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Updated: 11 min ago
Pesticides: Environmental Threat Or Anti-Science Populism?
With former Natural Resources Defense Council lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dictating a lot of science policy for the Trump administration, anti-science activists have been quietly cheering even though they uniformly voted for his opposition.
They need a win. Claims that bees are dying off have been met with a resounding thud, we have more bees than at any time since records have been kept. Concerns about GMOs have fared as poorly. Trillions of animals have been fed using GMOs and neither any of them or the billions of people who ate food grown using them have gotten so much as a stomachache. Food activism likes to gloss over how often organic lettuce gives consumers E. coli.
They need a win. Claims that bees are dying off have been met with a resounding thud, we have more bees than at any time since records have been kept. Concerns about GMOs have fared as poorly. Trillions of animals have been fed using GMOs and neither any of them or the billions of people who ate food grown using them have gotten so much as a stomachache. Food activism likes to gloss over how often organic lettuce gives consumers E. coli.
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Pathogens, Pests And Perils In Global Food Security
In wealthy countries, the richest and the aspirational well-off can afford to pay extra for food only grown using toxic pesticides they are assured are healthy for the planet, but the 99.99999% have to think about affordability.
Every time a chemical is removed due to manufactured outrage by environmental groups and the fifth columnists they get implanted inside presidential administrations, it is the poor that pay the price. Cereal crops are a staple for those worried about food security, and are the earliest victims of pathogens and pests. And then the first target for activists in a $3 billion industry devoted to scaring people about science solutions.
Every time a chemical is removed due to manufactured outrage by environmental groups and the fifth columnists they get implanted inside presidential administrations, it is the poor that pay the price. Cereal crops are a staple for those worried about food security, and are the earliest victims of pathogens and pests. And then the first target for activists in a $3 billion industry devoted to scaring people about science solutions.
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Side Effects Update: Lecanemab To Slow Alzheimer's
In 2023, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration an Alzheimer’s therapy shown in clinical trials to modestly slow disease progression but side effects, brain swelling and bleeding, occurred in some.
Though clinical trials have taken twice as long and cost twice as much due to government regulations, they can't cover everything and a successful doesn't mean broader demographics won't show different effects. Lawyers are gleeful at the opportunity to sue but they will be disappointed in the latest results for lecanemab. Adverse events associated with lecanemab treatment in clinic patients were rare and manageable.
Though clinical trials have taken twice as long and cost twice as much due to government regulations, they can't cover everything and a successful doesn't mean broader demographics won't show different effects. Lawyers are gleeful at the opportunity to sue but they will be disappointed in the latest results for lecanemab. Adverse events associated with lecanemab treatment in clinic patients were rare and manageable.
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The Ideal Amount Of Sleep You Need Is Cultural Not Fixed For All People
You've heard that you should get eight hours of sleep per night, a whole industry has built up trying to help people who can't do that, but like BMI, organic food, and 'alcohol in moderation is okay', there is no science to it.
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On Progress
The human race has made huge progress in the past few thousand years, gradually improving the living condition of human beings by learning how to cure illness; improving farming; harvesting, storing, and using energy in several forms; and countless other activities. Progress is measured over long time scales, and on metrics related to the access to innovations by all, as Ford once noted. So it is natural for us to consider ourselves lucky to have lived "in the best of times". Why, if you were born 400 years ago, e.g., you would probably never even learn what a hot shower is! And even only 100 years ago you could have been watching powerless as your children died of diseases that today elicit little worry.
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Here's Your Chance To Buy Gems Buried With Buddha 2000 Years Ago
Almost 2,000 years ago in modern-day Uttar Pradesh, India, someone deposited a cache of gems inside a reliquary (a container for holy relics), along with some bone fragments and ash. The gems were precious, but the bones and ash even more so, for according to an inscription on the reliquary, they belonged to Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha.
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The 53-Year Odyssey Of Kosmos 482 And The Push For Sustainable Space
A Fallen Spacefarer Returns to Earth
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Raman Spectroscopy Makes Saliva A Good Way To Detect Cancer
A few drops of saliva can now reveal what used to require a scalpel, a syringe or a scan.
Scientists have developed ways to analyze spit for the tiniest traces of illness – from mouth cancer to diabetes, and even brain diseases like Alzheimer’s.
Unlike blood tests or biopsies, saliva is easy to collect, painless and inexpensive. During the COVID pandemic, some countries used saliva-based testing for rapid screening.
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Toward A Unified Theory Of How Language Evolved
Humans are the only species on earth that uses language, combining sounds into words and words into sentence with infinite meanings.
We do this using linguistic rules for calls and sentence structure. "A dog eats" tells us one thing while "a big dog" means another while "you're such a dog" from a friend at the bar means something else completely.
Humans have mastered syntax.
How did that evolve? The comparative approach, comparing the vocal production of other primates, with that of humans, provides some answers. Other primates typically use a single call type while some species combine calls, it is mostly as an alarm. All those known are too limited to be a precursor to the complex, open-ended combinatorial system that is human language.
We do this using linguistic rules for calls and sentence structure. "A dog eats" tells us one thing while "a big dog" means another while "you're such a dog" from a friend at the bar means something else completely.
Humans have mastered syntax.
How did that evolve? The comparative approach, comparing the vocal production of other primates, with that of humans, provides some answers. Other primates typically use a single call type while some species combine calls, it is mostly as an alarm. All those known are too limited to be a precursor to the complex, open-ended combinatorial system that is human language.
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FDA Approves 3 New Food Colorings Using GRAS That Kennedy Wants Banned
U.S. policy when it comes to science can be a little confusing. Over 20 years ago, one political party demanded that drugs and devices undergo far more testing before approval. It was a common belief among the more conspiracy-minded that FDA was colluding with right-wing corporations to get products passed.
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Brain Organoid Research Shows Science Academia Needs Stronger Ethical Oversight
As the Trump administration continues to make significant cuts to NIH budgets and personnel and to freeze billions of dollars of funding to major research universities – citing ideological concerns – there’s more being threatened than just progress in science and medicine. Something valuable but often overlooked is also being hit hard: preventing research abuse.
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Hawaiian Lawmakers Pass Another Tourism Tariff - Scientists Included
Anecdotal stories claim U.S. tourism has plummeted due to Republican tariffs and enforcing immigration the way Europe and Asia do, and it will ruin the American economy.
If that was true, lawmakers in America's most Democratic state, Hawaii, wouldn't have added another tariff. This one aimed solely at tourists.
SB 1396 added a whopping 11% tariff for cruise ships that dock in a Hawaiian port and increased the hotel tariff to 19% of the room rate. The Governor has already said he would sign it once his supermajority passes it. Tourists also pay a 5% extra tariff on everything just for breathing Hawaiian are.
If that was true, lawmakers in America's most Democratic state, Hawaii, wouldn't have added another tariff. This one aimed solely at tourists.
SB 1396 added a whopping 11% tariff for cruise ships that dock in a Hawaiian port and increased the hotel tariff to 19% of the room rate. The Governor has already said he would sign it once his supermajority passes it. Tourists also pay a 5% extra tariff on everything just for breathing Hawaiian are.
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If You Buy Magic Rocks, You're The Target Market For HoLDI-MS To Detect Nanoplastic
Homeopathic levels of plastic are the latest environmental scaremongering fad (Nanoplastics! Microplastics!) dominating partisan corporate media when they are not suddenly simping for Trickle Down Economics, Vaccines, and Capitalism they distrusted just a short while ago.
Naturally, companies are rushing to keep you safe from plastic which can be detected in everything. If you want to detect it in your home and annoy your family talking about how much virtual cancer you want to avoid, A McGill team fired up the 3-D printer and made the hollow-laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry (HoLDI-MS) test platform.
That's right, a plastic detector made from...plastic.
Naturally, companies are rushing to keep you safe from plastic which can be detected in everything. If you want to detect it in your home and annoy your family talking about how much virtual cancer you want to avoid, A McGill team fired up the 3-D printer and made the hollow-laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry (HoLDI-MS) test platform.
That's right, a plastic detector made from...plastic.
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Only Polarized People Want Companies In Polarized Political Issues
Last year, companies began to pull back from promoting their Diversity Equity Inclusion efforts and social justice activists blamed the incoming Trump administration. It has been a violation of federal law to discriminate for 60 years so to moderates it seemed odd to add a layer of discrimination in hiring, even one deemed positive. And they never considered it may have instead been done at all due to pressure from the previous administration.
The backlash was entirely predictable, but in both cases it was on the fringes. For no benefit, corporate CEOs were ignoring the 'stay out of it unless your customers are dominated by it' mantra.
The backlash was entirely predictable, but in both cases it was on the fringes. For no benefit, corporate CEOs were ignoring the 'stay out of it unless your customers are dominated by it' mantra.
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Becoming The Music: How Our Brains Sync With Sound To Create Emotion
Some psychologists believe our brains and bodies don’t just understand music, we become it. We physically resonate with it. They call their belief Neural Resonance Theory (NRT).
They use Theory is in the name, but it is not a theory like gravity or evolution, the proper name means it is more like String Theory. An idea that needs scientific rigor to be shown true.
NRT maintains that rather than relying on learned expectations or prediction, musical experiences arise from the brain’s natural oscillations that sync with rhythm, melody and harmony.
They use Theory is in the name, but it is not a theory like gravity or evolution, the proper name means it is more like String Theory. An idea that needs scientific rigor to be shown true.
NRT maintains that rather than relying on learned expectations or prediction, musical experiences arise from the brain’s natural oscillations that sync with rhythm, melody and harmony.
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You Can't Spell Replanted Rainforest Without T-E-R-M-I-T-E
Nature is out to kill everything, it is the circle of life, and that is why replanting rainforest without including some termites is counter-intuitively bad, finds a new paper.
The balance of nature doesn't exist and believing that plant diversity alone will work is in defiance of how ecosystems work. That may mean introducing termites. There is a certainly NIMBYism that will occur, just like wealthy elites who oppose nuclear energy and claim wind power is viable hire a phalanx of lawyers to block wind projects near their homes. A company or agency spending money on new trees isn't going to like giving those over to termites either. It would require convincing.
The balance of nature doesn't exist and believing that plant diversity alone will work is in defiance of how ecosystems work. That may mean introducing termites. There is a certainly NIMBYism that will occur, just like wealthy elites who oppose nuclear energy and claim wind power is viable hire a phalanx of lawyers to block wind projects near their homes. A company or agency spending money on new trees isn't going to like giving those over to termites either. It would require convincing.
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PM2.5 Is Killing You, Claim Ecologists, Except There Are No Deaths
A new simulation claims small-micron particulate matter, so small you need an electron microscope to see it, is killing 250,000 people each year. PM10, 10 microns in size, is a well-known killer. That is wildfires and smog but after smog was drastically reduced in the 1990s, the target went down 400%, to 2.5. Suddenly air quality maps could be orange and red again, even though the air is cleaner in wealthier countries than it has been since the 1980s.
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COVID-19 Border Closures Increased German Dislike Of Immigrants
Early in 2020, the President of the United States said America should cut travel from China due to COVID-19 concerns. This was dismissed as xenophobia by states like New York and California, because the World Health Organisation had not declared it a pandemic.(1)
In Europe, 18 countries knew better than to wait for WHO to ignore claims from China that it was not a pandemic and closed their borders.
In Europe, 18 countries knew better than to wait for WHO to ignore claims from China that it was not a pandemic and closed their borders.
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Fisetin To Prevent Artery Hardening
In a new study, researchers found that the polyphenol fisetin helps protect blood vessels from hardening, which is a common problem in older adults and people with kidney disease.
If eventually validated in human trials, it might mean it could prevent vascular calcification and reduce cardiovascular damage caused by aging and chronic kidney disease. Fisetin is in the flavonols family and is found naturally in fruits and vegetables but is also sold as an unvalidated supplement outside FDA testing.
Created with Discovery Studio Visualizer.
If eventually validated in human trials, it might mean it could prevent vascular calcification and reduce cardiovascular damage caused by aging and chronic kidney disease. Fisetin is in the flavonols family and is found naturally in fruits and vegetables but is also sold as an unvalidated supplement outside FDA testing.
Created with Discovery Studio Visualizer.
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FDA Begins Inspecting Foreign Medical Manufacturing Imports
With retaliatory tariffs against the EU and countries like China and Brazil, there has been concern about how much medical commerce originates from overseas.
It certainly does, and safety has long been an overlooked concern. Organic food has gotten a free pass, but that is just a USDA marketing gimmick so if 25% of it is fraudulent, no one is harmed, but medicines and devices can risk lives. American companies are forced to undergo 12,000 surprise inspections to insure safety but countries exporting to the US have enjoyed a double-standard. They demanded and got only 3,000 scheduled inspections.
It certainly does, and safety has long been an overlooked concern. Organic food has gotten a free pass, but that is just a USDA marketing gimmick so if 25% of it is fraudulent, no one is harmed, but medicines and devices can risk lives. American companies are forced to undergo 12,000 surprise inspections to insure safety but countries exporting to the US have enjoyed a double-standard. They demanded and got only 3,000 scheduled inspections.
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