It may seem strange to have a segment of the population, once confined to wealthy elites on the coasts but now growing nationwide, which believe that a particular process for food is not only healthier, but materially, culturally and ethically important. Yet the ultra-conservatives who make up the organic food customers, corporations, trade groups and lobbyists are not a modern invention. The engine was going to ruin agriculture too, and resistance to modern science and technology goes back at least 7,000 years.

Then, as now, the difference was that staying in the past would be 'better' for health. 

WASHINGTON --Although survival rates for people who suffer cardiac arrest outside a hospital are extremely low in most places, emergency physicians propose three interventions to improve survival rates and functional outcomes in any community and urge additional federal funding for cardiac resuscitation research in an editorial published online last Wednesday in Annals of Emergency Medicine ("IOM Says Times to Act to Improve Cardiac Arrest Survival ... Here's How").

A new study into magma ascent by geoscientists at the University of Liverpool has found that temperature may be more important than pressure in generating gas bubbles which trigger explosive volcanic eruptions.

In a paper published in Nature, researchers at the University's School of Environmental Sciences showed that as magma ascends in volcanic conduits, it heats up which can melt its crystal cargo and force the formation of bubbles. Importantly, they also showed that more bubbles are formed by heating than through decompression, which had been previously thought.

Biologists at the universities of York and Exeter have published new research which shows that an ancient symbiosis is founded entirely on exploitation, not mutual benefit.

The researchers concluded that a single-celled protozoa called Paramecium bursaria benefits from exploiting a green algae which lives inside it, providing its host with sugar and oxygen from photosynthesis.

Scientists have been debating for decades whether symbioses, like the Paramecium-Chlorella association, are based on mutual benefit or exploitation.

The common belief among academics was that both the protozoa and algae benefit.

No matter how much force is applied (within reason, no hammer of Thor stuff) you can't separate two interleaved phone books by pulling on their spines.

A new experiment shows it is even possible to suspend a car from them.

Using a model that reproduces the traction and friction forces involved, researchers at the Laboratoire de Physique des Solides (CNRS/Université Paris-Sud), Laboratoire Gulliver (CNRS/ESPCI ParisTech), Laboratoire de Génie des Procédés Papetiers (CNRS/Grenoble INP) and McMaster University in Canada have shown that when the spines of the interleaved phonebooks are pulled on vertically, part of the vertical force is converted into a horizontal force that presses on the sheets. The pages then remain stuck together due to friction. 

Wikipedia may be wildly inaccurate but at least it isn't dangerous. For really dangerous advice, the assumption has been to go on Internet health forums. 

Faint praise, but a new analysis suggests that medical advice given on Internet health forums may be of better quality than people tend to assume. They focused on three popular online discussion forum websites - reddit, mumsnet and Patient.

As a follow-up of yesterday's post on the very opportune Pomeranchuk prize given to Stan Brodsky, I would like to report here on a funny anecdote Stan related to me today. The anecdote is interesting to all of us who believe the world of physics research is fully trans-national - well, it is, but there is apparently some more work to do to improve the situation further.

I was quite happy to hear today that Stan Brodsky, a professor of particle physics and astrophysics at Stanford University, has received together with Victor Fadin the 2015 Pomeranchuk Prize from the Russian Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics (ITEP) of Moscow. Stan is a great guy and his contributions to QCD  are of wide range. 

COLLEGE STATION - Two Texas A&M University scientists highlighted the conservation benefits of ecotourism worldwide and said a recent research review citing the dangers of ecotourism to wildlife is premature and problematic.

Dr. Lee Fitzgerald, a conservation biologist, and Dr. Amanda Stronza, an anthropologist, published a critique of a recent review in the scientific journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution that proposed tourism may increase the vulnerability of wildlife to predators.

"There have been some claims that have drawn media attention, saying that nature tourism and ecotourism can hurt wildlife and can even make wildlife more vulnerable to predators and poaching," Fitzgerald said.

In the rush to solve mainstream media stories about airline passengers sitting on the place on the tarmac for hours and hours, the U.S. Department of Transportation's 2010 Tarmac Delay Rule glossed over concerns that it would lead to more delays and cancellations - exactly what has happened.

As a result, it takes most air passengers far more time to reach their destination for all pasangers than ever occurred for a few during lengthy tarmac delays, according to a study in Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice.