At the Biotech Literacy Project Boot Camp, held a week ago at the U.C. Davis World Food Center, I was on a journalism roundtable with Brooke Borel, Keith Kloor and Razib Khan, moderated by Professor Kevin Folta, and I was asked about the most important thing for scientists to keep in mind regarding increasing science acceptance.

It's always difficult to pick just one but given the nature of the assault on food science, 'don't engage in deficit thinking' was my response. Basically, don't assume the other person simply lacks the proper facts or that if things are framed properly it would change their minds. It probably will not, at least for the most vocal critics.

What if your doctor told you that your weight is somewhere between 100 and 400 lbs.? With any ordinary scale every patient can do better at home. Yet, one patient can't: the Milky Way. Even though today we peer deeper into space than ever before, our home galaxy's weight is still unknown to about a factor of four. Researchers at Columbia University's Astronomy Department have now developed a new method to give the Milky Way a more precise physical checkup.

A close-up of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko by NASA's ultraviolet instrument surprised scientists by revealing that electrons close to the comet's surface -- not photons from the Sun as had been believed -- cause the rapid breakup of water and carbon dioxide molecules spewing from the surface.

A new global study finds that, despite lower yields, a target market for whom cost is not really an object makes organic agriculture more profitable for farmers than conventional agriculture.

In the fickle, unpredictable system that is our climate, it looks like El Niño, which was already said to have came and gone with a whimper months ago by climate scientists, may finally be arriving.

When it happens, we may know by bunny breeding.

At times during the past 10,000 years, cottontails and hares surged when the El Niño weather pattern drenched the Pacific Coast with rain, according to an analysis of 3,463 bunny bones. The number of El Niños per century "correlates very strongly with the total rabbit population in Baja California, as well as relative abundance of the moisture-loving species of rabbits," says University of Utah anthropology doctoral student Isaac Hart.

A new study gives insight into the behavioral medications that medical caregivers sometimes prescribe for kids with Down syndrome.

The impact of scary TV on children's wellbeing has been overstated, according to a new paper. While research has shown that a small minority of children can have extreme reactions to a scary program, overall there is very little sign of increased anxiety, fear, sadness or sleep problems. 

An artificial intelligence system has for the first time reverse-engineered the regeneration mechanism of planaria, small worms that can regrow body parts. This is the first model of regeneration discovered by a non-human intelligence and the first comprehensive model of planarian regeneration, which had eluded human scientists for over 100 years. 

Mindfulness as a psychological aid is very much in fashion. Recent reports on the latest finding suggested that mindfulness-based cognitive therapy is as effective as anti-depressants in preventing the relapse of recurrent depression.

While the authors of the paper interpreted their results in a slightly less positive light, stating that (contrary to their hypothesis) mindfulness was no more effective than medication, the meaning inferred by many in the media was that mindfulness was superior to medication.

By Peter Gwynne, Inside Science – "Drive for show and putt for dough."

In the world of professional golf, this catchphrase means that a perfect drive down the middle of the fairway has little value if the golfer can't complete the hole by sinking a sinuous 10-foot putt into the cup.

As they prepare for the U.S. Open championship, starting on June 18 in Chambers Bay, Washington, players will devote at least as much practice time to reading the greens, pacing their putts, and maintaining a steady hand with what they call their "flat sticks" as they do to those 300-yard drives.