It used to be that allergies were somewhat rare but if you go to an allergist today, you are almost certain to be declared allergic, or at least sensitive, to something. How much of that is actual biological change versus how much is that the country that purchases 85% of the world's prescription medication loves to get medical diagnoses is unclear.

Now the European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology believes that nearly half of the population of the EU have allergies to something. A survey of Americans in 2020 estimated that approximately 30 percent of Americans of all ages have allergies. Since they are self-reported surveys rather than dianoses, what is unclear is how many of those are people claiming issues like gluten sensitivity.

I believe oceans of ink were spent, ever since pens were a thing, writing on the mentor-student relationship, its do's and don'ts, and the consequences of deviations from proper practice. And rightly so, as the balancing act required for a proper, effective teaching action is entirely non trivial. The fact that our didactical systems and academia are in constant evolution, that rules and courses formats change over time, and that as humans we tend to forget what has been learnt in the past (on good practice, I mean), require us to keep thinking about the topic, and continue to keep the discussion alive. 

I very much would like to write about the Nobel prize in physics here today, but I realize I cannot really pay a good service to the three winners, nor to my readers, on that topic. The reason is, quite bluntly, that I am not qualified to do that without harming my self-respect. Also, I never knew about the research of two of the winners. 

As for the third, I do know Giorgio Parisi's research in qualitative terms, and I happen to know him personally; well, at least we are Facebook friends, as maybe 500 of his contacts can also claim - plus, he once invited me to a symposium at the Accademia dei Lincei, of which he his vice-president. And I did write about his scientific accomplishments in the past here, on two occasions.

In the modern environmental era, activists are mostly among a political tribe that opposes activities like hunting but they should not be. Hunters, fishers, and others are terrific stewards of nature and a natural world humans are banned from experiencing is a natural world that loses funding. Activists should want people experiencing nature.

Hunters are terrific allies. A new estimate (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-98282-4) finds that hunting also reduces CO2 emissions.

And it could earn people over $180,000. Getting paid to hunt while saving the planet? It sounds wonderful. 

A certain demographic have long had concerns about vaccines causing autism, along with fears about GMOs and cellphones causing cancer.

That last one has been the least active. Rich people have always been able to afford organic food and to count on poor kids getting enough vaccines to create herd immunity for their special snowflakes, but cell phones are more challenging because they are individual - and getting a new iPhone was a status symbol. Due to their omnipresence, signals are everywhere, just like TV and radio and cosmic rays before them, so most elites give up and recognize that unless Jimmy Choo makes a hat lined with tinfoil, they are stuck.

In the fall of 2003, Starbucks tested a new latte in two cities and autumn hasn't been the same since. The pumpkin spice craze was born. 

How did it all happen? We can thank free market economics. The company already had Christmas locked up with cups and flavors, like Peppermint Mocha and Eggnog latte, and wanted to do the same for Halloween. Or Thanksgiving. Whatever period lasts as long as Christmas seems to, they wanted to make money and the way to do that was to come up with something new, or at least new for their customers. 

Some cinnamon, nutmeg, and clove later and they had...pumpkin? Yep, except for some whipped cream on top there was no pumpkin in at all.

To most people, food production, home ownership, and energy don't have much in common, but in the hands of 'science is a corporate conspiracy' theorist Dave Goulson, humans are ruining the planet. The common cultural cancer underpinning of our problem, he believes, is capitalism.

Rachel Carson believed misuse of DDT was harming birds, Goulson claims our very existence is. And his solemn false dichotomy choice to prevent it is Draconian. Start culling the human herd or create a level of social authoritarianism that even John Holdren, Paul Ehrlich, and Anne Ehrlich didn't advocate in their book "Ecoscience." And they embraced eugenics.(1)