A San Francisco activist group claims major candy and snack manufacturers have deceived consumers by promising to clean up their palm oil supply chains, but these promises have been delayed, revised or watered down.

Palm Oil is a common vegetable oil, Nutella famously said their product won't be popular without it, and it has replaced partially hydrogenated oils in many uses due to higher yields than plants like rapeseed and sunflower plus stability at high temperature. But the popularity has come at a price. 

Though there are often conversations about the health of larger minority groups such as African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans, smaller groups are a real worry for an increasingly overburdened government health care system. 

When we search the cosmos for evidence we are not the first advanced life form, we look for things that we could share in common. This anthropomorphism is common in culture, in everything from science studies to science-fiction. And it may not be wrong.

Assuming we have any extra-terrestrial neighbors, far less popular is the idea that we will be the advanced civilization new ones are terrified about being invaded by, they will likely have undergone natural selection just like we did. In the video game Spore, almost everyone evolved creatures that were purple and had huge eyes, despite trying to do things randomly, and that may happen on other planets also.

Rich people are more likely to shop at Whole Foods, buy supplements, vote for a particular political party and...racially discriminate against minorities? That last part is according to a new sociology paper which will force some inconvenient questions about race and money in America.

Though it is commonly believed that wealth leads to better health and less discrimination, wealthier African- and Latino-Americans report more racial discrimination than poor ones, according to survey results. Meanwhile, as whites became more wealthy they report improved health.

Though genetically engineering food using science remains controversial in some circles, with concerns about genetically modified corn syrup in candy and claims that CRISPR can somehow be harmful whereas mutagenesis-derived foods can be labeled organic, progress marches on.

We're on our way to 9 million people and existing agriculture could easily handle it...if great agricultural land were evenly distributed. But is isn't evenly distributed, which is why the US and Europe can have robust markets for food created using an organic-certification process. Yield does not matter, just profit margins do, when land grows food easily.

Traumatic brain injuries in baseball and softball are down, but they were not really all that high to begin with, and that may be why there is poor compliance overall with helmet use and return-to-play guidelines following concerns about a concussion.

Today at CERN a workshop started on the physics of the High-Luminosity and High-Energy phases of Large Hadron Collider operations. This is a three-days event meant at preparing the ground for the decision on which, among several possible scenarios that have been pictured for the future of particle physics in Europe, will be the one on which the European Community will invest in the next few decades. The so-called "European Strategy for particle physics" will be decided in a couple of years, but getting the hard data on which to base that crucial decision is today's job. 

Some context

Surveys of students in two Canadian provinces have led scholars to warn that e-cigarettes, also called vaping, are causing cigarette uptake in high school students.

This will be a surprise to American and British public health officials, who know cigarette smoking has plummeted and even among those who get hooked, vaping is considered a viable harm reduction and smoking cessation alternative.

Though men account for the overwhelming majority of suicides and have increasingly sought help for depression, the clinical community has yet to figure out how to better help them. 

A new pilot study from Australia shows the extent of the problem. Men surveyed reported that instead of receiving tailored treatment regimens more suited toward them, the clinical community seems to take a one-size-fits-all-genders unstructured talk therapy approach. Few gave their clients goals to work towards or outlined skills they could gain to deal with their depression, which was the opposite of the action-oriented, functional treatment the men were most often seeking. 

A cannabinoid neuropathic treatment that provided pain relief in rats for a period of eleven days after the oral administration of a single dose has received a patent and signed an intellectual property license with GB Sciences, Inc. 

Next up, they will work on formulations based on polymer nanoparticles with active ingredients developed by GB Sciences for the treatment of chronic pain in hopes it will be suitable for humans.