Since it is almost the end of election season we will also see the end of the meme from Environmental Working Group and other anti-science organizations about genetically modified organisms.
Okay, we won't see the end of that at all. If you are an advocacy group, you don't raise money by noting the positive things about science, you have to try and scare people a little. So Union of Concerned Scientists, Greenpeace, Environmental Working Group and others accept the science consensus on global warming, because it says we are doomed, while denying the science consensus on energy and food because denying those things gives them another way to say we are doomed.
Nate Silver, a sports statistician, made waves
when he accurately projected the results of the presidential election in 2008. So a few days go when he predicted that President Obama was 75% likely to win when polls only showed the candidates were about even, it set atwitter those people who think statistical models of polls are meaningful. They were vindicated, the age of scientific projections had arrived, in a baseball cap.
They thought that because they don't understands polls or statistical models.
ViviTouch is a kind of 'artificial muscle' that seeks to make video games feel more real. The technology behind it is electroactive polymers, developed by Bayer subsidiary Artificial Muscle of Sunnyvale, right up the road from me.
It's basically a new sort of motor that converts electrical energy into movement, to go beyond the traditional haptic interface people expect by now. Motor? Well, that is the CEO's terms. It's an actuator made of a thin polymer film but electroactive polymers are cooler than traditional actuators, generators and sensors because a ViviTouch-enabled device lets you 'feel' explosions, flying and even uppercuts like you were meant to, they say. So if you like getting an uppercut, this is for you.
In 2008, I was as excited as anyone about the chance to correct some public relations mistakes made by the Bush administration in the nascent years of blogging. Obviously some of the 'Republicans are anti-science' stuff was because when you are far left, even the middle looks like the right, but Republicans had done no favors to themselves by 'taking the bait' on topics like hESC research. What had been a reasonable, bipartisan position on human embryonic stem cells in 2001 (traditional conservatives were actually all for it, more religious types among both Democrats and Republicans were not) became a simple partisan divide when it was revisited two more times and Bush shot it down despite Republicans overall being in favor of it.
Declaring War On Frappuccino And Diet Soda Is Not A Valid Government Nutrition Guideline
Physician Burnout Is Common - And Informal Rationing Is One Big Cause
Cancel Culture Prevents The Best Researchers From Engaging With The Food Industry
Vermont Should Stop Showing Leadership In Overruling Scientists On Farming
