Because caffeine is a mild diuretic, there is a common assumption that caffeinated beverages, such as coffee, also have this effect.

The problem is that a kernel of scientific knowledge can be misconstrued in news outlets. As we discussed on Thanksgiving, everything in a Thanksgiving dinner contains chemicals found by someone somewhere to be a carcinogen in rats and could therefore be banned if they did not occur naturally. 

With increased regulations on pharmaceutical companies, billion-dollar research that will fail 95 percent of the time and a short window to sell successful products before genetic versions and lawsuits take the revenue away, the future might be the past: it's a lot smarter to find new uses for old drugs than risk developing new ones.

The Fleckvieh is a breed of cattle that originated in the Alpine region and is now found on every continent, with an estimated worldwide population of around 40 million.

America is back at mid-1990s levels of carbon dioxide emissions. Some of that is due to the ongoing recession, of course, but a large chunk is due to the switch from the dirty coal plants that ballooned after America stopped producing emissions-free nuclear energy to natural gas.

While energy overall is back at early 1990s levels of emissions, coal specifically is back at early 1980s levels of emissions.

And it's all been done without mitigation, rationing or increased cost, even during a political climate of hostility against traditional energy. It isn't just CO2; "combined cycle" natural gas power plants also release significantly less nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide, finds a study
in Earth's Future. 

A new study may have a solution for both acid mine drainage and natural radioactivity in hydraulic fracturing – fracking –   wastewater that can be found in 'flowback fluid.' In hydraulic fracturing, water is injected at high pressure down wells to crack open shale deposits buried deep underground and extract the natural gas trapped within the rock. Some of the water can flow back up through the well, along with natural brines and the natural gas.  

If you donate money to Greenpeace and get a tax deduction, is your act less moral?

Indeed it is, at least in the perception of other people, according to a new psychology paper on the "tainted-altruism effect", which suggests that charity in conjunction with self-interested behavior is viewed less favorably because we tend to think that the person could have given everything to charity without taking a cut for themselves. 

Of course, plenty of people give to charity or commit charitable acts without thought of any benefit. Perception about altruism is in the eye of the beholder. And Greenpeace is just an example, you could think about churches or, in the case of one experiment below, a man who volunteers in order to impress a girl.