March For Science, an offshoot of Women's March, gave itself a positive name in 2017 but its motivations were not about science at all. It was about social authoritarianism and promoting a political agenda. And at the top of that agenda was being anti-Trump in much the same way the same groups eight and 12 and 16 years earlier were ant-Bush.

But things may be different in 2018. A lot of the more culturally militant people have quit or been (ironically) marginalized because the science community sees the real opportunity for gain - if they can apply pressure while also being part of a solution.

A lot less of this stuff from 2017

CERN has equipped itself with an inter-experimental working group on Machine Learning since a couple of years. Besides organizing monthly meetings and other activities fostering the dissemination of knowledge and active research on the topic, the group holds a yearly meeting at CERN where along with interesting presentations on advances and summaries, there are tutorials to teach participants the use of the fast-growing arsenal of tools that any machine-learning enthusiast these days should master.

Though less than a dozen school children will be slain by a gun in any given year, American society is mobilized with marches and media against firearms. Meanwhile, on average 55,000 Americans will die from the flu, which has a vaccine. In states like California, anti-vaccine sentiment ran so high on the coast that the state had to pass a law forcing parents to comply or not have their kids enrolled. Some schools in Marin county had fewer than 30 percent of children vaccinated. Philosophical exemptions just by families in the wealthiest parts of California exceeded the number of religious exemptions nationwide - by 1000 percent.

Pelleh Farms of Swan Lake, New York has recalled its Pasteurized Whole Organic Milk Non-Homogenized products due to improper pasteurization.

At least it was almost pasteurized. In the demographic that thinks organic food is good, vaccines are bad, and science stopped at 1860, raw milk is on trend. They intentionally go without pasteurization in the belief that it contains more nutrients than safe milk.

Proper pasteurization heats milk to 161 degrees Fahrenheit to effectively eliminate all pathogenic bacteria, such as Listeria and Salmonella.  Raw milk chooses to let such bacteria remain, which is why pasteurization is credited with saving hundreds of millions of children since it became commonplace.

When the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention drastically lowered the 'blood sugar' level, the HbA1C test, to 5.7 percent for a potential precursor to disease labeled "prediabetes" the rest of the world jeered. In China, that would mean 500 million people worried they have a disease. In America, it would mean 80 million more potential patients. When it came to data, less than 5 percent of those with that A1C level would ever go on to develop type 2 diabetes...in their entire lives.

A few months ago JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association, published a "Letter" noting that glyphosate was detected in urine. Nothing odd about that, in modern times we can detect anything in anything, but their media bait worked.

These days the use of machine learning is exploding, as problems which can be solved more effectively with it are ubiquitous, and the construction of deep neural networks or similar advanced tools is at reach of sixth graders.  So it is not surprising to see theoretical physicists joining the fun. If you think that the work of a particle theorist is too abstract to benefit from ML applications, you better think again. 

A geriatric semi-captive rhino died in Kenya recently. “Sudan”, a 45-year-old northern white rhino was put to sleep as vets decided, after months of ill health, that his condition had deteriorated to the point where the levels of pain and quality of life were unacceptable.

From a conservation perspective, this does not sound like a big deal. Sudan was one old rhino. He was well past breeding age. So why did his death make headlines?

Given the political demographic of the webzine Alternet and its anti-science mentality, it's not a huge surprise that its contributors are in common cause with the Russians and others who are merchants of doubt about American science and medicine.

What is shocking is that Alternet displays them so prominently. 

A recent analysis links sudden loss of wealth in middle or old age with a 50 percent higher risk of dying than those who do not have such loss. The effect can last for two decades, and whether participants are very wealthy or have only modest savings made no difference.

The paper is in the Journal of the American Medical Association, and they have gotten increasingly epidemiology focused and less scientific as the decade has progressed, so some skepticism is in order.  And it is justified, although corporate journalism claims have repeated the press release without reading the study itself.