Two recent analyses by the CMS experiments stand out, in my opinion, for their suggestive results. They both produce evidence at the two-three sigmaish level of the signals they were after: this means that the probability of the observed data under the no-signal hypothesis is between a few percent and a one in a thousand, so nothing really unmistakable. But the origin of the observed effects are probably of opposite nature - one is a genuine signal that is slowly but surely sticking its head up as we improve our analysis techniques and collect more data, while the other is a fluctuation that we bumped into. 

The activist group Environment and Climate Change Canada has gotten political allies inside the government's Health Canada division to try and lobby for bans on decabromodiphenyl ethane - without having a replacement for a flame retardant used to keep home appliances, electronics, and electric wires and cables safe.

That is an unnecessary increase in risk, not to mention a high price increase for Canadians already in the midst of a supply chain crisis.

Since the Nobel prize for chemistry was awarded to biochemist Jennifer Doudna and microbiologist Emmanuelle Charpentier in 2020, for developing the gene-editing technique known as Crispr-Cas9, Crispr has enjoyed a lot of attention and interest from scientists. The technique has been touted as a possible source of new treatments for diseases caused by genetic mutations, such as muscular dystrophy, and congenital blindness.

"All The President's Men" inspired young people to rush to journalism while "Mad Men" caused enrollment in advertising courses to surge and "Top Gun led to more Navy recruits.

Film and television shapes young minds and marketers know it. A whole generation of people will believe a show like "The Offer" is a history of "The Godfather" film the same way some believe "Food Inc" is science; because it is on a screen. Yet trends have changed as fashions have. 'Stewardess' is out of the lexicon while 'Congressman' is still in.

A new study finds that hugging a romantic partner can prevent the acute stress response of female bodies.

Women who embrace their romantic partner prior to undergoing a stressful experience had lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol in saliva compared to women who did not embrace their partner. No effect was found for men.

Some papers have claimed that massages, embraces combined with hand-holding, and embraces combined with affectionate communication can reduce signs of stress in women but those usually do not include men nor any effects of a brief embrace.

In the 16th century, it was shown by Paracelsus that 'the dose makes the poison' - too much medicine or anything else could kill while too little did nothing. In the 21st century activists have sought to dispel that. They claim homeopathic effects from chemicals at safe doses, endocrine distuption and u-shaped curves, but science knows better.

The recent precise measurement of the W boson mass produced by the non-dead CDF collaboration last month continues to be at the focus of attention by the scientific community, for a good reason - if correct, the CDF measurement in and of itself would be the conclusive proof that our trust in the Standard Model of particle physics when producing predictions of particle phenomenology needs a significant overhaul. 

This was an opportunity for the public to give your feedback to NASA about their Mars sample return mission plans - can submit your comments to NASA here as a public comment.

This is for their draft environmental impact statement which they plan to submit later this year.

My comment is here

. Comment Submitted by Robert Walker

Comments were open to 11:59 May 15, ET, 2022. They got 170 comments (with some duplication). I

At the centere of our galaxy, the Milky Way, there exists what must be a black hole. But detecting it has been challenging because of the cosmic dust around it.

Now, for the first time, a group of radio antennas knows as the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration have unveiled the first image of the supermassive black hole four million times more massive than our Sun.

known as Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*, pronounced "sadge-ay-star") it obviously can't be seen, that is built into the black hole name, but it can be inferred thanks to a dark central region (called a “shadow”) surrounded by a bright ring-like structure. The new view captures light bent by the powerful gravity of the black hole.