Science 2.0

Environmentalists may hate science but they love to ignore inconvenient truths about alcohol - namely that it is a toxic carcinogen the way they wish BPA, atrazine, fracking, vaccines (insert whatever they are raising money on this week) could be.

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Almost nobody seems to report the positive side of our recent climate change action. It’s remarkable what we’ve done in two years, which gives us much hope that we can indeed rise to the challenge. I have never in my life seen such a coming together of nations worldwide to solve a problem.

And the young particularly are driving action, as in Greta Thunberg’s emotional speech to EU leaders.

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Testosterone is the main sex hormone in men. It’s best known for its role in the development of male sexual characteristics and physical features, but there are also many surprising and lesser known functions of testosterone that make it an important hormone in health and disease. Identifying whether someone has too much or too little testosterone can predict future diseases and even treat them. But knowing what is high, low or normal for an individual isn’t straightforward.

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These days, anybody with an internet connection can be a publisher.

That doesn’t make everybody a journalist.

This distinction has become more important than ever in light of two recent events.

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The discovery of an ancient painted vase in the Central America lowlands offers new clues into the mysterious breakdown of ancient Maya civilization - because it bears one of the longest hieroglyphic texts ever found.

The shattered vessel was discovered in excavations at the Maya site of Baking Pot in Belize, found amid artifacts associated with the abandonment of the royal palace complex. The fragments were found in a corner near a palace entrance. The archeology team also unearthed blades, pendants, inkpots, fragments of flutes — and human bones - in burial sites.

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Surveys show that on issue after issue, women are more liberal than men, save for one: Men are more likely than women to support the legalization of marijuana.

Americans are becoming more supportive of marijuana legalization each year but the gender gap remains a constant: While 68 percent of men now support marijuana legalization, only 56 percent of women do.

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Zooey Deschanel, whose picture could be in the dictionary under "adorkable" thanks to starring roles in "Elf" and "New Girl", isn't well regarded in science, and hasn't been since for as long as she's been undermining it, which is as long as people have known her name. That's now a long time, since "Almost Famous" is about to turn 20.

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The European Commission pays close attention to document the work of the projects that benefited of its funding. With that intent, the AMVA4NewPhysics network has been described, along with its goals, in a 2016 article on the Horizon magazine.

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People choose a life partner who is likely to have a comparable life expectancy and who share similar risks of illnesses - such as high blood pressure or heart disease - according to a genetic study.

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The conjugative transfer of anti-antibiotic resistance genetic elements could lead to development of probiotic bacteria that re-sensitize resistant bacteria to antibiotics, providing a solution to a crucial problem - how to get new antibiotics when countries cap what companies can charge for medicine, meaning they might never be profitable.

Bacteria become resistant due to the use of antibiotics and the exchange of resistance genes between bacteria.

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First, this is totally harmless. Tiny and far away, shrouded with dust and gas. They can only see it using radio waves that go through the dust. And the photo of course changes nothing, we've know it is there for a long time away. This is a screenshot from the press conference:

And over four separate days:

Short summary here

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Using records pediatric health clinics, specialized programs for children with developmental disabilities, and special education records along with a review of the abstracted evaluations by trained clinicians using a standardized case definition and method (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Edition, Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR) diagnostic criteria) a new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analysis has found that diagnoses in the sites they used were up 27 percent from 2010 to 2014.

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Consumer hand sanitizers are popular, and they became more popular when brands started advertising they used the same chemicals hospitals use. FDA allowed it starting in 1994 (1994 Health Care Antiseptic TFM (June 17, 1994, 59 FR 31402)), the same year they gave supplements exemption from real FDA oversight.

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Taste is a complex phenomenon. We do not experience the sensation through a single sense (as we would when we see something using our sense of sight, for example) but rather it is made up of the five senses working together to allow us to appreciate and enjoy food and drink. Initial visual inspection of food indicates if we would consider consuming it. Then, when eating, smell and flavor combine to allow us to perceive a taste. Meanwhile, the mix of ingredients, texture and temperature can further impact how we experience it.

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If you've swum in the ocean you know it requires a lot of energy, and for ships it is no different. Adding to that are the problems of friction, corrosion, and biofilms, all of which cause marine traveler to drag.

Science is on the case. New types of ship coatings that permanently retain an air layer under water and reduce the three problems have been granted the Validation Award by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) in Germany.

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Supplements are a huge industry that ballooned after President Bill Clinton turned the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 into law and took control of the controversial industry away from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in return for a weak disclaimer that the FDA had not evaluated their claims - "This statement has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease" all while suggesting they do exactly that.

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It is a bit embarrassing to post here a graph of boring elementary particle signals, when the rest of the blogosphere is buzzing after the release of the first real black hole image from the Event Horizon collaboration. So okay, before going into pentaquarks, below is the image of the black hole at the center of M87, a big elliptical galaxy 54 million light years away.

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Published in 1979 in Astronomy and Astrophysics, it had a worldwide impact, especially since this type of object was still highly theoretical. It is not an artist's view but an image based on the then supposed physical properties of a black hole and its gas disc, such as its rotation rate and temperature, and on Einstein's general theory of relativity. Luminet envisioned it as a black circle, which had not yet become known as the shadow of the black hole, in the centre of a luminous accretion disc, with one side clearly brighter than the other.

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An international team of over 200 scientists has captured the first direct images of a black hole.

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The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) — a planet-scale array of eight ground-based radio telescopes forged through international collaboration — was designed to capture images of a black hole.

Today, in coordinated press conferences across the globe, EHT researchers reveal that they have succeeded, unveiling the first direct visual evidence of a supermassive black hole and its shadow.

The EHT links telescopes around the globe to form an Earth-sized virtual telescope with unprecedented sensitivity and resolution.

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