The pulsar wind nebula surrounding pulsar B0540-69 has brightened gradually and astrophysicists say that is because  the pulsar experienced a sudden spin-down rate transition.

But why? The answer may lie in the mysterious magnetic field structure of the pulsar.

I am presently spending a few days in the pleasant island of Crete, in the middle of the Mediterranean, where I am attending the eight edition of the "International Conference on New Frontiers in Physics". Crete is a gorgeous island at the crossroads of three continents, and because of its location it is brimming with relics of ancient to less ancient history. Anyway, this post is rather about physics, so let me go back there. 

A new scaremongering story about food and cancer is making the rounds but before you run off to find comfort in the arms of Mark Hyman, Mehmet Oz, or Joe Mercola, keep one thing in mind.

This is in mice. This stuff is always in mice or a statistical correlation, which means without real science showing it in humans, it is not relevant to humans.

The first analysis of data from the Kardiozive Brno 2030 study examines the association of pet ownership -- specifically dog ownership -- with cardiovascular disease risk factors and cardiovascular health.

It finds that owning a pet may help maintain a healthy heart, especially if that pet is a dog.

Not so long ago it was thought that Amazonian forests and other tropical rainforest regions were completely immune to fires, thanks to the high moisture content of the undergrowth beneath the protection of the canopy tree cover. But the severe droughts of 1997-98, 2005, 2010, and currently a large number of wildfires across northern Brazil have forever changed this perception.

These severe ‘mega-droughts’ in the Amazon were most likely driven by interacting large-scale climatic events, with the warming of the Atlantic increasingly outweighing the drying effects of El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events in the Pacific.

Members of the United States military who are injuried abroad often return to the U.S. for treatment and must be transported by aeromedical evacuation between medical facilities.

Evacuations can lead to their own chronic and acute stress, on top of the injuries and potential psychological trauma. 

I didn't even know Scientific American Blogs still existed. They do, they were just irrelevant and no one remembered until a few days ago. Given their recent foray into nonsense, it can be the next place where denier for hire Paul Thacker pretends to be a journalist.

Scientific American Blogs was the brainchild of blogging wunderkind Bora Zivkovic, who left Scienceblogs for PLOS, to build a blog network for them, and then when Scientific American wanted to retry blogging they recruited him.

Increased consumption of omega 3 fats is widely promoted because of a recent belief that it will protect against, or even reverse, conditions such as type 2 diabetes. 

Fads always start with a kernel of scientific truth, as happened with acai berries, chocolate, red wine, and whatever probiotic or yogurt is being for the microbiome sold this week. Omega 3 is a type of fat and small amounts are essential for good health and can be found in the food that we eat.

But a systematic review commissioned by the World Health Organization and published today in the British Medical Journal finds that omega 3 supplements offer no benefit.

Though an entire $2 billion industry has been built scaring people about the modern world (which has promoted a $35 billion supplement market and a $110 billion Organic industry) we're in a Golden Age.

Even the poorest people can afford food, what were once booms and busts of famine and plenty have now leveled off, poverty declines are ahead of U.N. goals, and even centralized energy in developing countries, which could help a billion people, is attainable if western states stop telling poor nations they can only get World Bank help if it's not coal, natural gas, or nuclear. 

And we can prevent cancer for the first time. 

Ben&Jerry's is not going to roll out ice cream derived from geneticaly modified cells in a lab any time soon - their buying demographic hates science (although their parent conglomerate Unilever loves it) - but the public wants it now.