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Cashierless 'Just Walk Out' Tech Is Ready, But Politicians Are Determined To Kill It

Aug 11 2019 | comment(s)

You've been in a supermarket check-out line where it say 10 or 15 items and a self-important jackleg wheels a cart full of stuff in there. Stores don't police their own policies, they just throw up a sign, because they don't want to alienate anyone and get a social justice campaign against them on Twitter.

For those of you who have ethics, a cashierless store seems like the way to go.

Amazon wants to have 3,000 "just walk out" locations by 2022, and other companies want to compete against Bezos and company, grocery stores aren't waiting and are funding their own.

Trade Joe's Surpasses Whole Foods As The Place To Find Wealthy Elites

Aug 10 2019 | comment(s)

A decade ago, if you wanted to find a wealthy neighborhood, you looked for a Whole Foods. They knew that if they stuck a store in a wealthy location they would also find opposition to science, medicine, and agriculture - their ideal customers.

Now things are less clear. A new national study of grocery stores' impacts on nearby home values found the biggest payoff in neighborhoods with a Trader Joe's. The average home value near Trader Joe's is $608,305, compared to $521,142 near Whole Foods. They also sell lots of organic stuff but don't have employees pretending you're bad parents if you don't buy it, so perhaps that is why more wealthy people are going there. Which makes them open more stores which will allow them to sell Two Buck Chuck.

Today's Children Aren't "the Sickest Generation"

Aug 09 2019 | comment(s)

There are claims that the modern world of science and medicine (conventional food, cell phones, vaccines, natural gas, trace chemicals, whatever) is making kids ill but that is just shoddy correlation.

Writing at Science Based Medicine, former Scienceblogs contributor Dr. David Gorski separates fact from myth.

Death of fake corporate social responsibility? Chick-Fil-A is America's favorite fast food restaurant

Aug 09 2019 | comment(s)

Chick-Fil-A has dethroned In-N-Out as America's favorite fast food restaurant. I actually thought In-N-Out was just California so I was surprised they could win any poll, but I learned they are in Arizona, Nevada, Texas, and Utah as well.

RIP To Social Justice Magazine Pacific Standard

Aug 08 2019 | comment(s)

Pacific Standard, the social justice magazine founded by its chairman, Sara Miller McCune (who is also the founder of academic outlet Sage publications), is shutting down.

Alligators prefer men who live in Florida over tourists

Aug 08 2019 | comment(s)

Alligators prefer men who live in Florida over tourists.

There are numerous confounders in this. It may be that Florida men get bit more often because the stereotype of Florida people is based on a kernel of reality.

Children have revolted against ice cream and frozen treats made from beets, spinach and soy

Aug 07 2019 | comment(s)

Kids say the darnedest things, like they could tell "there was something else ground up in the ice cream."

Children have revolted against ice cream and frozen treats made from beets, spinach and soy. You can fool them a little, by mixing in sugar with plant juice and pretending the Tooth Fairy turned that into milk, but kids draw the line when you throw mashed carrots into ice cream and call it a treat.

The Great British Beer Festival banned drinks with 'sexist' names

Aug 07 2019 | comment(s)

The Great British Beer Festival banned drinks with 'sexist' names. Sorry, Slack Alice fans, social justice has prevailed.

Living in California, I don't know what the wine industry would do if provocative names were banned. If my town is any indication, women would revolt.

It seems awfully heavy-handed to ban certain names because some women said they wouldn't buy them.

If only someone would invent a free market where consumers could ban products they dislike, by simply not buying them. We can only dream.

77% of British farmers want ban on GMOs lifted

Aug 07 2019 | comment(s)

13,000 Years Ago: Beer Was So Important It Predated Agriculture

Sep 15 2018 | comment(s)

A new analysis says beer existed in Israel long before its commonly assumed origin in China.

At the Raqefet Cave burial site in Israel, 13,000 year-old stone mortars show evidence of Natufian ritual feasting with fermented food and drink.

Cereal-based beer brewing by those semi-sedentary, foraging people predated the appearance of domesticated cereals by several millennia in the Near East, meaning that agriculture may have come into existence for beer along with food.

Dr. Mikko Paunio - World Bank Mandates Prevent 2 Billion From Getting Off Wood Energy

Oct 31 2017 | comment(s)

Dr. Mikko Paunio , MD, MHS, of the Finnish government discusses how World Bank policies, including mandates by America, prevent the centralized energy needed to lower emissions and provide better health outcomes for poor countries. It is reprinted from the American Council on Science and Health below.

Current conservation policies often clash with public health initiatives in the developing world but they get little attention. There are real harms in advocating water and energy conservation over people.

Why is linguistics such a magnet for dilettantes and crackpots?

Sep 14 2017 | comment(s)

Why linguistics attract so much nonsense is because these “crackpots” are not linguists, according to a linguist.

Scholars of yore, when reflecting upon language, would wonder things such as: which of the contemporary languages was spoken by the first man? Which one is superior to the rest? And which of the human tongues deserves the label ‘divine’? Modern linguists will not touch those with a 10-foot pole.

Given the extensive body of historical knowledge collected since, one would expect that claims of Goropian and Rudbeckian absurdity would be a thing of the past.

That would be wrong, writes Gaston Dorren at Aeon.

The NFL Is No Longer Willing To Fund The NIH Criticizing The NFL

Jul 30 2017 | comment(s)

In 2015, I had an employee write a short consumer awareness book about concussions and football and since NFL offices were a short subway ride we accepted an offer to come over and speak to their physiologists, no filters.

Concussions are complex but they were and are a high-profile issue, In 2015, Will Smith was set to play Dr. Bennet Omalu in "Concussion", a movie intended to indict the NFL about its treatment of players and head injuries, and so the NFL teamed up with the National Institutes of Health to create awareness, but that seemed to be a concession they were wrong for existing.(1)

Forget The Best, Here Are The Worst 'Science' Websites Of 2016

Nov 29 2016 | comment(s)

It's no surprise to see a Best Science Websites list. RealClearScience does a great one each year (and I am proud to say I made their list twice) but perhaps even more valuable to the public is a list of science websites to avoid.

Anyone who reads science and then reads environmental sites, or those of sue-and-settle groups like Center for Science in the Public Interest, knows there are a lot of junk science sites out there, and then those who read the Food Babe or homeo- and naturopaths knows there is even more pseudoscience, so getting them all down to a few is the hard part.

Organic Sprouts Linked To Salmonella

Aug 09 2016 | comment(s)

Sprouts Extraordinaire of Colorado has been implicated in 30 cases of Salmonella, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Salmonella Reading and Salmonella Abony infections have been reported in nine states. Five people have been hospitalized.

Since 1996, there have been at least 30 reported outbreaks of foodborne illness associated with different types of raw and lightly cooked sprouts.

If your sprouts or your milk are raw, you are making a huge mistake.

Bison Named National Mammal of the United States

May 09 2016 | comment(s)

President Obama has officially designated the bison as the official mammal of the United States. I didn't actually know we didn't already have a national mammal but I suppose if we have to show we are still capable of designating official stuff of the United States in bipartisan fashion, the buffalo is as good as anything.

What Beepocalypse?

Mar 28 2016 | comment(s)

The latest bee population numbers for 2015 came out last week and while they are a guesstimate, they show a tiny (3%) decrease since their 20-year high from 2014.

No big deal to scientists, bee numbers fluctuate a lot from year-to-year and always have, and overwinter losses do not equal bees in decline, but activists are portraying it as an ecological catastrophe.

Genetic Literacy Project has the latest on the Colony Collapse Disorder that never was and produced a handy infographic for the evidence-based world.

Elusive Substances: New Way To Classify The World's Rarest Minerals

Feb 17 2016 | comment(s)

In a forthcoming American Minerologist paper, Hazen and Ausubel outlined a new mineral-classification system to help geologists better understand the designation of “rare.” They based their work on a similar system by the biologist Deborah Rabinowitz, who studied rare biological species.

According to Rabinovitz, a species can be considered rare if it meets at least one of three criteria: a small geographic range, highly specific habitat requirements, or a small population size.

"Build a Flavor" gum

Feb 12 2016 | comment(s)

Project7 makes sugar-free chewing gum flavors like "front porch lemonade" and now they are adding something extra for gum aficionados - the ability to make combinations. A new package has complementary flavors in each bag so you can chew them on their own or combined in things like "cookie dough ice cream" and "key lime pie".

"Build a Flavor" gum is being sold exclusively at Target.

Supreme Court Blocks EPA Emissions Effort

Feb 10 2016 | comment(s)

The Supreme Court has blocked a key Obama administration environmental rule to limit carbon emissions from power plants.

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