The downside to an MP3 culture is that its pretty solitary. If I want to make a mix for the wife, I have to buy an .mp3 player and just give it to her - or I have to go retro and burn a CD. It's better than the 1990s, when people made cassette mix tapes - but they certainly showed you care. It was no trivial thing.  You can bet if I told my wife today I made a mix tape for another woman, she would be going to get her pistol.

Makerbot has brought them back - but with a modern twist.  You can make it in your house on a 3-D printer.  But it won't work in a cassette player, it is still basically a USB drive.

Can you be sure no one will get cancer if they only use cancer-free products?

Of course not, but anti-science kooks don't understand how cancer risk factors work and so Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.) has proposed H.R. 6191, which would allow companies to apply to the government to allow their products to bear a "cancer-free" label. . It says approved labels would state, "This product does not contain known or likely carcinogens that increase your risk of cancer."

Why would anyone on a science site bother to mention that a scientist has endorsed a Democrat?  It's only news when a scientist does not endorse a Democrat - well, if anyone in science media were to report it.

In 2008 76 Nobel laureates endorsed Senator Obama and, of course, blasted Bush. What has Obama done differently?  Not much, he simply replaced conservative anti-science positions with progressive ones.  Did he have science reports edited to match his ideology? Check. Do we still limit federal funding for hESC research?  Check.  Subsidize the president's pet energy projects?  Check.

Cuba is adored by communists - maybe they like 1950s decor. 

No, they like the socialized medicine. Specifically, they like to claim that a lower infant mortality rate means Cuban health care is better than in America. It doesn't take long to see through that. America does not abort at the first sign of trouble, like Cuba does, and so America has more babies that don't live very long.

Abortion is not the issue in this case, except to show that abortion rates are not a bellweather of health care. What is a bellweather of health care is the health of the country overall. Cuba's cholera epidemic shows that its health care system, which they present with pride, is not all that terrific. 

A giant herd of cattle are not huddled together to get away from evil oil companies or other things that have overwhelmingly improved the ecosystem in Alaska, these Northwest caribou are avoiding nature.

Namely, mosquitoes.

The Great Wall of China is the longest man-made structure in the world but that doesn't mean it's known exactly how big it is.

A five-year archaeological survey done by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage (SACH) found that the total length of the Great Wall was 13,170 miles long and reached across 15 provinces, more than twice the length previously stated just two years ago, when the same organization reported that the wall was 5,500 miles and stretched across 10 provinces.

How many times have you seen a commercial for some medication to alleviate some pesky condition, and the bulk of the ad spot is someone droning on about all of the side effects?

And what's up with that print at the bottom that always says, "See our ad in GOLF magazine"?  GOLF magazine must have the sickest readers on planet Earth.  And then those print ads are even scarier than TV commercials.

Writing at PLoS Blogs, Steve Silberman discusses a new report that says side effects may actually be increased by full disclosure of all the side effects.
 

While gullible anti-science progressives are against genetically modified foods because they don't understand what 'natural' means, it isn't just advocacy groups who need new things to fundraise about that are up in arms, it is also growers themselves.

Okanagan Specialty Fruits has created an apple that doesn't get brownish so fast after you cut into it.  That's it.  Terrific, right?

The U.S. Apple Association, which represents the American apple industry, is against this Arctic Apple, not because they believe that genetic engineering is dangerous, but because opponents will claim apples are not a 'natural' food.

Think too much of ol' Sol won't age you prematurely?

Here's an unintentional science experiment on the effects of sun exposure.  It's like a before and after picture, except it's the same face. 

A 69-year-old man showed a 25-year history of gradual, asymptomatic thickening and wrinkling of the skin on the left side of his face, the authors in NEJM write.  The circumstances were about three decades of truck driving where one side of his face got a lot more sun exposure.