In February, a blogger at journal publisher Public Library of Science (PLOS),  issued a random, unsubstantiated smear against the organization I now run, the American Council on Science and Health - she claimed, bizarrely, that we lost our credibility decades ago by being shills for Big Tobacco. Ironically, she is an award-winning journalist.

Nowadays Physics is a very big chunck of science, and although in our University courses we try to give our students a basic knowledge of all of it, it has become increasingly clear that it is very hard to keep up to date with the developments in such diverse sub-fields as quantum optics, material science, particle physics, astrophysics, quantum field theory, statistical physics, thermodynamics, etcetera.

Simply put, there is not enough time within the average life time of a human being to read and learn about everything that is being studied in dozens of different disciplines that form what one may generically call "Physics. 

Australian guidelines for the ethical use of IVF allow selecting a child’s sex for medical reasons. But draft guidelines that are now open for public submissions raise the possibility of extending this and allowing the choice for social reasons.

Same-sex couples encounter more obstacles to fertility treatment than traditional couples,  said Ann V. Bell, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Delaware, who noted that the U.S. medical system is standardized to work with heterosexual couples.

When government scientists determined that there would be negligible environmental impact due to the Keystone XL pipeline, another 400 miles of new, safer pipeline in an area where 20,000 miles of older pipeline already existed were not going to ruin the ecology, President Barack Obama ordered them to study it again.

E-cigarettes are attracting massive interest for their potential in helping smokers quit, to reduce harm in those who switch from cigarettes or cut down, and in reducing the uptake of smoking in teenagers, where the argument runs that they would be best to vape instead of smoking.

Not to mention a third possibility: that they do neither.

If an unidentified flying object suddenly appeared in the sky, it's likely your heart would beat faster.

Now, researchers have found that the same is true for bears.

The UFOs in this case are actually unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), which have become increasingly valuable to wildlife researchers, allowing them to observe animals, including endangered species, in their natural settings from long distances and over difficult terrain. It had appeared as though the animals were taking these encounters in stride. For instance, American black bears rarely seem to startle or run away when a UAV comes near. But the new study reveals that despite the bears' calm demeanor when in the presence of UAVs, their heart rates soar, a sign of acute stress.

Imagine yourself as a graphic designer for New Age musician Enya, tasked with creating her next album cover. Which two or three colors from the grid below do you think would “go best” with her music?

Would they be the same ones you’d pick for an album cover or music video for the heavy metal band Metallica?

Probably not.

Author provided

Is the ISS the most expensive single human artifact ever, after adjusting for inflation? Well, to start with, it's a whole lot more expensive than a medieval cathedral anyway. First we need an estimate of the cost of the ISS, and this article in the Space Review estimates the total cost up to 2015 as $150 billion (in 2010 dollars). That's the total cost including all the international partners. So, how much did it cost to build a medieval cathedral?

Imagine if Big Ag industry lobbyists created a special section inside the US Department of Agriculture, where they got to define what artificial additives would go into their products and who could check their food for accuracy in labeling, all while claiming a special "health halo" for their products. Most people would object.

The $100 Big Organic industry doesn't object, though.