How did small bands of nomadic Mongol horsemen unite to conquer much of the world within a span of decades? A whole book could be written on that, and it probably will be, if a new "Indiana Jones" movie gets made using Genghis Khan.

The reasons are numerous and involve many different things but climate change is a less-considered one. Yet researchers studying the rings of ancient trees in mountainous central Mongolia say his conquest was likely due to nice weather. 

Aggressive marketing by raw milk proponents has included claims that raw milk is easier to stomach for for lactose-intolerant people but a pilot study from the Stanford University School of Medicine shows no meaningful difference in digestibility between raw and pasteurized milk.

Alan Turing was long famous in computer science and then became notable due to his sexuality and its controversy in England. Less well known is his work in biology and chemistry.

During World War II, Turing helped cracked the German Enigma Code, which made it possible to decipher enemy transmissions.  After the war, he was convicted of homosexuality — a criminal offense in England — and sentenced to chemical castration.  Shortly after his trial, and before he killed himself in 1954, he published a biology paper, "The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis."

The worldwide love affair with subsidized green energy is fading fast but that shouldn't be taken to mean the science is not solid. 

In America, new power plants are difficult to get built and as a result the cost of electricity has gone up while the supply has gone down. Yet the government seems to still want to fast track alternative energy and regulations that allow small biomass plants may also help solve a grid problem that solar and wind energy only make worse.

Small biomass power plants that can fit on a farm and can be built at relatively low cost may be better than giant wind and solar plants that are opposed by environmental groups.

Exaggerated health claims are not convincing the public, and "medical" marijuana has become something of a running cultural joke, but there is an upside to more pot - less cocaine use. Meth too, according to advocates at the RAND Drug Policy Research Center. 

Or at least a group is correlating the two. Methamphetamine and cocaine consumption increased during the first half of the last decade and then dropped in the latter half. Marijuana use increased significantly during that time, according to a new report.

The most popular test for ovarian cancer reports false-positives in 94 of 100 diagnosed cases but researchers from the University of Copenhagen and University College London have developed a method able to halve that. 

When fully developed, the new test will spare a significant number of women from unnecessary worry and further testing. Furthermore, global health care providers stand to save substantial sums – just by including a test on a certain sugar molecule in tandem with the currently prevailing diagnostic test.

Dr. Anne Glover, the European Union's first chief scientific adviser, said when she got the job that her first priority was to stop letting environmental pressure groups suppress science. Modern Europe fears what is new, is consumed with a naturalistic fallacy, and in addition engages in persecution of scientists (such as when they don't predict an earthquake) not seen in hundreds of years.

It's going to be a crippling problem. Plant pests and diseases have always evolved and picking an arbitrary point in time and declaring that science development must stop there will bring devastating results.

How can you find a gay person?

It's easy, just look on television. After the successes of "Will  &  Grace" and "Modern Family", networks have been putting gay characters everywhere they can. When the new comedy series "Whitney" flagged in the ratings, they even turned a married straight may gay because executives apparently think people want to watch gay characters on sit-coms rather than funny ones. The cancellation of "Sean Saves the World" shows that isn't true.

Outside network television gimmicks and stereotypes, can you really tell if someone is gay? The phenomenon called "gaydar" is colloquially confirmed, course, but those are in obvious cases. Can someone tell if the other person does not want it to be known they are gay?