If you watched "Wall-E" you likely laughed at the depiction of hugely obese people riding around in hover cars drinking Big Gulps - surely a science that could create the technology to generate an entire artificial world could solve how to drink Big Gulps without turning ban happy like California or New York.

Now that we had a hot summer, local weather effects are once again proof of global warming. The American mid-west had resisted BBC articles and journal press releases about how global global warming was and stayed about the same before finally doing its part and having a heat wave.

That anomalous summer has put climate change back at the top of the political agenda but despite that, no one is comfortable doing actual weather and climate forecasting.

It's very likely that whichever prostate cancer treatment you choose - prostatectomy surgery, hormone therapy, brachytherapy, external beam radiation, or HIFU (high intensity focused ultrasound) - you will see an impact on your sex life. Exactly how depends on which method you choose and your dedication to getting back in bed.

"Once patients are assured that they will have sex after prostate removal surgery, they can shift their focus to enjoying sex as soon as possible," encourages Dr. David Samadi, creator of the SMART (Samadi Modified Advanced Robotic Technique) robotic prostate removal surgery.

Scientists have tracked bumblebees to see how they select the optimal route to collect nectar from multiple flowers and return to their nest. They were able to use radar tracking to show how bumblebees discover flowers, learn their location and use trial and error to find the most efficient route between flowers over large distances. It's the classic traveling salesman problem but not theoretical. They're more efficient than UPS trucks, even without all those left-hand turns.

For the 5 people on the planet who are not 'aware' of breast cancer, Burj Al Arab, which bills itself as the world's most luxurious hotel, is launching the Pinking Burj Al Arab campaign to raise money and reach them. 

 The gem of the Pinking Burj Al Arab campaign is a exclusive one-of-a-kind 24-carat rose gold iPad created especially for the cause, with an engraved pink ribbon and the hotel's logo. Could that money have been better spent on research?  Hey, do you hate women with breast cancer or something?

The "pink" iPad will be waiting in Burj Al Arab's boutique for the person who will nominate the best price for the item on the hotel's Facebook page. The proceeds will go towards their Breast Cancer awareness initiatives.  

Thanks to science journalism that primarily exists to be cheerleaders and rehash IPCC press releases, the public thinks if we just banned carbon dioxide our climate issues would go away. 

I read two interesting commentaries on evolutionary theory recently. One was by philosopher John Dupré, the other by evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne. Actually, the latter was a commentary on the former, and it had a typical Coyne-style title (“Another philosopher proclaims a nonexistent ‘crisis’ in evolutionary biology”). I know both Jerry and John, and I respect them as scholars in their respective fields.

Sub-Saharan Africa has problems.  A cow in France makes twice as much money as the average human in Sub-Saharan Africa and the region is beset by problems that stem from post-colonial corruption and inclement conditions.

Researchers have found a new genetic mutation responsible for deafness and hearing loss associated with Usher syndrome type 1. Usher syndrome is a genetic defect that causes deafness, night-blindness and a loss of peripheral vision through the progressive degeneration of the retina. 

A global projection of the potential reduction in the maximum size of fish in a warmer and less-oxygenated ocean says that changes in ocean and climate systems could lead to smaller fish, according to fisheries experts at the University of British Columbia.

The researchers created a  computer model to analyze more than 600 species of fish from oceans around the world and found that the maximum body weight they can reach could decline by 14-20 per cent between years 2000 and 2050, with the tropics being one of the most impacted regions, if warming and oxygen reduction models are accurate.