A Neptunian planet named NGTS-4b has been found in what should be a 'Neptunian Desert' using the Next-Generation Transit Survey (NGTS) observing facility, designed to search for transiting planets on bright stars. NGTS-4b is so small other ground surveys wouldn't have spotted it.

But small is relative. Though NGTS-4b is 20% smaller than Neptune, that is about 3 times the size of Earth, and 20 times our Earth in mass. It has been nicknamed the 'Forbidden' planet by researchers and is hotter than Mercury at 1,000 degrees Celsius. It orbits around the star in only 1.3 days - the equivalent of Earth's orbit around the sun of one year. 

Palm oil is being blamed for a lot but two academic conservationists note that those who ask to boycott all palm oil due to its contribution to deforestation should also consider boycotting coffee, chocolate and coconut if they wish to be consistent.

Are you against or really against palm oil? 

Ask anyone who has followed any environmental news related to palm oil if they are for or against it and they will most likely say 'Against.' They'll mention destroyed orangutan habitats and rainforests disappearing.

Evolution will happen, in medicines like antibiotics, and in crop protection like herbicides. Though some groups may continue to use older, less effective products such as organic copper sulfate, evidence-based agriculture works to create new products that do less environmental damage, such as neonicotinoids.

Were dinosaurs green? You'd think so going by pop culture imagery but there is no way to know if they were green or grey or something else.

Have you read this week a claim by the Harvard School of Public Health that Food Z is linked to cancer or from our U.S. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) claims Chemical X is linked to Harm Y?

It's technically true, though in high-profile cases like with the International Agency for Research on Cancer in France, what they leave out is that to create their statistical hazard, they use studies with up up to 10,000 times the normal dose. To create hazard, they torture data but because they were able to get a p-value>.05 they declare it statistically significant.

Eating sensibly is an important part of a healthy lifestyle but for some people this preoccupation with healthy eating can become physically and socially impairing. The condition, called Orthorexia Nervosa, is a patholofical obsession with "clean eating" and a new study finds it's more common among those who have a history of an eating disorder, obsessive-compulsive traits, dieting, poor body image, and an irrational drive for thinness.