Encounters With Giant Sharks In The Arctic
Guardian Science Blog Deserved Death
By Alex Berezow
On Chance
Silence on BPA is Deafening - Let's Get Clarity
Before you brush off this post with the answer "of course", let me qualify... Read >
Beer, the most popular alcoholic drink in the world, consumes around 17% of... Read >
The newly sequenced genomes of two marine worms shed light on the 570 million... Read >
Smirnoff, a vodka brand, has tried to place itself under a health halo by claiming... Read >
Claims that sitting is bad for your health were all the rage last year - epidemiological... Read >
During the Obama administration, America's Director of National Intelligence... Read >
Mycorrhiza Means Space Farms
What would it take to grow potatoes or tomatoes in space? Some mycorrhiza, it turns out. Currently NASA can't even get a telescope into space without being wildly over budget and 10 years behind schedule so they are not putting colonies on the moon any time soon. But the private sector might. And ...
Particle Physics In Europe: Plans For The Future
Particle physics has been historically the ground of long-standing scientific challenges between the US and Europe, especially since the birth of the CERN laboratories in 1954. And in parallel, another challenge has kept the field alive and thriving for over half a century: the one between theoretical ...
Might Astronauts Be Able To Dive Through A Liquid Airlock Into A Lunar Cave Habitat From The Surface Vacuum? (Like A Barometer)
This is a rather fun idea by Peter Koch originally suggested in the Moon Miner's Manifest Classics - 1987-1988 (see page 31). It's not so likely in the early stages, because of the large amounts of water needed to construct it, but it may perhaps be of great value at a later stage, especially ...
Fun Speculation - Can Neptune Sized Exomoon Have Moonlets Like Neptune's Triton? Or A Ring? Even Moonlets Of Moonlets?
Just before the flyby of Pluto by New Horizons I wrote a speculative fun article about whether it could spot moonlets of Pluto’s moons. Can Moons Have Moons? Or Rings? Theoretically it seems possible that moonlets just possibly might be dynamically stable, there as with many of the moons ...
What Super Volcanos In The Taupo Volcanic Zone Can Teach Us About Supereruption-Feeding Magma Systems
Where does magma gather in the earth's crust? And for how long? With worldwide poverty in decline, plentiful food thanks to science, and life expectancies increasing each year, we can turn to more remote worries - and learn some new things in the process. Like about volcanic eruptions ...
Yes, We Can Rise To The IPCC Target To Keep Global Warming Within 1.5°C (2.7°F)
The basic message of the IPCC report is that we need to act now before 2040, to avoid more expensive mitigation measures in the last 60 years of the century. The worst effects are for 2100. And that if we aim for 1.5°C, it is far better than 2 °C.
All countries worldwide except the US ...
After The Trans Mountain Court Ruling, Is The Canadian Energy Sector Doomed?
The Federal Court of Appeal decision that halted construction on the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion has thrown Canada into a tizzy.While British Columbia First Nations and environmentalists are celebrating a rare court victory on this project, industry representatives, trade unions and many ...
Centralized Energy Will Be Better For Emissions And Health In Poor Countries - Even If It's Coal
In countries that have embraced centralized energy and migrated away from individual cooking with dung or wood, both public health and the emissions have improved. So why not pay for all developed countries to switch? The World Bank wanted to do that half a decade ago but it became political; countries ...
Meatable Can Make Beef From A Single Cell - If Activists Don't Kill The Company First
It takes a few years, a lot of grain and even more water to make a steer big enough to send to market - a company wants to get that process down to a few weeks. Meatable uses adult stem cells - hematopoietic, so from the blood of cow umbilical cords - which are turned into induced pluripotent ...
Groundcherries Are Just The Start: CRISPR May Popularize A Food Future You Haven't Heard Of Yet
Few people have heard of the groundcherry because during legacy days of agriculture, when foods had to be optimized for various regions as easily as possible, it fared poorly compared to other farming crops due to undesirable characteristics, like falling on the ground and needing weeds.Though ...
Dogs Are Not So Smart
Dog owners think dogs are exceptionally intelligent - a whole television show was made about a dog named Lassie who got humans out of all kinds of fantastic situations - while cat owners believe the same about their pets.But are dogs smarter than other animals or pets? Not really, according to ...
3 Million Year Old Footprints Suggest Human-Like Walking Evolved Long Before Humans Did
The transition from ape-like shuffling to upright walking (bipedalism) as we do has long fascinated scientists. Why did it happen? When? The second question is a little closer to being solved. An analysis of 3.6 million year old hominin footprints in Tanzania suggests our ancestors evolved ...
Dairy Consumers Have Healthier Diets, And That Means Less Type 2 Diabetes
Does the presence of higher levels of biomarkers of dairy fat consumption in people with lower levels of type 2 diabetes mean more dairy means less risk of developing it? According to epidemiology, yes, but epidemiology and politics are the two key reasons public confidence in academic science ...
Cancer Patients Want To Believe In Alternative Medicine Miracles, And Ignore Serious Risks
Would famous Apple CEO Steve Jobs be alive today if he had accepted science the same way he accepted technology? Pancreatic cancer will kill half of patients but he guaranteed his death when he waited 9 months after his 2003 diagnosis to have surgery that could have saved his life, instead opting ...
'Light' Alcohol Intake Can Be Healthy - Here Is What Light Means Scientifically
An analysis of over 400,000 people's self-reported drinking habits finds that statistically drinking alcohol 4 or more times per week increases the risk of premature death by 20 percent. The increased risk was consistent across age groups.Because this is epidemiology, a lot of caution must be placed ...
Moderate Alcohol And Breast Cancer: Real Epidemiology Or Just Statistical Correlation?
On occasion there are renewed claims that even moderate alcohol consumption might "cause" breast cancer. As science advances so do claims about new ways to suggest harm. An example is recent claims about epigenetic alterations and lifestyle behaviors. Yet there are flaws in such a simplistic approach ...
Capitalism Has Been Conquered - Here Is Why Workers Should Take It Back
In the early days of industrial capitalism there were no protections for workers, and industrialists took their profits with little heed to anyone else. Following the growth of the labour movement, the establishment of trade unions and the founding of the welfare state in the first half of the ...
'Boys Will Be Boys'? No, Adolescence Is A 20th Century Invention
Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s actions as a teenager are at the center of a public firestorm.“I’ve been really troubled by the excuse offered by too many that this was a high school incident, and ‘boys will be boys,’ said Sen. Chris Coons during testimony by Christine Blasey ...
No Ghost In The Machine: AI Taking Over The World Is Unscientific Paranoia
Should we be afraid of artificial intelligence? For me, this is a simple question with an even simpler, two letter answer: no. But not everyone agrees – many people, including the late physicist Stephen Hawking, have raised concerns that the rise of powerful AI systems could spell the end for ...
JAMA Retracts 6 More Brian Wansink Articles
The number of articles retracted related to nutrition now numbers unlucky 13 - and that bad lack shares one name in common: Brian Wansink, Ph.D.Today, the JAMA organization retracted six more. The big question you will likely ask is, where was peer review? Well, peer review was never great and ...
Pierce Brosnan Is Why The Science Community Should Boycott The Breakthrough Prize Foundation Ceremony On National Geographic
The Breakthrough Prize Foundation has breathlessly announced that "acclaimed actor, producer and philanthropist Pierce Brosnan" will host the Breakthrough Prize ceremony, which they have self-declared is the “Oscars of Science”, on November 4th.The funders certainly have the money to do positive ...
Riemann Hypothesis: Has One Of Math's Great Mysteries Finally Been Solved?
Over the past few days, the mathematics world has been abuzz over the news that Sir Michael Atiyah, the famous Fields Medalist and Abel Prize winner, claims to have solved the Riemann hypothesis. If his proof turns out to be correct, this would be one of the most important mathematical achievements ...
Toward A Temperature Stable, Cost-Effective Vaccine Platform
Vaccines are the most effective way to prevent and eradicate infectious diseases but many vaccines have to be manufactured in cell culture or eggs, which is expensive, and most vaccines must be kept refrigerated during the transportation from manufacturers to health care clinics. In tropical and ...
So King Arthur Has Returned - And She's An 8-Year-Old Girl
In Malory's "Le Morte d'Arthur", French and English tales were reworked into the definitive mythology of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. But he may have gotten one thing wrong.Instead of a lady in the lake providing (and eventually taking back) the fabled sword Excalibur, symbol ...
In my back yard I have three bluebird houses and a Koi pond which over the years have brought... more »
Does 0.4% chocolate ice cream and 99.6% vanilla not make
vanilla? What Senator Warren does not... more »
Planet dwellers like us naturally look first to other moons and planets for colonization. Yet,... more »
Consider the statistical challenges around Dysonian SETI. The standard approach (for searches... more »
The ICHEP conference opened today in Seoul. This is the most well-attended conference in particle... more »
