Environmental trial lawyers are thrilled that the politically friendly 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in California ordered EPA to ban chlorpyrifos but the science is even less settled than the court case is. And this court case is far from settled, because it should never have been heard ...

In the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society and in a presentation at the European Week of Astronomy and Space Science in Liverpool, a team announced one of the largest 3D maps of the infant Universe.And along with it almost 4,000 early galaxies, many of which will have evolved ...

Bumblebee safety alert; don't put holograms in that meadow or near the urban beehive you probably regret buying.  A new study shows that bees, which are already confounded by lots of different things, are mystified by iridescent colors, colors that seem to change based on the angle you view ...

You may have trouble finding a hotspot in that store you are visiting, but there is one place they are persistent: inside neutron stars. A new study shows that instabilities can create intense magnetic hot spots that survive for millions of years, even after the star's overall magnetic field has ...

Historically, large atmospheric events like fires and volcanic eruptions have had cooling effects. It is the 200th anniversary of Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein", for example, part of which was inspired by the gloom from a volcanic eruption that led to 'a year without a summer' in Europe of 1816 ...

Though countries like the United States and Ireland have far more forest than they did a century ago, professional environmentalists insist there needs to be more. From butterflies to bees, some groups insist more of the modern world must be reverted to nature, even when it comes to formerly ecologic ...

The National Nature Reserve of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands is home to the world's biggest colony of king penguins and if satellite images are being interpreted accurately, they have seen a massive 88% reduction in the size of their colony, located on Île aux Cochons, in the ...

American cities nationwide, riding a wave of populism brought about by media attention, are looking to ban straws, claiming they will save the planet doing so. Companies are naturally following suit - companies always will, because consumers pay the cost and if they are happy paying more while ...

Ground sharks (Carcharhiniformes) are the most diverse shark group living today, with over 200 different species, and they are one of the major groups that survived the Cretaceous–Palaeogene mass extinction which is why we have the Tiger, Hammerhead, and Blacktip Reef sharks and lamniforms by ...

Impulse control is associated with larger cognitively advanced animals like humans and other primates, but there are exceptions, like ravens. Now a recent study shows that the great tit, a common European songbird, has a tremendous capacity for self-control - almost the same as chimpanzees.  ...

Bt modification in maize does not affect non-target beneficial microorganisms such as endophytes, according to a new study. This debunks some of the more obscure claims made by activists opposed to genetic engineering (suicides in India being the most bizarre. Genetically modified Bt corn contains ...

The 2017 hurricane season was one of the most expensive in the Atlantic Ocean region. Hurricane Harvey hit in mid-August 2017, followed just a few weeks later by Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Maria in September. Each of these storms had winds in excess of 125 mph, with Irma up to 170 mph. Damage ...

Metastasis is the formation of secondary tumors and a leading contributor to deaths related to cancer. The exact mechanism for how cellular function becomes broken in cells far removed from a cancer’s primary tumor have been unclear.But it's been pondered for almost a hundred years. It was postulated ...

 If you have seen a face in the clouds or you have been part of a phenomenon called "pareidolia" - a willingness to recognize a non-face object as a human face. Humans sometimes perceive an inherently meaningless object such as a pattern, landscape or object as another object, one that has ...

A recent study in European Journal of Clinical Nutrition finds that picky eaters are healthier. That doesn't mean you shouldn't encourage kids to try new things, but they are not going to end up unhealthy if they sat at the dinner table for an hour and still didn't eat that cabbage. And it debunks ...

Democracies have better teeth than dictatorships, according to recent statistical correlation presented at the 96th General Session of the International Association for Dental Research (IADR) in London, held in conjunction with the IADR Pan European Regional (PER) Congress.John Estrada-Montoya ...

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) is part of the World Health Organisation, which is part of the United Nations, but it is really its own agency that shares little in common with WHO. Whereas WHO wants to save lives, IARC has taken to using statistics to scaremonger trace chemicals ...

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) branch of the United Nations has added 24 new sites to the World Network of Biosphere Reserves, bring the total number to 686.Biosphere reserves are sites hoping to couple conservation of biodiversity and human activity ...

While cats are generally regarded as being aloof and uncaring, dogs are called "man's best friend." They are in tune with our emotions, it is said. "Lassie" had a level of connection with her humans that only television could write, but there has always been anecdotal evidence that dogs will ...

States that have expanded Medicaid coverage as part of the Affordable Care Act have higher numbers of individuals with disabilities employed that states that did not.Medicaid is a taxpayer-funded program that provides free or low-cost health coverage to low-income people, the elderly, and people ...

The Attorneys General of Democratic states Washington, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Oregon, Maryland, New York (plus the District of Columbia) are filing a lawsuit against the Trump administration to block the open source distribution of materials that enable the printing ...

There is very little I love more than the world wide web. No, seriously, I mean it. Internet has changed my life more than any other "thing" around, and it has provided me with an enormous wealth - information, knowledge, simplification of otherwise difficult tasks, ease of access to data, solution ...

I had what seemed like rather a good idea a few weeks back. Building on some prominent findings in social psychology, I hypothesized that politicians on the right would wipe their bum with their left hand; and that politicians on the left would wipe with their right hand.Ludicrous? Yes – absolutely ...

Sub-Saharan Africa has around 80 million people infected with hepatitis B, a liver infection caused by the hepatitis B virus, but it infects around 250 million people worldwide. It can be a mild illness lasting a few weeks or a serious, lifelong condition. It is transmitted through blood and bodily ...