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Hank CampbellRSS Feed of this column.

I founded Science 2.0® in 2006 and since then it has become the world's largest independent science communications site, with over 300,000,000 direct readers and reach approaching one billion. Read More »

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For the dwindling minority that still smokes and don't feel oppressed enough, here's something new to worry about;  even if you choose to smoke outside of your house, thinking that you're keeping your kids away from second-hand smoke, you're still exposing them to toxins and potentially cognitive deficits, say researchers in the January issue of Pediatrics.  Did they do a clinical study?   No, they did a survey and found people who agree.  That is why I use the term jumping the shark.  Anti-smoking fundamentalists may have done it.
Go ahead and admit it, you would have been stumped if the answer wasn't in the title, right?   There isn't much a Democrat President-elect, an old white Republican war veteran and an insane actor could all have in common, but they do, according to the group Sense About Science which seeks to promote scientific accuracy.

It's scientific illiteracy.

Their Celebrities and Science Review 2008 pulls out the choicest bits of non-supported science data and holds them up for all to ridicule.  So let's go to it:

Barack Obama:

What happened to tolerance and diversity?  

The Raelian movement, a UFO religion who believe we were  created by aliens, were going to promote world peace by having tons and tons of sex but they had to cancel it due to pressure.  I mean literally tons of sex; they said they had 250 participants.   And the people who show up for orgies like that are not exactly going to be supermodels, if you know what I mean.  So, if you were planning on attending International Orgasm Day in Tel Aviv this year, you need to make other plans.

To the anonymous prankster who sent me the article above and then included this NASA glacier graphic right after it, you have my eternal respect.
George Bush, he of the horned skull and demonic scowl, mortal enemy of all science, with the funding increases during his tenure being just a clever headfake so he could ruin science for everyone under the age of 30, has done something no one (well, no one who thinks Republicans are all evil and hate science) thought he would do; he gave a Presidential Early Career Award for Science and Engineering (PECASE) to Kevin Eggan, PhD, principal faculty member at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute.
Coturnix at ScienceBlogs.com had an interesting post yesterday on part of the reason they (Science Blogs)  do things the way they do them and the way he says more science writers should - shock value and, at the end of it all, maybe a shot at a greater science democracy.  
Probably tomorrow I am going to do an advanced 'primer' on all the features we have here because I know most people don't even read the FAQ - and that's okay, you shouldn't have to read a FAQ to read an article or leave a comment, but for more exotic stuff and experienced users/contributors, it wouldn't hurt to have a short document that highlights the big stuff that goes beyond the FAQ.

For now, I will just highlight the big (non bug-related) things we did this week.

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