There is a very simple high school homework exercise question that I have kept with me for 30 or so years because of its deep relevance for the understanding of fundamental physics. It teaches about the nature of quantum uncertainty, but sadly also about how terribly wrong textbooks can be, how ...

A new study has found that found that flavonoid levels and antioxidant activity in organic onions are higher than in conventional onions, which disputes a meta-analysis which debunked claims by discredited industry-funded economist Dr. Chuck Benbrook and colleagues who asserted that the organic ...

Formaldehyde sounds scary because it is for dead bodies. But it is also produced in our natural cellular respiration. Clearly "the dose makes the embalming fluid" but groups who want to scare people about diet soda whisper about its presence. And it is present, in levels that will be carcinogenic ...

A new review of my book, "Anomaly! Collider Physics and the Quest for New Phenomena at Fermilab", has appeared on the June issue of "Physics World". It is authored by Gavin Hesketh, a lecturer at University College London, and you can read it here.Unlike previous reviewers  (Woit, Hossenfelder ...

Tablet and phone marketing executives can sleep well tonight. While those devices are commonly blamed for recent sleep problems, beams of pure digital energy shot straight into the eyeballs will do that, a new paper seeks to shore up the failing claim that tiny particulate matter, PM 2.5 (2.5 microns ...

Though the trend has been to listen to environmental claims about the benefits of trees in cities, in science they have a well-established dark side: in urban cities, they produce a lot of ground-level ozone, the very thing environmentalists spent decades lobbying against.During hot days,  ...

A paper has linked Monarch butterfly populations to glyphosate - but only when it was first used, and not when it was most heavily used. It also linked the populations to seasonal variation. That is to be expected, except since it's 2017, they try to claim that's climate change rather than wetter ...

The court case over whether ExxonMobil may have deliberately downplayed the potential dangers of global warming is heating up. Eleven attorney generals have filed a brief in US District Court in Manhattan supporting a lawsuit by Exxon to halt a probe by their peers in New York and Massachusetts ...

We're in a lifelong struggle against nature every single day, the ultimate arms race. Viruses have continually infected humans just as they do today. Some early viruses even became integrated into our genome and are now known as human endogenous retroviruses (HERVs). Over millions of years, they ...

The documentary film Food Evolution provides a fresh, scientific look at the technology of crop genetic engineering and some situations it has, or could, help solve problems for farmers.  It shows the ugly politics and distortions that have maligned a useful technology that has served farmers ...

Since 2014, China has spent $4 billion on advanced agricultural science and is approving new technologies rapidly. Meanwhile, our food science regulatory system remains trapped in the 1980s, paralyzed by environmental lobbyists who buy full-page ads in the New York Times claiming they are "unsure" ...

Ah, life is good lately; can’t stop winning. Almost never recommend anybody, ‘cuz humans disappoint, but if I do, its winners. Remember that “Erectus walks among us” guy with his “Out of Europe” theory? Yep – that’s the one I recommended, the most despised of the low. I only recommend ...

A randomized controlled trial of the use of acupuncture in emergency departments has found the treatment is a safe and effective alternative to pain-relieving drugs for some patients who visit looking for relief from things like a self-reported ankle sprain, a headache (invariably called a migraine) ...

A new study from the Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine has found a connection between common household chemicals, quaternary ammonium compounds or "quats,", and birth defects, despite the fact that experts have never found evidence of harm.Quats are often used as disinfectants and preservatives ...

Though well-known cancers like breast and prostate cancer are still the most common, America has gotten really good at diagnosing rare cancers, according to a new study. This is a significant achievement, because rare cancers can be challenging to diagnose, often resulting in numerous physician ...

In the many efforts to prevent people from taking up smoking, most initiatives have focused on kids.  As the consumer advocacy group the American Council on Science and Health has long phrased it, "smoking is a pediatric disease." Prevent uptake in the young, and addiction rarely occurs. ...

No, this post is not about some exotic new physics model predicting dark photons or other useless concoctions which physicists sometimes entertain with, in their frustration for the lack of guidance from experimental data of what really is it  that the Standard Model is an effective theory ...

Kids are stimulated by new experiences. So are pigs. If you watched the 2014 video where a camera falls out of a plane and crashes into a pig sty you saw how intrigued they were by it, even though it clearly was not food.A new study says that such "consumerism", a preference for shiny new stuff ...

Mothers supportive of their children's negative emotions rate their children as being more socially skilled than teachers do. Not really a big surprise, parents often think the way they have chosen to do things is the best way, even if their kids seem like many to be, well, brats.Mothers’ supportive ...

Attorney Patrick Murphy is representing infamous sue-and-settle environmental lawyer Stephen Tillery, senior partner and founder of Korein Tillery, as plaintiff in the court of Senior U.S. District Judge Phil Gilbert in a lawsuit against Advanced Analytics Consulting Group, who Tillery says he ...

The "Art&Science" project is coming to the final phase as far as the activities in Venice are concerned. About 100 15 to 17-year-old students from high schools in Venice have assisted to lessons on particle physics and the Higgs boson in the past months, and have been challenged to produce, alone ...

A research firm has just bestowed the title “world’s most valuable insurance brand” on a mainland Chinese company. Other outfits issue similar announcements in diverse industries, despite that in 2014 The Economist made this remark about brands: “Their importance may be fading… no ...

Ovaries constructed of 3-D printed scaffolds that house immature eggs were successful in boosting hormone production and restoring fertility by actually ovulating - and they produced healthy offspring which mothers also were able to nurse. By removing a female mouse's ovary and replacing it ...

A new national poll says that parents are in a panic about things like swimming pools.Least likely to think their kids can swim; black parents. A slight majority of white parents are fine with kids swimming sans parental hovering. Almost all parents think a natural lake (84 percent) or ocean ...