When the political debate about abortion was the rage there was concern by some that it was modern day eugenics. Federal abortions would overwhelmingly impact minorities, they said, while others argued that abortions controlled by states meant only wealthy people got them.

A few years ago, the Obama administration disclosed what must have been painful - the Russians were using donor-advised funds to send "dark money" donations to American environmental groups who were being "useful idiots" for them - the term Communists use for western liberals von Mises described in 1947 as "confused and misguided sympathizers."

On Slate, Rich Juzwiak recounts a situation where a man with a persistent depressive disorder who had sex with a transgender guy said the transgender man worried about sexual transference of gut microbes and transmittal of depression thereof.

Well, it's on YouTube and that has authority to a lot of people, and it involves gut microbes and claims of studies in mice, both of which are so abused by (a) unethical researchers and (b) hucksters selling fancy supplements it's hard for the public to know what to trust.

"Numerous studies have indisputably demonstrated that particulate inhalation results in health problems far beyond the lungs," write the authors of an article in Nature Communications saying they can detect small micron particulate matter in a few placentae and therefore, what, that birth defects are probably happening?

The weather has always been political, writes Jeva Lange in The Week. The ability to anticipate and react to weather-related events separate leaders from has-beens.

But only very recently has the uncertainty of weather prediction also started to be exploited for political gain. And both sides do it. Warmer than 1980? Blame climate change. Fewer hurricanes? Blame climate change. And opponents of climate science engage in the same cherry-picking.

On December 21st of 2018, President Trump signed the First Step Act of 2018, which made significant changes to drug sentencing laws.

Now Michigan is going to replace drug dealers in prisons with minors who have flavored vaping products. Under Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's recent executive order, anyone found with four or more flavored vaping products is “presumed to possess said items with the intent to sell”, punishable by imprisonment of six months and a fine per item. 

In 2010, physicists reported an exceptionally precise measurement of the size of the proton, the positively charged building block of atomic nuclei, using special hydrogen atoms in which the electron that normally orbits the proton was replaced by a muon, a particle that’s identical to the electron but 207 times heavier.

They found the muon-orbited protons to be 0.84 femtometers in radius — 4% smaller than those in regular hydrogen, according to the average of more than two dozen earlier measurements. Which would mean protons really shrink in the presence of muons due to unknown physical interactions between protons and muons.

Hundreds of papers speculated about the possibilities.

On this date in 1939 Marvel Comics #1 was on newsstands, featuring Human Torch and Namor the Sub-Mariner (he was Aquaman before Aquaman.) 

So why does the cover say October? Comic books did what magazines did (and do), and instead of a publication date they put a pull-date on the cover, which would be the date the issue was to be removed and returned to make way for the new issue on newsstands. There was no direct sales then, like dedicated comic book stores are now, you went to the rack in a store or on the street and purchased them. So on that Tuesday in 1939 while Germany was about to wrap up its takeover of Poland, and the USSR was about to take its cut, this comic appeared.

I recently watched the History Channel show "Alone" and for all but one season(1) it is just what it sounds like. They take 10 people and throw them into a difficult situation where they have to survive alone.