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Vermont Should Stop Showing Leadership In Overruling Scientists On Farming

Despite Vermont's Agricultural  Innovation Board (AIB), created to inform regulatory recommendations...

Evolutionary Psychology: Your Parents Income During Pregnancy Made You Gay

Evolutionary psychology, the discipline that claimed we're being manipulated by flowers and evolved...

Oil Kept Congo From Starving - Western Academics Don't Seem To Like That

If even a wealthy like Germany has to lie about emissions to placate government-funded environmentalists...

China Sells Western Progressives Solar Panels While Switching To Nuclear Power

China has quietly overtaken France to become the world's second-largest producer of nuclear energy. ...

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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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Fracking: Conservation Groups Debate Doing Something Positive

Fracking: Conservation Groups Debate Doing Something Positive

Nov 25 2012 | comment(s)

When you think of modern conservation groups, you probably think of fundraising campaigns designed to scare people into giving money. They latch onto the latest doomsday cause, whether it has a science basis or not.

What you don't often think of are conservation groups being part of a broader solution for responsible energy management - stepping outside the stereotype of vilifying the industries it turns out America would like to have more of, and being a friendly guide for energy companies that are, after all, living in the same space we all are and who are not actually composed of cardboard cut-outs that are easily lumped into personality categories. 
Physicists And Kung Fu Nuns

Physicists And Kung Fu Nuns

Nov 22 2012 | comment(s)

What can Kung Fu Nuns teach CERN scientists about cosmic energy?  

To start with, they would have to convince CERN scientists that 'cosmic energy' actually exists, and they recently got a chance to do that when the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) hosted Drukpa Buddhist's Spiritual Head, His Holiness the Gyalwang Drukpa. 

Dear Mayans: Sorry For The Misunderstanding

Dear Mayans: Sorry For The Misunderstanding

Nov 20 2012 | comment(s)

So the only food that we knew could survive the apocalypse has been driven out of business by its own employees, who also teamed up with single mothers, minorities and atheists to overwhelmingly re-elect a guy determined to jump off a fiscal cliff right just before the end of the world was long projected - December of 2012.

Well played, Mayans.
Does A Full Moon Mean More Psychological Problems?

Does A Full Moon Mean More Psychological Problems?

Nov 19 2012 | comment(s)

The moon is both easy and tough to figure out. Of the many things Galileo got wrong, the moon was the biggest, despite it being studied for millenia by then, unless you think we only have one tide per day.  And last year some people wanted to believe an earthquake in Japan was caused by a 'Supermoon', where our friend Luna was slightly closer to us.
Solar Panels: Should We Be Paying More For Products People Don't Want?

Solar Panels: Should We Be Paying More For Products People Don't Want?

Nov 16 2012 | comment(s)

Earlier this year, the US government opened a new front in its war with China over solar panel manufacturing - tariffs designed to close the gap between U.S. and Chinese labor costs.

Tariffs don't work, we have known that since the Depression of the 1930s was prolonged due to economic tinkering and boosting tariffs. Creating higher costs for a non-essential product, especially a non-essential product for a market that is only in existence due to government subsidies, drives down demand.

The day after the American presidential election, the U.S. International Trade Commission voted to saddle Suntech Power Holdings Co., Ltd. with a tariff of 35.97% on their silicon module imports from China, which are made by the parent company.  
Counseling By Math: Why Your Relationship Is A Sine Wave

Counseling By Math: Why Your Relationship Is A Sine Wave

Nov 15 2012 | comment(s)

Marriage counseling is so 20th century.  The 21st century may belong to relationship neuroinformaticians because they can create a mathematical model for efficient communication in your love life. 

The dynamics of love can look like a sine wave, with smooth, repetitive highs and lows.  That's probably not too bad.  We certainly try for a flat line but that is difficult to achieve.  What you want to avoid is having your other half begin to vibrate weirdly. When that happens, couples oscillate without any harmony, the waves go out of control and soon you are forced to get back down to dating weight.