Advances in technology in recent decades have obviated the need and desire for humans to move. Many of the world’s population sit for long periods throughout the day, whether in front of a computer at work or in front of a TV at home. Given that the human body is made to move, all this sitting is clearly bad for our health. A new study from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), confirmed this – and then some.

A total of 5,856 female participants aged 63 to 99 years were asked to wear an activity monitor on their hip for seven days at the start of the study. The researchers then followed them for a decade, during which 1,733 participants died.

As the century turned, the science community began to become critical of a once-honored field; epidemiology.  If you are not familiar with it, it is people who correlate causes to outcomes. They don't show it, they usually are not scientists, but they look for links and then if those look interesting scientists will follow up on it.

This was an occupation once so conservative and evidence-driven that they were the last to accept that heart disease and cancer might have a hereditary factor. When epidemiologists showed that smoking causes lung cancer the data were so overwhelming and comprehensive that Big Tobacco began to stockpile money for the inevitable lawsuits because they had denied it.

One of the few things that can get a government union employee in a mandatory industry like education fired is hitting a student. Yet the link between increased tolerance and less accountability for students has correlated to increased violence by teachers. If there are no repercussions for behavior, behavior gets worse.

Everyone seems to know this except academic psychologists, who instead argue that grades are the problem. Don't want to be assaulted? Don't have accountability for any student who will suffer no lasting repercussions if they assault you while if you defend yourself you will be fired, go to jail, be sued, and vilified by the internet for eternity.

Former Vice-President Al Gore has a giant mansion but buys carbon offsets to mitigate the damage. Do they work?

It depends, and that means it is unlikely. Lots of corporations dove into the carbon offset market, Mr. Gore made hundreds of millions of dollars investing in them, but there is no standard beyond 'we will plant this many trees.' The story is certainly compelling. There is no guilt about a mansion or private plane if you pay someone to plant trees that absorb carbon dioxide emissions equal to what you burned and create wildlife habitats and nice views for humans in the process.

On February 15th, the litigation outfit known as Environmental Working Group, most famous for using public USDA data (although excluding pesticides from the organic food companies which fund them) to compile a 'Dirty Dozen list' of foods which contain pesticide residues (100 percent of them) but that is nonetheless reliably rewritten by allied journalists in progressive newspapers, paid to publish a

Muon tomography is one of the most important spinoffs of fundamental research with particle detectors -if not the most important. 

A sociological look at data from 2011-2018 led the authors of a new paper to cite an increase over time in psychological distress among Latinos, including citizens, in the U.S. They cite changes in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which was deemed illegal by the courts, and President Biden threatening to shut the southern border of the U.S. entirely.

Any long-term effects of COVID-19, which originated in China and became the third coronavirus pandemic of the century, in the general adult population remain unclear. Some clearly have it while others are told it as an undefined blanket term, like fibromyalgia or chronic lyme disease.

A new paper claims that up to 10 percent of women who get COVID-19 during pregnancy will get a 'Long COVID' diagnosis. Their data are individuals from 46 states plus Washington, D.C. enrolled in the NIH RECOVER Initiative who got COVID-19 while pregnant and later got a Long COVID diagnosis.  

Cigarettes are a co-morbidity for almost everything and a risk factor for the rest, but it isn't just first-order disease that may be in the future of cigarette smokers.

A cohort of 1,000 healthy volunteers aged 20 to 70 in 2011 were examined to see why human immune systems vary significantly in terms of how effectively they respond to microbial attacks. Age, sex and genetics are known to have a significant impact on the immune system, the aim of this new study was to identify which other factors had the most influence.

If Google image search results overwhelmingly returned results showing men, that would be evidence that ending gender bias still has a long way to go. In the bias community, results showing women are the same thing.

And the authors of a new paper say female and male gender associations are more extreme among Google Images than within text from Google News; text is slightly more focused on men than women, this bias is over four times stronger in images.