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Hank CampbellRSS Feed of this column.

I founded Science 2.0® in 2006 and since then it has become the world's largest independent science communications site, with over 300,000,000 direct readers and reach approaching one billion. Read More »

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A decade ago, gas was cheap, the American economy was booming and so was partisan rhetoric about a disconnect on science related to politics. One side was good, one was bad.

President George W. Bush, who had boosted NASA funding after declines in the Clinton years, had doubled the budget for the NIH, and funded human embryonic stem cells, was anti-science. And so was the entire Republican party, we were assured.
In 1992, some shipping containers got washed overboard on a trip from Hong Kong to Tacoma. Among the losses was one containing 28,800 plastic bath toys known as Friendly Floatees - frogs, turtles, ducks, that kind of thing. It's not an uncommon event, storms cause, on average, about one container per day to get lost at sea, a minor amount when we consider how much shipping is done annually. 

It is often said that the middle of the road is the worst place to drive, yet centrists pride themselves on always arguing the opposite of whatever the conversation is. They believe we should split the difference on all issues, though the actual functioning of the United Nations should have put a stake into the heart of that political vampire by now. 

It turns out centrists are endangering their health in other ways, according to BMJ's annual Christmas issue, because by 'sitting on the fence' they are likely to be fatter than commies - especially Trotzkyites, who are always springing from political fad to political fad - and neo-Nazis too.

The European Food Safety Authority, most famous for declaring that water does not cure thirst, is now thinking about how to ban acrylamide, which is a chemical that can form in some foods during frying, roasting, or baking. No, it is not due to BPA, it has been present for as long as mankind has cooked food, but it was only discovered in 2002 and then in 2010 a paper was written showing it could be harmful to rats in extremely high doses.
In a popular pop music song called "All About That Bass", accomplished songwriter Meghan Trainor took center stage in a video and America by storm.

With an engaging 1940s sound (1) and a positive body image message, it was quickly embraced.

Well, positive body image unless you were under a size 12, in which case you were one of the "skinny bitches", but that is not what this article is about. Fat women have won, as the thin girl getting bullied in the video showed: 


Psychics, homeopaths, magic soap buyers, anti-vaccine and anti-energy people, they all share one thing in common - no, no, not the same political party (good guess, though!), they embrace organic food.

And if you don't also embrace their giant swath of superstitious crackpottery, they might depart in a huff.