Though plant burgers like Beyond and Impossible have surged in popularity, they are still alternative versions of the real thing. Science has been consistently pushing toward real meat, but grown in a lab, which should defuse activist claims about the meat industry without forcing people to settle for substitutes.

The challenges are doing so at a reasonable cost and having it feel like real meat. 

Snus, a smokeless tobacco popular in Sweden, has led to a dramatic reduction in smoking-related diseases compared to the rest of Europe. But though it has been legal for sale in the U.S. since 2015, it was not legal to claim it is less harmful than cigarettes. 

After analyzing decades of evidence, FDA has agreed that these products are safer than cigarettes and has granted its first-ever modified risk orders to eight of their smokeless tobacco products.

Fresh off poisoning thousands by introducing tainted, illegal additives into vaping devices (including dangerous synthetic marijuana, which just resulted in a conviction), the marijuana supplement industry (cannabidiol, CBD) is under scrutiny again.

This time it is Rooted Apothecary LLC, of Naples, Florida, for illegally selling unapproved products containing cannabidiol with unsubstantiated claims that the products treat teething pain and ear aches in infants, autism, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), as well as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease, among other conditions or diseases.

In India, farming is being held back by the efforts of activists like philosopher Vandana Shiva, Ph.D., who charge $40,000 per speech to tell Western audiences that more science in their country is bad. 

Experts argue just the opposite, it is instead activism holding India back that has made farmers less able to to compete in a global market. 

There is a war on opioids and legitimate pain patients have been caught in the stigma of recreational abuse. High-profile class action lawsuits against drug manufacturers are going to create an "icy chill" for pain medication just as they ran antibiotics out of the country.

A new paper finds that instead of leading to more honest replies, presumably because people don't think about the response, time pressure questions actually increase the likelihood of socially desirable answers over honest ones.

There’s a longstanding belief in the field of psychology that limiting the time subjects have to respond to questions will result in more honest answers. Certainly, many of us who have participated in personality tests have heard the directive to “say the first thing that comes to mind.”  However, a recent study demonstrates that the quickest answer — especially if it is not the most socially desirable — still may not be the most truthful one.