The world really stinks today. We have run out of aluminum, copper, gold, lead, mercury, natural gas, oil, silver, tin, tungsten, and zinc.

Oh wait, no we haven't.

But if you are an anti-science pessimistic hippie of the 1960s (or today, though their descendants only forecast doom for poor people, they will still have their iPads) you can be forgiven for thinking all that was going to have happened by now. Because a whole lot of people were once saying we were doomed in lots of ways. And millions still do it today but, like conservatives and Reagan, they try to validate their modern beliefs by invoking icons of the past. To wit:

If you support less efficient agriculture, organic food or conventional food without science optimization, crop yields will not be enough to feed the population of 2050. It's the population bomb scare of the 1950s and '60s reborn a century later.

While American agriculture has dematerialized in the last few decades - we produce far more food on far less land - Europe and other countries have not kept pace. Due to that, crop yields worldwide won't increase quickly enough to support estimated global needs in 2050, according to the claims of a paper in PLoS ONE. 

In defense of Pharmacy and Catholic Pharmacists was written during the 2012 U.S. presidential campaign. This was not written for publication but for my own piece of mind, to justify my own career.

At that time pharmacy, was under attack, recently the attack has been renewed. I have been a Catholic all my life and a pharmacists for over forty years. The use of birth control medications has, until recently, been a private and professional medical decision. Holy-mother-church may not have approved of contraception but she did respect the doctor patient relationship.

If anyone still felt CNN was credible before their Boston Bomber coverage two months ago, it was only because they hadn't read their science and health coverage.

Sure, all mainstream media loves its Miracle Vegetable of the Week stories, alternated with their Scary Chemical of the Week stories, but CNN is positively Huffington Post-ish in their willingness to engage in advocacy. And in New York City, there is always something to advocate.

Our internal circadian clock regulates daily life processes and is synchronized by external cues, the Zeitgeber, with the main cue being the light-dark cycle.

But the light-dark cycle effect is largely reduced in extreme habitats such as in the Arctic during the polar summer. Using a radiotelemetry system a team of researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology have now found, in four bird species in Alaska, different daily activity patterns ranging from strictly rhythmic to completely arrhythmic. These differences are attributed to the species' mating systems and behaviors. Their study shows that activity patterns can change according to social and environmental factors, which suggests a remarkable plasticity in the avian circadian system.

Glycoproteins are sugar-protein hybrid molecules that the protective mucus that lines our lungs and stomach and are also part of the fluid that lubricates our joints, the synovial fluid, and cover all our cells, with the sugar parts, the glycans, sticking out like a tiny forest of antennae.

 Researchers at ETH Zurich and Empa have also identified a surprising effect that glycans have on the water molecules that surround them.

Air pollution is related to forest decline and also appears to attack the protecting wax on tree leaves and needles, say scientists who have now discovered a responsible mechanism: particulate matter salt compounds that become deliquescent because of humidity and form a wick-like structure that removes water from leaves and promotes dehydration. 
Wax helps to protect leaves and needles from water loss.

In the fall of 2012, the European Medicines Agency approved the modified adeno-associated virus AAV-LPL S447X as the first ever gene therapy for clinical use in the Western world.

AAV-LPL S447X was developed for the treatment of a rare inherited metabolic disease called lipoprotein lipase deficiency which affects approximately 1-2 out of 1,000,000 people. Though incredibly rare, the disease causes severe, life-threatening inflammations of the pancreas. Afflicted individuals carry a defect in the gene coding for the lipoprotein lipase enzyme which is necessary for breakdown of fatty acids. AAV-LPLS447X shall be used as a viral vector to deliver an intact gene copy to affected cells.

In August of 2011, astronomers witnessed the dazzling appearance of the closest and brightest Type Ia supernova since Type Ia's were established as the "standard candles" for measuring the expansion of the universe.

The visual of SN 2011fe was caught by the Palomar Transient Factory less than 12 hours after it exploded in the Pinwheel Galaxy in the Big Dipper. Because it was to see through binoculars, 2011fe was soon dubbed the Backyard Supernova. Major astronomical studies from the ground and from space followed close on its heels, recording its luminosity and colors as it rapidly brightened and then slowly faded away. 

Since February 2013, China experienced an outbreak of the novel H7N9 avian flu, causing 131 cases of infection, and a death toll of 39. This particular H7N9 strain is considered to be one of the most worrisome pathogens since the H5N1 pandemic in 1997; a reputation based on the virus’ ability to spread easily across species and to infect humans. According to the May 23, 2013 Science paper published by the Joint Influenza Research Centre (State Key Laboratory of Emerging Infectious Diseases, Shantou PR, China), Drs. Y. Guan and Y. Shu reported that H7N9 infects the upper respiratory tract of ferrets and pigs, and spreads via direct contact, suggesting that the rapid surge of H7N9 infections are likely caused by human’s direct contact with infected birds.