Science 2.0

What factors sustain the diversity of life on our planet? You might be surprised to learn one answer is sexual harassment. 

read more

Two weeks after people were sickened by E. coli on romaine lettuce, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control told the entire country to throw theirs out, which alarmed people for little reason and cost farmers hundreds of millions of dollars. People shouldn't have been alarmed because most people would have thrown it out anyway. Up to 94 percent of people throw out lots.

And that's not as alarming as media reports are making it sound. We are constantly told to eat less "processed" food and more of the fresh kind, which aside from statistical correlation has never been shown to be valid health advice, and fruits and vegetables that are not "processed" by being canned or frozen are going to rot. 

read more

In 2017, action star Chuck Norris and his wife Gena sued 11 companies for $10 million over gadolinium used in her MRIs, stating she was poisoned by the contrast agent.

read more

Coverage begins at 2 p.m. Eastern (7 p.m. UTC). Landing starts about 40 minutes later and it is about an hour later, 3.01 p.m. EST that you get confirmation that it landed successfully, just a beep. First image from the surface several minutes later at 3.04 pm EST, but it could be delayed to the next day. See the timeline here NASA Landing on Mars milestones

read more

Years ago I enjoyed the wandering of James Burke in his Connections and Dya the Universe Changed books and documentaries. There seemed to be a chain of people involved with development of the many historical scientific and technological discoveries. This prompted me to is investigate whether there might be connections throughout history between myself and and these figures. This would be somewhat similar to the Kevin Bacon parlor game to identify an actor's connection to Kevin Bacon by a string of their movies. There is also a mathematical genealogical website listing the advisers and students through modern history in mathematics doctoral studies. But what would be considered a connection.

read more

In March of 2016, a game called "Tom Clancy's The Division" was released. Unlike other "shooter" games such as "Destiny" and "Call of Duty", "The Division" has a compelling science story.(1) And the plot began on "Black Friday", the busiest shopping day of the year.

read more

What machine will replace the Large Hadron Collider to further our knowledge of fundamental physics at the high-energy frontier, in the forthcoming decades? 

The question is not at all a far-fetched one: these large machines require two decades to be built - and can then typically be operated for two further decades, amassing collision data that slowly but steadily improve the precision of our estimates of the parameters of nature.

read more

Many journalists have penned exaggerated, click baity but inaccurate articles about the IPCC report on climate change. One of the worst is the one published in the NY Times. It doesn’t have that many out and out mistakes, but it is a highly respected source, and so its mistakes, particularly the confusion of carbon costs and carbon pricing, and not being clear about what happens in 2040, in 2075 or 2100, confused many people and got reposted in many articles.

read more

This is running as a scary story in the more sensationalist science outlets. Dark matter barely interacts with matter and if they are right we are right in the middle of it already. It can’t do any harm. It’s been doing this for all of human history and more.

It's not even like a wind. Not even like the pressure of light. It's like nothing at all.

read more

This is running as a scary story in the more sensationalist science outlets. Dark matter barely interacts with matter and if they are right we are right in the middle of it already. It can’t do any harm. It’s been doing this for all of human history and more.

It's not even like a wind. Not even like the pressure of light. It's like nothing at all.

read more

Nothing to worry about for us. It's pointing in the wrong direction to ever harm us with the gamma ray burst jet. Their best fit model is that it is angled at 30 degrees to the line of sight.

It is too far away from us anyway at 8,000 light years. And there are no gamma ray burst candidates close enough to harm us. I go into that in detail in my article:

But this would be seriously bad news for any living beings that are on stars right close by within a few light years especially, along the line of the jet. Up to 50 light years away, it would cause significant effects on a planet like ours.

read more

This is a very bizarre click bait title from the NY Post that is scaring people. There is nothing here to worry anyone. It is not true at all,even the article itself says nothing about the planet exploding. Just some journalists inventive idea about a way to get people to click on the title?? Fake news. But the research is interesting, an interesting puzzle

Fake click bait title from the NY Post:

read more

This is a very bizarre click bait title from the NY Post that is scaring people. There is nothing here to worry anyone. It is not true at all,even the article itself says nothing about the planet exploding. Just some journalists inventive idea about a way to get people to click on the title?? Fake news.

read more

Early this year, I testified at FDA in support of approval for a new smoking cessation tool called iQOS. While it may have seemed odd for the president of the American Council on Science and Health, which has campaigned against smoking for 40 years, to endorse a product made by a tobacco company, the reason was simple data.

read more

After 32 people were infected with the outbreak strain of Shiga toxin-producing E. coli O157:H7 in 11 states between October 8th to October 31st, the CDC is now warning people about Romaine lettuce.  All of it, whole heads of romaine, hearts of romaine, and bags and boxes of precut lettuce and salad mixes that contain romaine, including baby romaine, spring mix, and Caesar salad, because no common grower, supplier, distributor, or brand of romaine lettuce has been identified.

If you keep lettuce that long, anyway. The CDC is great about food warnings that are weeks too late, the same thing happened last year, only then they warned people about the November outbreak in January so this is an improvement.

read more

Radiation is one of the most common treatments used in fighting cancer with roughly 60% of cancer patients benefiting from it alone or in combination with chemotherapy. Radiation is used to either destroy tumors completely or to shrink them prior to surgical removal. Previous research had led to a promising compound called Idoxuridine (IUdR) which had been shown to significantly improve the effectiveness of radiotherapy. The drug however, could only be given intravenously (IV) and had many side effects for patients. As a result of more recent research, a prodrug called IPdR has been developed. It is called a prodrug because by itself it has little or no pharmacological efficacy.

read more

Mommy shaming and chemophobia have long found common cause when it comes to the cosmetics industry.

Though mercenary, it is understandable why companies that make labels "certifying" something safe, and activists raising money touting our doom, prey on expectant parents; they are easy targets. Being a new parent is scary. Books are basically useless and 'better safe than sorry' is a well-worn cliché.

read more

Because its spirit seeks truth objectively rather than by imposition, science must enjoy academic freedom to be useful.The spirit of science is dialectic, in perpetual open discussion and debate about the nature of things. It is the opposite of religion, the opposite of fundamentalist positions and dogma, the opposite of politics or diplomacy.

read more

By Nala Rogers, Inside Science -- When do you need a broadsword, and when would you be better off with a dagger? That's the question that faced artiodactyls, the group of mammals that includes deer, antelope, goats, giraffes, pigs, buffalo and cows, during their evolution.

read more

Though anaphylaxis is rare, you are more likely to be murdered this Thanksgiving than die from a food allergy, companies and schools are increasingly buying epinephrine auto-injectors (EpiPens), which has led to shortages (government approval policies make it difficult for competitors to enter the market) and thus high costs. Though rare, the consequences of anaphylaxis are high, much more severe than using it when it might not be necessary.

If you are one of the millions of people in the U.S. who now carries an epinephrine auto injector (EAI) you probably wondered if it will still work if it freezes this winter. It will, according to new research being presented at the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI) Annual Scientific Meeting.

read more