A lot of media articles a decade ago worried about risk to honeybees from crop protection products while science should have been worried more about the viruses they carry that put plants at risk of disease.

A recent study sequenced the genetic material present on the pollen grains of 24 plant species across the U.S., the group found signs of many of the plant viruses already shown to travel on pollen—along with six new species, three new variants of known species and the incomplete traces of more than 200 more that have never before been identified.

Several international airlines recently canceled flights into certain US airports over concerns the rollout of 5G mobile communication technology could interfere with some planes’ equipment.

After warnings about the potential problem from aviation bosses and the Federal Aviation Administration, telecommunications companies AT&T and Verizon delayed activating some 5G masts around US airports.

In a pilot study, a fat injection procedure improved symptoms of plantar fasciitis in patients, and the authors of the paper hope it will get a company or NGO interested in a clinical trial. 

Dark matter is one of the most fascinating concepts in physics and is thought to account for 85% of the universe’s matter. They have been so talked about that they have taken on a semblance of fact, even though at this stage their presence is purely hypothetical.

Epidemiology pushes out a lot of dumb papers. Not as many as social psychology per capita but in volume a whole lot more. It's easy to see why the public believes horse de-wormer cures COVID-19, it was in an epidemiology paper, and that methodology was just as valid as a paper this week 'linking' olive oil to longer life. 

Do be careful, masks, distancing, get vaccinated, ventilation, avoid crowded places, test, trace, isolate, quarantine. #DOITALL - BE CAREFUL

I am posting this after Boris Johnson announced - to much celebration - that the UK will end its mask mandate again because cases of Omicron are falling.

This is not about the economy. Wearing masks has zero economic impact - who is going to be impacted economically by you wearing a mask in public transport or in a shop? It seems to be more about a concept of freedom that some have, that we are more free if we don't use masks to protect others from a sometimes deadly disease. How is that freedom?

All coronaviruses, and certainly SARS-CoV-2, have become famous as a respiratory virus, but acute COVID-19 infection has been linked to many different organ systems, including the brain, resulting in a wide range of neurological complications with long-lasting impacts.

 According to a new paper by Serena Spudich and Avindra Nath, cases of neurological “Long Covid” symptoms may result from the emergence and persistence of these mechanisms and the neurological symptoms that accompany COVID-19.

A new study finds that oral stimuli during the chewing of food can help increase energy expenditure of body and prevent obesity.

Chew your food well is ancient wisdom.  In the past, the belief was perhaps because there was less food anyway. Chewing it longer gave the brain and stomach time to catch up with each other. Many people have reported 'their eyes are bigger than their stomach' and feeling hungry until they were very full. Others said it made digestion easier.

In 2008, Senator Barack Obama was opposed to gay marriage and worried vaccines might cause autism. A few years later he said neither of those things.

Did Democrats flip to being pro-science and the party followed and then the President reflected those polls? Perhaps he changed from stating party platforms based on voter beliefs to his own once he was elected, then he changed the party, and then the party led its members, finds results in a new paper on party and personal political polarization. 

Magnesium is important in the immune system’s ability to tackle pathogens and even cancer cells but that doesn't mean you should run to a supplement huckster or naturopath. It is magnesium in blood that is needed for T cells to operate efficiently and that means science and medicine, not woo.

Some studies, though only in mice so strictly observational, found that cancerous growths spread faster when the animals received a low-magnesium diet – and also that their defense against flu viruses was also impaired. Lacking a plausible biological mechanism for exactly how this mineral affects the immune system leaves such studies in the interesting but not clinically relevant camp.