Science 2.0

The 'teach to the protocol' environment created by government and insurance companies has removed much of the critical thinking in modern medicine, and a new paper suggests even more regulations are needed.

It suggests that absent control, doctors are giving prescriptions for postpartum pain in new mothers containing a few too many pills. And those 7-9 extra pills, they claim, may lead to opioid addiction.

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There was once a time when theoretical physicists were prized because they were basically smarter than most people - about one or two things.

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Few care about nature as much as hunters, fishers, and other outdoor sporting enthusiasts. Yet, that is the opposite of the narrative created by more militant environmental groups, who promote the belief that land must be untouched by people and legally off-limits, even if it means government social authoritarianism.

Yet in their desire to raise their $2 billion a year by keeping everyone on apocalyptic red alert, they miss something obvious; if no one is allowed to experience nature, they won't appreciate it or care about it in the future. And if they don't care because it's not valuable to them, they won't support environmental lawyers.

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In recent years, the notion of an insect apocalypse has become a hot topic in the conservation science community and has captured the public’s attention. Scientists who warn that this catastrophe is unfolding assert that arthropods – a large category of invertebrates that includes insects – are rapidly declining, perhaps signaling a general collapse of ecosystems across the world.

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In 2020, we've all come to know "Karen" in popular culture. She is angry, wealthy, white, and she wants to speak to your manager right now.

In food circles, Karen has been around for much longer. She made Whole Foods great. Her asymmetrical bob has long prowled the aisles looking for free-range, shade-tree-grown, fair-trade spices, because she is not just more ethical than you Plebians buying in Safeway, she is smarter. She knows GMOs cause cancer.

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As time passes, our fertility declines and our bodies start to fail. These natural changes are what we call ageing.

In recent decades, we’ve come leaps and bounds in treating and preventing some of the world’s leading age-related diseases, such as coronary heart disease, dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.

But some research takes an entirely unique view on the role of science in easing the burden of aging, focusing instead on trying to prevent it, or drastically slow it down. This may seem like an idea reserved mainly for cranks and science fiction writers, but it’s not.

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I can save you some time. If the first few episodes of "Star Trek: Lower Decks" are any indication, CBS All Access won't be retaining a lot of new subscribers who signed up to watch it.

It's no secret that "Star Trek" from the 1960s and "Star Wars" from the 1970s hold a grip on cosmic fiction in culture, and they do so without much overlap. Their hardcore fandom, outside 'nerd' sterotypes on television shows, is pretty distinct. I prefer "Star Trek" because it's a little lighter in tone than the Sturm and Drang of the "Star Wars" universe, and that makes it perfect for a comedy.

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"Regenerative agriculture" is the latest buzzterm advocated by people who primarily work at food marketing groups in cities, coming along at the end of the no-till, sustainable fads, but what it really means is so subjective it's "just nonsense" according to New Zealand soil expert Dr. Doug Edmeades.

Instead of getting an informed discussion of healthy soil, people are getting political spin, he worries. 

And the politicians and activists implying that local farmers are doing something wrong and wanting to shame them with regulations ignore the reality that they have been practicing actual regenerative agriculture quite well.

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Consumers have been so saturated with vague marketing claims that nearly 50 percent can't correctly identify what is claimed to be a "healthier" option on packages.

That sounds bad, except buying whole grain or white bread or fancy crackers are not making any difference in health anyway.

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Though telescopes are anathema to environmental groups in the United States, Chile still desires multicultural, high-paying, white collar jobs, and so the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) continues to carry the water for science in the north.

ALMA recently took a census of stellar eggs in the constellation Taurus and their evolution state in order to better understand how and when a stellar embryo transforms to a baby star deep inside a gaseous egg.

They also  found a bipolar outflow, a pair of gas streams that could be telltale evidence of a truly newborn star.

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Life developed when there was no oxygen on earth. It was an anoxic environment dominated by bacteria, who instead of oxidation and reduction, as our mitochondria do to produce energy, probably extracted various substances by means of fermentation.

But there has long been another possibility; a kind of “oxygen-free respiration” hinted at in studies on primordial microbes that are still found in anoxic habitats today. There have been found genes in microbes that perhaps encode for a primordial respiration enzyme.

Yet proving the existence of this respiratory enzyme and isolating it requires time and effort. The complex is fragile and often fell apart during attempts to isolate it from the membrane. 

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POLITICIZATION OF SCIENCE. Reflections on the statement “The International Astronomical Union (IAU) has a clear ideology about Inclusion that has to be accepted by all its members”

There are epochs in which science, academia and all intellectual activities are constrained by an ideological system to create monsters at the beck and call of political or religious agendas within totalitarian regimes that repress the free development of ideas.

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It’s a common assumption that exercise in older people is difficult and dangerous, so it’s perhaps best avoided. But this is often not the case – even if these ideas are ingrained in society. Research has repeatedly shown that exercise in older adults is linked with lower disease risk, reduced risk of falls, and better overall health.

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Compared to cisgender people (gender identity corresponds to their sex), an analysis of over 600,000 adults finds transgender and gender-diverse adults are three to six times more likely to be diagnosed as autistic. 

The findings are simply exploratory and about co-occurrence between gender identity and autism diagnoses, they cannot inform or suggest causal links.  These correlations have confounders.

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Egyptian coffins and mummy cases have been found covered in a mysterious 'black goo'. What is this goo made from and what can it reveal about Egyptian funerary practice? The British Museum has detailed answers but you can read a summary below.

Djedkhonsiu-ef-ankh died almost 3,000 years ago in ancient Egypt. He was a priest in the temple of Amun at Karnak, where he was an ‘Opener of the Doors of Heaven’ - permitted to open the temple sanctuary which contained the image of their deity.

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An annotated list of 219 pathogens that infect plants in Brazil, including many agriculturally important species, shows just how precarious things can be when it comes to maintaining an affordable, sustainable food supply.

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We eat various foods and our metabolism converts it to energy our bodies can use. This is a hallmark of life, across plants, animals, algae and bacteria. Energy is a defining characteristic of living.

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A lava tube is just what it sounds like; a cave created when the surface of lava hardens but continues to flow underneath. When that trickles to a halt, the cave is left behind.

These remaining caves exist on Earth and high-resolution pictures taken by interplanetary probes inferred lava tubes on Mars and Luna by observing linear cavities and sinuous collapse chains where the galleries cracked. A new paper measured the size and gathered the morphology of lunar and Martian collapse chains (collapsed lava tubes), using digital terrain models obtained through satellite stereoscopic images and laser altimetry taken by interplanetary probes.

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Scientists have sequenced the genome of the tuatara, a single species reptile which originated in the Triassic period around 250 million years ago but is now only found in New Zealand, and it revealed an unusual architecture - it is mammal and reptile. 

Its genome shares features with those of mammals such as the platypus and echidna.

Some sequences of DNA move or jump location, they are even referred to as 'jumping genes', and those found in the tuatara are most similar to those found in platypus while others are more similar to those in lizards.

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Evidence of prehistoric fluting techniques, using hammering or pressure to create a groove, has been found on the Arabian peninsula from 8,000 years ago.

Archeological finds are not new on the Arabian peninsula. There is evidence for lithics (stone tools) but evidence showed they were less advanced than northeast Africa or the Levant.

In Europe, the Levant and Africa, the Middle Paleolithic showed use of Levallois flaking methods, including predetermined forms of flaking products. Like spear tips, which gave hunters a big advantage in food. But new work also shows fluting, which was more common n Arabia.

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