A new paper states that Einstein still holds up "for now" but that Newton is wrong.

The reason the authors believe Einstein’s general theory of relativity is weak is because it cannot fully explain gravity inside a black hole - and though no one has experimented inside a black hole to get measured data they believe the theory must come first, which happened with Einstein but not with Newton.

Tillage. mixing and churning soil and crop residues like corn stalks, has been around for thousands of years. Even the earliest farmers knew that soil could become depleted and tillage could make the next crop more likely to be successful so we eventually developed a chisel plow for field cultivation, to turn over soil at the end of the growing season.

But not everyone could afford a plow and some just let old stalks break down naturally, a kind of top level composting. Then in the spring they planted new seeds. Some didn't till at all.

A new paper in the journal Early Human Development hopes to use the infant form of the Body Mass Index(BMI) to predict future heart disease.

BMI is famous by now and has been used by government guidance bodies since the 1980s. It was invented nearly 200 years ago but, like homeopathy from the same period, somehow remains dogma to a few. It's a simple math calculation that takes into account height and weight. If you want to calculate yours, multiply your weight by 703 and then divide that by your height squared - (weight x 703)/(height in inches x height in inches).(1)

That is with adults. You can't do it with growing kids. 

Could Lyme disease in the U.S. be the result of an accidental release from a secret bioweapons experiment? Could the military have specifically engineered the Lyme disease bacterium to be more insidious and destructive – and then let it somehow escape the lab and spread in nature?

Is this why 300,000 Americans are diagnosed annually with this potentially debilitating disease?

A new study in Psychiatry Research has concluded that psychiatric diagnoses are scientifically worthless as tools to identify discrete mental health disorders.

The study involved a detailed analysis of five key chapters of the latest edition of the widely used Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition: DSM-5, on 'schizophrenia', 'bipolar disorder', 'depressive disorders', 'anxiety disorders' and 'trauma-related disorders'.

Diagnostic manuals such as the DSM were created to provide a common diagnostic language for mental health professionals and attempt to provide a definitive list of mental health problems, including their symptoms.

While traveling around the Sea of Galilee, visiting Tiberias, Magdala, Capernaum and Kursia in 725 A.D., a Bavarian bishop named Willibald passed through a place called Bethsaida where he saw a church built over the house of the Apostles Peter and Andrew, two brothers who were numbered among the first disciples of Jesus.

The New Testament said they, along with Philip, came from the village of Bethsaida, which in the first century was located on the lakeshore and today is in the Buteiha Valley Nature Reserve. It recounted that Jesus cured a blind man there.

If you want to find a nexus of conspiracy theories about science (it's a vast corporate conspiracy among the anti-GMO, anti-vaccine and anti-nuclear crowd, and a deep state conspiracy among the chemtrails crowd) YouTube is a good way to go, shows a new study (open access.)

Last week saw the release of the rebooted The Lion King, an attempt to capitalize on the billion-dollar success of the 1994 original. With a star-studded cast, the reboot closely follows the plot of the first movie (spoilers to follow, obviously).

Mufasa, king of the lions (and of every other creature in his territory), raises his son Simba to follow in his footsteps. But Mufasa is murdered by his jealous brother Scar, and his young heir is chased into the desert. Years pass, and eventually Simba reclaims his rightful place as the ruler of Pride Rock.

Ethiopia has just planted 353 million trees in 12 hours. It is part of the national “green legacy” initiative to encourage all its citizens to plant 40 seedlings each for a total of 4 billion trees over this summer.

Here is one of the photos Amir Aman, MD tweeted during the day:

And another:

Dr Getahun Mekuria, their minister of technology and innovation tweeted estimates through the day:

China is currently targeting a 20% non fossil share by 2030, and there were reports that it is expected to target 35% of electricity from renewables by 2030 according to drafts for its next plan, the “Renewable Portfolio Standard”.