A recent paper claims that even at low doses pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides are changing the behavior of insects.

Though they are not able to show how it is happening, the authors use 'needs more testing' rhetoric to call on governments to ban chemicals until it is certain there is no unintended long-term ecological harm. If that sounds very Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., that's because he and other anti-science progressives have been saying it for decades.
As part of my self-celebrations for XX years of blogging activities, I am reposting here (very) old articles I wrote over the years on topics ranging from Physics to Chess to anything in between. The post I am recycling today is one that describes for laymen a reason why it is interesting to continue going after the top quark, many years (10, at the time the article was written) after the discovery of that particle. The piece appeared in July 10, 2005 in my column at the Quantum Diaries blog (https://qd.typepad.com/6/2005/07/ok_so_i_promise.html).
A whole lot of classic liberals have discovered how goofy their progressive cousins have been for 25 years. All it took for this sudden embrace of critical thinking was for a Republican to say 'maybe he is right on food and medicine' about Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
A recent epidemiology paper links common weedkillers to prostate cancer and further claims four of them cause death. 

Obviously they can't show that, there is no plausible biological mechanism, no increase in prostate cancers, and no evidence any of the people who got prostate cancer had contact with the pesticides at all.
As part of my self-celebrations for having survived 20 years of blogging (the anniversary was a few days ago, see my previous post), I am re-posting a few representative, old articles I wrote in my column over the years. The selection will not be representative of the material I covered over all this time - that would be too tall an order. Rather, I will hand-pick a few pieces just to make a point or two about their content. 
GMOs had quietly been in use for decades when they became controversial - for saving a fruit in Hawaii that legacy techniques like breeding and chemicals had not.

The Rainbow Papaya became a home run for genetic engineering, the first genetically rescued organism, and that made it a target for environmental groups who had ignored it when it was saving diabetics by creating insulin.

Lawyers have not stopped campaigning against GMOs since, and are calling on all media allies to criticize Mexico for refusing to ban GMO corn, but while they fight the past, biotech may be winning another fight for the future; against malaria.
Once upon a time, environmentalists embraced biotechnology as key way to reduce pesticide use. Rachel Carson, author of "Silent Spring", was a fan of genetic engineering. That was before we all learned that environmental groups are only 'for' something if it means they can raise money being against something. Biotech was great - until it was real. Then they hated it. Along with hydroelectric power and natural gas, and how they will want to tear down solar energy, once it stops being a government gimmick.
Twenty years ago today I got access for the first time to the interface that allowed me to publish blog posts for the Quantum Diaries web site, a science outreach endeavor that involved some 12 (then 15, then 25 or so IIRC) researchers around the world. A week before I had been contacted by the Fermilab outreach team, who were setting the thing up, and at that time I did not even know what a blog was!
In ancient civilizations, rulers and nobles exchanged gifts as acts of prestige. Only when Assyria came into existence, and it had a need for manpower and resources to feed its conquering empire, did gifts turn into taxes and government become overlord of its people, who were moved from place to place and told what to do by elites.
A recent paper claims the common weedkiller known as glyphosate gives mice Alzheimer's and therefore is a risk to humans.

Arizona State University researchers created an association between glyphosate exposure in mice and symptoms of neuroinflammation, as well as "accelerated Alzheimer’s disease-like pathology", whatever that is supposed to mean, and claim that farming could mean a persistent risk to human health.