Science 2.0
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Updated: 32 min 34 sec ago
If A Weedkiller Turned You Gay, We'd Like To Interview You
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a lawyer who leveraged a name that was essentially beatified by Democrats into a lucrative career trying to promote corporate conspiracies about cell phones (cancer!), GMOs (cancer!) and vaccines(everything else!) and he had some success.
Thanks to his efforts raising money for Obama his name was floated as head of EPA at the end of 2008, but even a president-elect who was on the fence about vaccines causing autism and had advisors who believed in UFOs and that girls can't do math told Obama that RFK Jr. was too kooky.(1)
Thanks to his efforts raising money for Obama his name was floated as head of EPA at the end of 2008, but even a president-elect who was on the fence about vaccines causing autism and had advisors who believed in UFOs and that girls can't do math told Obama that RFK Jr. was too kooky.(1)
Categories: Science 2.0
European Farmers Are In Revolt Against Activists, But Activists Have Media On Their Side
We occasionally publish content from The Conversation though it is no surprise that the company goes hard to the left. A friend received a job offer and then had it pulled because staffers were concerned that some of his science tweets sounded *gasp* conservative.
At least NPR would discriminate against those outside their tribe in the hiring stage, The Conversation looked worse by being hypocrites pretending that science and health were their touchstones, and not science topics their political demographic endorses.
At least NPR would discriminate against those outside their tribe in the hiring stage, The Conversation looked worse by being hypocrites pretending that science and health were their touchstones, and not science topics their political demographic endorses.
Categories: Science 2.0
Organic Food Evangelists Consumer Reports Declares War On Lunchables
There was a time when Consumers Union, the company behind Consumer Reports, which claims to impartially test products, was a trusted brand.(1) That was before key employees were caught colluding with grifters like Dr. Oz to pick winners and losers in the marketplace.
'GMOs are unproven' just happened to be the anti-science belief that got a Consumer Reports employee hired by Dr. Oz as a 'fact checker' when the formerly esteemed surgeon was exposed (by us, but also others) as promoting unfounded claims about science and health and promoting products if companies that wrote him checks. Like hiring an astrologer to fact check an astrologer, hiring someone who believes in woo and hates science as much as you do is not going to change your thinking.
'GMOs are unproven' just happened to be the anti-science belief that got a Consumer Reports employee hired by Dr. Oz as a 'fact checker' when the formerly esteemed surgeon was exposed (by us, but also others) as promoting unfounded claims about science and health and promoting products if companies that wrote him checks. Like hiring an astrologer to fact check an astrologer, hiring someone who believes in woo and hates science as much as you do is not going to change your thinking.
Categories: Science 2.0
NIAID Violated Federal Record-Keeping Laws On COVID-19 Origins
It has become commonplace for government officials to bypass record-keeping laws by using personal email accounts, even if they are discussing official business. Illegal, but commonplace.
Categories: Science 2.0
Germany's Big Lie About Alternative Energy Can't Be Denied Any More
After a combination of natural disasters forced the shutdown of a nuclear reactor in Japan, taxpayer-funded activists in Germany seized on the hysteria to demand that their country switch to solar and wind energy. The technology was ready, they insisted, all that was needed was "political will" and the government needed to "show leadership" - and so the people believed.
Independent science media like us reported on reality. Europe's climate agreement had declared CO2 emissions would be charged to the exporting nation so they burned imported wood, and German companies made a fortune selling natural gas-derived energy on the spot market. Which they bought from Russia, via Ukraine pipes.
Independent science media like us reported on reality. Europe's climate agreement had declared CO2 emissions would be charged to the exporting nation so they burned imported wood, and German companies made a fortune selling natural gas-derived energy on the spot market. Which they bought from Russia, via Ukraine pipes.
Categories: Science 2.0
Politicization of Science: Biden EPA Forcing Electric Cars On Consumers With No Pollution Benefit
Thanks to mandates by government forcing automobile manufacturers to make them, and subsidies for the wealthy to buy them, electric cars were 8% of purchases last year.
They would not be anywhere near that otherwise. Electric cars are not just a gimmick for the 1%, they are a gimmick for only the 0.6% and rental car companies, besieged by onerous maintenance and repair costs, are scuttling plans to add more. Hertz is the latest to say 'no thank you' to claims they need to get with the electric program. They have reneged on a commitment to 25% of their fleet by the end of 2024 and instead are dumping 20,000 of them to save money.
They would not be anywhere near that otherwise. Electric cars are not just a gimmick for the 1%, they are a gimmick for only the 0.6% and rental car companies, besieged by onerous maintenance and repair costs, are scuttling plans to add more. Hertz is the latest to say 'no thank you' to claims they need to get with the electric program. They have reneged on a commitment to 25% of their fleet by the end of 2024 and instead are dumping 20,000 of them to save money.
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Election Strategy:Biden Lowers Drinking Water Standard For 6 PFAS Chemicals Out Of 12,000
The Biden EPA has been no friend to science. Like with his other agencies, if the president can't have science or Congress on his side, he will change the mandate of EPA and then direct them to do what he wants. A 1984 Supreme Court ruling made that possible.
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Goodbye Peter Higgs, And Thanks For The Boson
Peter Higgs passed away yesterday, at the age of 94. The scottish physicist, a winner of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics together with Francois Englert, hypothesized in 1964 the existence of the most mysterious elementary particle we know of, the Higgs boson, which was only discovered 48 years later by the ATLAS and CMS collaborations at the CERN Large Hadron Collider.
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More Proof Of NPR Political Bias Will Have Government Funding For Media Under Fire Again
When you read that NPR has 87 Democrats in editorial positions and 0 Republicans, are you really surprised?
No, but when much of corporate media, and nearly as much of academia as NPR, is similarly skewed to the left, NPR looks fair and balanced. Yet 14 years ago I warned that they skewed so heavily to rich, white, progressives they risked losing public trust.
No, but when much of corporate media, and nearly as much of academia as NPR, is similarly skewed to the left, NPR looks fair and balanced. Yet 14 years ago I warned that they skewed so heavily to rich, white, progressives they risked losing public trust.
Categories: Science 2.0
California Is Home To 85% Of This Climate Change Linked Chemical
California is under fire for claiming to care about emissions while being responsible for the overwhelming majority of a chemical that activists link to climate change.
The state at least feigns concern about pollution. It mandates and subsidizes solar power and electric cars, forcing the poor to pay the nation's highest gasoline and utility costs as a result, and tells them they should feel ethical doing it. They throw up ridiculous maps showing PM2.5, small micron particulate matter so tiny you need an electron microscope to see it, to keep people in a panic about pollution when the state actually has some of the best air quality in the world.(1)
The state at least feigns concern about pollution. It mandates and subsidizes solar power and electric cars, forcing the poor to pay the nation's highest gasoline and utility costs as a result, and tells them they should feel ethical doing it. They throw up ridiculous maps showing PM2.5, small micron particulate matter so tiny you need an electron microscope to see it, to keep people in a panic about pollution when the state actually has some of the best air quality in the world.(1)
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Discredited 'Journalist' Paul Thacker Has Gone Off The Deep End - Again
There was a time when Paul Thacker was part of a progressive commune that all endorsed and supported each other in their 'science is a corporate conspiracy' bubble. They had infested what passed for the Journalism department at NYU, progressive websites such as Grist, and even journals like otherwise reputable PLOS. His work shilling for Natural Resources Defense Council opposing agriculture for their lawyers was applauded.
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Study Says Gen X Is 'Biologically Aging' Faster Than Boomers
People are living better lives for longer than ever but an EXPLORATORY study using a computer simulation says there is reason for concern; people are getting cancer younger than ever.
The authors analyzed results of blood samples from 148,724 people ages 37 to 54 in the UK Biobank and focused on metrics 'linked' to aging, like albumin and glucose. Those nine values were put into the PhenoAge to estimate biological age and that age was compared to chronological age.
The authors analyzed results of blood samples from 148,724 people ages 37 to 54 in the UK Biobank and focused on metrics 'linked' to aging, like albumin and glucose. Those nine values were put into the PhenoAge to estimate biological age and that age was compared to chronological age.
Categories: Science 2.0
Environmental Lawyers Want Biden to Help Them Sue Coffee Companies
Environmental lawyers are teeing up to sue decaffeinated coffee companies. They just need the Biden administration to ban it, but they can't using science. They want him to use OSHA.
Again.
As when the president used OSHA to circumvent Congress and mandate COVID-19 vaccines (he did not do that for government employees) and as he did with other agencies like EPA to advance his desire to ban products.
They want the ban now in case he doesn't win the election in November.
Again.
As when the president used OSHA to circumvent Congress and mandate COVID-19 vaccines (he did not do that for government employees) and as he did with other agencies like EPA to advance his desire to ban products.
They want the ban now in case he doesn't win the election in November.
Categories: Science 2.0
If You Care About Emissions, Rethink Urban Agriculture
Urban/local/small ag is a feel-good fallacy.
There is nothing wrong with wishful thinking and aspirations, we all have harmless beliefs that get into our brains. Some home ag is clearly ridiculous - a $150 machine to grow $0.25 worth of herbs is a gimmick for the rich - but mostly it's good, slow exercise or at least good to not be on a tablet watching TikTok videos so China can harvest your personal data.
There is nothing wrong with wishful thinking and aspirations, we all have harmless beliefs that get into our brains. Some home ag is clearly ridiculous - a $150 machine to grow $0.25 worth of herbs is a gimmick for the rich - but mostly it's good, slow exercise or at least good to not be on a tablet watching TikTok videos so China can harvest your personal data.
Categories: Science 2.0
Significance Of Counting Experiments With Background Uncertainty
In the course of Statistics for Data Analysis I give every spring to PhD students in Physics I spend some time discussing the apparently trivial problem of evaluating the significance of an excess of observed events N over expected background B.
This is a quite common setup in many searches in Physics and Astrophysics: you have some detection apparatus that records the number of phenomena of a specified kind, and you let it run for some time, whereafter you declare that you have observed N of them. If the occurrence of each phenomenon has equal probability and they do not influence one another, that number N is understood to be sampled from a Poisson distribution of mean B.
This is a quite common setup in many searches in Physics and Astrophysics: you have some detection apparatus that records the number of phenomena of a specified kind, and you let it run for some time, whereafter you declare that you have observed N of them. If the occurrence of each phenomenon has equal probability and they do not influence one another, that number N is understood to be sampled from a Poisson distribution of mean B.
Categories: Science 2.0
Can World Hunger Ever Be Eliminated? Not Using Europe Or The UN
Wealthy countries with natural 'breadbaskets' - places where it is easy to grow food - have so much abundance they can put special labels like 'organic' on tens of thousands of products and charge more and people will spend $100 billion on them.
Other countries need science, yet it is often the case that regions like Europe dictate what science poorer nations can use. Disagree, and you cannot sell in Europe. Then they mobilize relief efforts for the countries they keep poor.
When poor people are geopolitical pawns for rich ones, can hunger ever be eliminated?
Other countries need science, yet it is often the case that regions like Europe dictate what science poorer nations can use. Disagree, and you cannot sell in Europe. Then they mobilize relief efforts for the countries they keep poor.
When poor people are geopolitical pawns for rich ones, can hunger ever be eliminated?
Categories: Science 2.0
Zevtera: FDA Approves New Antibiotic For Pediatric Pneumonia, Staph, and Bacterial Skin Infections
After seeing the results of a randomized, controlled, double-blind, multinational, multi-center trial where 390 subjects got either Zevtera (192) or daptomycin plus optional aztreonam [the comparator] (198), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Zevtera (ceftobiprole medocaril sodium for injection) for adults with Staphylococcus aureus bloodstream infections (bacteremia, adults with acute bacterial skin and skin structure infections, and pediatric patients three months and older with community-acquired bacterial pneumonia.
For bacteremia, 69.8 percent who received Zevtera achieved overall success compared to the current treatment at 68.7 percent.
For bacteremia, 69.8 percent who received Zevtera achieved overall success compared to the current treatment at 68.7 percent.
Categories: Science 2.0
Slap To Colonialism: Ghana Defies Europe and Approves GMOs
The science community is cheering while European politicians are seething, because Ghana’s National Biosafety Authority has approved 14 new genetic engineering products; eight corn and six soybean varietals.
Europe wields a heavy hammer in Africa. They subsidize to make sure they can compete with local farmers and then dictate to Africans that if they use any process that European NGOs want banned, the products can't be exported to Europe.
Europe wields a heavy hammer in Africa. They subsidize to make sure they can compete with local farmers and then dictate to Africans that if they use any process that European NGOs want banned, the products can't be exported to Europe.
Categories: Science 2.0
Misinformation Scholarship Is Not New, It Just Got More Attention When The Right Did It
Misinformation scholarship is not new, it just got more attention due to Brexit and Trump - and that's due to the left finally focusing on an issue when it's happening on the other side.
Prior to 2021 there was little concern among the left about the anti-vax movement - because it was dominated by their tribe. Academic progressive waved away overwhelming CDC data showing a clear apolitical demarcation by trotting out surveys showing the denial was not that small.
Yet if you asked who's more likely to deny evolution, the right or left, the left reflexively declared it was Republicans. Except the different between the left and right on evolution was only 9 points - far smaller than the denial of vaccine by the left.
Prior to 2021 there was little concern among the left about the anti-vax movement - because it was dominated by their tribe. Academic progressive waved away overwhelming CDC data showing a clear apolitical demarcation by trotting out surveys showing the denial was not that small.
Yet if you asked who's more likely to deny evolution, the right or left, the left reflexively declared it was Republicans. Except the different between the left and right on evolution was only 9 points - far smaller than the denial of vaccine by the left.
Categories: Science 2.0
Don't Trust The Study Finding PFAS In 48% Of Water, Because That Is Way Too Low
Anti-science activists and the environmental lawyers who fund them were giddy that a paper found Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in 45 percent of water they tested.
Oh no, let's run Big Science out of business. It's for the children!
Oh no, let's run Big Science out of business. It's for the children!
Categories: Science 2.0