidential campaign at a 100th birthday party and retirement celebration for the South Carolina Republican in December 2002, saying the nation would not have “all these problems” if Thurmond had been elected. With the blessing of the Bush White House, Republicans banished Lott from the leadership.

Lott spent four years as a backbench Republican, burnishing his image as a behind-the-scenes dealmaker. By the end of 2005 - a year in which his mother died and his Pascagoula home was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina - he planned to announce his retirement rather than seek re-election, he said. But Lott cited the need to help his state recover from Katrina, cruised to a re-election victory and threw himself last fall into a hotly contested bid for minority whip, winning by one vote.

That left the impression that he would remain in the chamber, and part of its leadership.

But Lott’s bipartisan skills have not been in high demand this past year, as the legislative agenda has nearly ground to a halt in a partisan standoff on issues ranging from the Iraq war to immigration reform.

“I think it was a surprise that it came right now, this soon,” said Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., Lott’s vote-counting deputy. “He just sort of reached the end of the line in terms of what he can do here. It’s kind of the cumulative effect of 39 years of wear and tear.”

The GOP departures have been a blow to Republican hopes of regaining their majority. With Lott’s departure, the GOP must defend 23 seats next year compared with 12 for Democrats.

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour said that once Lott resigns, he will appoint a successor to serve until an election is held next year. Republican Reps. Charles “Chip” Pickering and Roger Wicker are considered possible successors. Among Democrats, former Attorney General Mike Moore is mentioned as a possible candidate next year.

CARSON, Skamania County - Suspended 20 stories in the air, Ken Bible looks down on the crown of a 500-year-old Douglas fir and ponders a mystery.

It’s not the obvious one: How does a man without superpowers hover above the treetops?

That’s easy. The University of Washington forest ecologist rose to his lofty perch in a metal gondola hoisted by a 285-foot-tall construction crane.

The vantage point allows Bible to study the upper reaches of this old-growth forest, where a reproductive orgy is under way.

“We’ve never seen anything like this here,” he says, reaching over the edge of the open-air gondola to grasp a limb laden with cones.

He counts at least 30.

“Normally, a branch like this would have about three,” he says. “Why so many this year? We really don’t know.”

Maybe global warming nudged the trees to procreate. Perhaps it’s a natural cycle.

In either case, Bible wants to pinpoint the trigger. Did the forest crank up cone production in response to temperature? Is moisture the key? Or could the flush of fertility be traced to high spring winds that whipped up a sexy cyclone of pollen?

The work is part of a bigger effort to figure out what climate change, both natural and man-made, will mean for the Northwest’s iconic forests. The UW’s Wind River Canopy Crane, erected in 1995 near the Columbia River, is proving an ideal tool.

The crane and the research area that surrounds it have already helped answer several fundamental questions about forests and their ability to counteract global warming. A cooperative venture with the Forest Service, the crane is the largest in the world dedicated to forestry research, and the only one in North America.

It was here that scientists put to rest the myth that mature forests are biologically moribund. By rising above the treetops, they were able to take measurements that showed old forests continue to grow and act as a sink for carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas.

Studies here also proved it doesn’t make sense from a global-warming perspective to cut older forests and replace them with seedlings, which grow faster and had been thought to absorb more carbon dioxide. Old forests are storehouses for such vast amounts of carbon that it would take many decades for new forests to catch up on the carbon balance sheet.

“If you want to measure these kinds of things, you need to be able to get up in the tops of the trees and out at the ends of the branches where processes like photosynthesis are really going on,” says UW forestry professor Jerry Franklin, who pioneered the study of old growth. “The canopy crane gives you that ability.”

Scientists’ thrill ride

Riding the crane is like taking an elevator to the sky.

As the gondola glides upward, the gloom of the forest floor falls away. Sunlight floods in and the temperature climbs 10 degrees. Branches draped with tattered lichens called old man’s beard float past.

When the gondola reaches its apex, startled hawks sometimes circle around to see who’s intruding on their bird’s-eye view of the forest canopy, which spreads out in every direction like a lumpy green blanket.

The Douglas firs here can reach between 180 and 220 feet above the forest floor. The species mix also includes Western red cedar, Pacific silver fir and grand fir.

In addition to counting cones, Bible and his colleague Matt Schroeder are using the crane on this November morning to examine the buds that will determine how many new branches the trees will produce next year.

Schroeder speaks into a walkie-talkie, asking the crane operator to swivel the nearly 300-foot boom and bring the gondola hard up against a massive fir. Centuries of battering by wind and rain have flattened its crown.

Schroeder bends back the needles on the closest branch to reveal tiny brown spots that hold the arboreal equivalent of stem cells, able to form either branches or cones. “I can see about 100 buds on these top branches,” he says.

There’s abundant evidence from around the world that crocuses, lilacs and other flowering plants are blooming earlier each spring in response to rising temperatures. But nobody has figured out how to look for a similar response in full-grown trees. Buds may hold the answer, says Bible, director of the crane facility.

“The first thing we’re going to look at is whether these buds are going to break earlier in the spring over time.”

Warming is expected to bring more fires and insect infestations to Northwest forests, says Mark Harmon, an Oregon State University forestry expert who has used the canopy crane in his research. But experts are split on whether forest productivity will increase over time.

Carbon dioxide is a basic building block plants use to generate energy through photosynthesis, so it’s possible higher CO2 levels in the atmosphere will act like a fertilizer. But other nutrients could eventually put the brakes on forest growth, as would the drying predicted as snowpacks diminish in the Northwest, Harmon said.

Ambitious research plans

That uncertainty about what to expect reflects how little is known about the basic biological responses of trees - even the mainstay of the region’s timber industry, Bible says.

“We know next to nothing about Douglas fir, and it’s the species we know the most about,” he said.

Without a better understanding of the way trees will respond to a changing climate, it’s hard to evaluate programs that claim to offset carbon emissions by planting trees or protecting forests.

Many of the existing data gaps could be filled if the federal government funds an ambitious proposal for a nationwide network of ecological monitoring stations called NEON - the National Ecological Observatory Network.

The 10,000-acre Wind River Experimental Forest, now home to the canopy crane and a wide array of other forestry-research projects, is on the shortlist to be included in the network.

The area would be wired with a variety of sensors to monitor the way changing climate and different land-use practices, such as logging, affect flora, fauna, soil chemistry and the entire web of life.

“These measurements are going to be made on a scale that’s never been done before,” Franklin said. “And for the first time, we’ll be using identical instruments, so we’ll be able to integrate data from across the United States.”

In the meantime, Bible and Schroeder plan to spend part of the winter poring over weather data from the past year, to see if they can tease out the factors behind this year’s bounty of cones, which seems to extend well beyond the boundaries of the research area.

“It’s a very big cone year all around,” Bible said. “There has to be a reason.”

Sandi Doughton: 206-464-2491 or sdoughton@seattletimes.com