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The Risks of a Vegan Diet Include Poor Brain Function

The Risks of a Vegan Diet Include Poor Brain Function

Jan 29 2020 | comment(s)

A vegan diet claims to hearken back to primitive days but proponents leave out that it wasn't by choice. Whenever possible, early man ate everything on and inside a bone they could, including brains.

The biological basis for that is evident when we consider that the brain is only 2 percent of our body weight but uses 20 percent of our caloric intake. Meat provides a calorie dense way to acquire the diverse nutrition we need.

If you raise your toddler on a vegan diet even now, you are likely going to end up in jail. Yet even in adults it is not healthy unless you offset the nutrition loss with supplements, a study shows. You can't get creatine, carnosine, taurine, omega-3, haem iron and vitamins B12 and D3 from a vegan diet.
Oscar Seborer: Fourth Soviet Spy Who Worked at Los Alamos During US Nuclear Bomb Development Revealed

Oscar Seborer: Fourth Soviet Spy Who Worked at Los Alamos During US Nuclear Bomb Development Revealed

Jan 28 2020 | comment(s)

In World War II, Russia went from distrusted Bolshevik dictatorship to ally against German conquerors - at least to much of the public.

By the end of the war, the race was on to cover as much ground as possible, because the west knew the Soviet Union would not want to release any lands it touched. And government knew that the Soviets had spies domestically as well. 
Genetic Literacy Project Releases Global Gene Editing Regulation Tracker and Index

Genetic Literacy Project Releases Global Gene Editing Regulation Tracker and Index

Jan 28 2020 | comment(s)

The non-profit science NGO Genetic Literacy Project has released its latest educational initiative, the Global Gene Editing Regulation Tracker and Index.

With the worldwide war on GMOs essentially lost by environmental lawyers, they still continue to hold back Europe but developing nations have seen through the false promises of western activists who have no solutions to poverty and food insecurity, only fear of the future. They are becoming hopeful about the future.
In Another Blow For Harvard, Chemistry Chair Charles Lieber Arrested For Taking Money From The Chinese Government

In Another Blow For Harvard, Chemistry Chair Charles Lieber Arrested For Taking Money From The Chinese Government

Jan 28 2020 | comment(s)

Harvard is off to a rocky start in 2020. Renowned vegetarian epidemiologists Walter Willett and Frank Hu have been blasted by the science community for True Health Initiative efforts to suppress science studies that undermined their efforts to scare people about eating meat and now Chemistry department chair Charles M. Lieber has been arrested placed on administrative leave after being charged in federal court with failing to disclose funding from the Chinese government.
Chipotle Fined For 13,000 Child Labor Violations But At Least Their Burritos Are Non-GMO

Chipotle Fined For 13,000 Child Labor Violations But At Least Their Burritos Are Non-GMO

Jan 28 2020 | comment(s)

Chipotle was once the darling of the fast food community, a sign that McDonald's could do expensive American-Mexican fast food. Eventually, McDonald's sold it and then they started listening to what dreary marketing executives claimed people should want rather than what people actually want.

So they claimed they were going "non-GMO" because they wanted to be healthier junk food. The science community was initially perplexed. The consensus on GMOs is even greater than the consensus on climate change and GMOs are just one process, like mutagenesis or anything else labeled organic.

Then scientists got angry.


A Third Way For Gun Safety? When The Brady Campaign And The 2nd Amendment Work Together

A Third Way For Gun Safety? When The Brady Campaign And The 2nd Amendment Work Together

Jan 27 2020 | comment(s)

I am not a member of the NRA but I own guns. To many gun control activists that is an anomaly, but I am actually among about 94 percent of gun owners. I am not a freeloader on a Constitutional right that NRA keeps Democrats from wiping out, nor am I some racist redneck who wants to open carry a .50 caliber rifle into Starbucks, the stereotype manufactured by the other side.

I'm among the majority of gun owners by far.
Bless Their Hearts: Some Still Think NYT Is A Pro-Science Newspaper Rather Than a Media Company

Bless Their Hearts: Some Still Think NYT Is A Pro-Science Newspaper Rather Than a Media Company

Jan 24 2020 | comment(s)

Some people are surprised that the New York Times has a piece fawning over astrology. Are they new to the publication? Do they think it's a science outlet?

In reality, the New York Times is a billion dollar media company, and to keep the lights on they must sell what their demographic buys; and their demographic is overwhelmingly anti-GMO and pro-astrology; they are anti-Republican and pro-Democrat. They are anti-natural gas and pro-acupuncture.

Texas A&M Chancellor Calls On Harvard To Investigate Willett and Hu Over True Health Initiative Tactics

Texas A&M Chancellor Calls On Harvard To Investigate Willett and Hu Over True Health Initiative Tactics

Jan 23 2020 | comment(s)

True Health Initiative, a vegetarian diet activist organization, is a Who's Who of the anti-meat community, touting prominent academic epidemiologists and even the founder of Center for Science in the Public Interest. They have been darlings of corporate media during their existence because a cabal of epidemiologists all said the same thing. Meat is bad for you.
Arbitrary Dystopian Doomsday Clock Committee Decides To Move 20 Seconds Closer To The Apocalypse

Arbitrary Dystopian Doomsday Clock Committee Decides To Move 20 Seconds Closer To The Apocalypse

Jan 23 2020 | comment(s)

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, an avowedly anti-nuclear group, created the Doomsday Clock as a publicity stunt to oppose nuclear energy and weapons. Journalists loved it, and so it has stuck around, with a committee picking some new arbitrary hysterical point of no-return annually.

Last year it was at two minutes until midnight - when the world will end, presumably out of 1,440 possible minutes, which meant we were .0014 away from, well, something. A vague Armageddon caused by whatever is popular in media accounts of how the modern world is killing us. 
Connectome: Howard Hughes Medical Institute Has Mapped The Fruit Fly Brain

Connectome: Howard Hughes Medical Institute Has Mapped The Fruit Fly Brain

Jan 23 2020 | comment(s)

A fruit fly brain may sound meaningless but there is a reason that Howard Hughes Medical Institute spent $40 million and 12 years to map it. And that reason is us.

The hemibrain connectome and its clock neuron circuity contains around 25,000 neurons, which can be grouped into thousands of distinct cell types spanning several brain regions and is the largest synaptic-level connectome ever created. It covers central fly brain circuits critical for associative learning and fly navigation. 


For 2020, We're Rolling Out Non-Unicorn Project Labels For Your Food Brand

For 2020, We're Rolling Out Non-Unicorn Project Labels For Your Food Brand

Jan 21 2020 | comment(s)

Are you more likely to buy salt if the label on it notes it is "Free of Nuclear Waste"? 

Don't deny it if you are one of the people who buys any of the 65,000 products that Non-GMO Project has sold stickers for, like salt. Not only can't GMOs be harmful, only a handful of foods are even made using that process, and yet it adorns tens of thousands of labels.

But awareness and truth are not their goals.

Like a "free of nuclear waste" sticker, Non-GMO Project wants you to think the food sold by their non-clients is harmful using the "nocebo" tactic - they want to convince the public the lack of something makes you healthier. Like nuclear waste, or unicorns, or GMOs, or ghosts. 
Nutrition Is Difficult To Study Because We Don't Have a Placebo For Calorie-Containing Nutrients

Nutrition Is Difficult To Study Because We Don't Have a Placebo For Calorie-Containing Nutrients

Jan 21 2020 | comment(s)

On his website Kevin Klatt, Ph.D., R.D., notes that a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial is the gold standard for research, but when it comes to food it's not so simple. There is no true placebo when a sugar pill has calories.
Vegetable Consumption Doesn't Decrease Prostate Cancer Progression

Vegetable Consumption Doesn't Decrease Prostate Cancer Progression

Jan 15 2020 | comment(s)

Guidelines for increased vegetable consumption asa way to improve to improve outcomes for prostate cancer survivors are based on expert opinion, inference, and statistical correlation, but a recent randomized clinical trial that included 478 patients found no difference in prostate cancer progression over two years among men with early-stage disease.
Vaccines and Autism Concern Is No Longer Just a West Coast Thing - Now Only 45% Of The Country Accepts The Science

Vaccines and Autism Concern Is No Longer Just a West Coast Thing - Now Only 45% Of The Country Accepts The Science

Jan 15 2020 | comment(s)

Once upon a time, if you were going to find a pocket of concern about vaccines and autism in America, you had to find a relatively small radius around a Whole Foods store. Rich, white people, who bought organic food and lots of supplements were going to over-represent when it came to denial of vaccines.
Just Because You Can Buy Breast Milk Online Doesn't Mean You Should

Just Because You Can Buy Breast Milk Online Doesn't Mean You Should

Jan 14 2020 | comment(s)

Breast milk has become popular due to both well-meaning (statistical correlation to everything from higher income to higher IQ) and mommy-shaming (if you use formula, you are a bad parent) groups that it may actually be putting more kids at risk.

If you simply can't express enough milk, or don't want the hassle, you may be tempted to buy breast milk online. Obviously the hope is you get a reputable source but if you do run into problems, Aoife Finnerty, adjunct at the University College Cork, outlines the legal situation.
Mass Amazonian Warrior Grave Discovered In Russia

Mass Amazonian Warrior Grave Discovered In Russia

Jan 09 2020 | comment(s)

Though today we associate Amazonian with the basin in South America, to the Greeks they were Scythians - from southern Siberia - and those Amazon women were feared warriors.

For the first time, remains of these ancient Siberian soldiers have been found in the same tomb. This is the 11th find at the Cemetery Devitsa site, and they seem to have been garrison troops at the camp while others were off fighting. And they fought a lot, they dominated the Pontic steppe for 400 years, until the Macedonians began to push them back and then Mithridates of Persia finished the job.
To Mitigate Fire Risk, California Should Bring Back Nearly Extinct Workers Called 'Loggers', Not Hire Goats

To Mitigate Fire Risk, California Should Bring Back Nearly Extinct Workers Called 'Loggers', Not Hire Goats

Jan 07 2020 | comment(s)

A recent article in NPR applauds Anaheim for using goats to keep grasses mowed. While there is nothing really wrong with that as fire prevention, any more than it's wrong for Michael Pollan to cultivate his garden in Berkeley while preaching about organic food, it is very much the kind of gimmick only wealthy elites engage in, because it sounds "natural" - which also sounds like Michael Pollan. 
Don't Be Shocked Netflix Is Paying For a GOOP Show, They Have Hated Science For A Long Time

Don't Be Shocked Netflix Is Paying For a GOOP Show, They Have Hated Science For A Long Time

Jan 06 2020 | comment(s)

For those of you shocked that Netflix would run a show by a merchant of woo like Gwyneth Paltrow and her Goop company, don't be. Science media knows they've hated science forever.
On Christmas Day, A 23-Year-Old Woman Got A New Liver After Herbal Supplements Ruined Hers

On Christmas Day, A 23-Year-Old Woman Got A New Liver After Herbal Supplements Ruined Hers

Jan 03 2020 | comment(s)

In 2019, 23-year-old Emily Goss was a like a lot of people. She believed in supplements because they are a $35 billion industry exempt from FDA oversight since 1994, when President Clinton signed the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act for his constituents, because, let's face it, they believe in alternatives to medicine and science a lot more than that other political party.
BlueNalu: Lab-Grown Slaughter-Free Yellowtail

BlueNalu: Lab-Grown Slaughter-Free Yellowtail

Jan 01 2020 | comment(s)

San Diego foodtech startup BlueNalu recently did a demonstration of their yellowtail, made entirely from cells in a lab, prepared in lots of ways, from tacos to bisque, San Diego Union-Tribune noted. 

The head of the company rightly notes they are not "lab made" any more than Oreos or Heinz ketchup was. Everything not picked from a plant began with experimentation and in the 20th century that meant in a lab. Their process is no different than the cell cultures used for Greek yogurt.