The New York City Department of Education wants to remove words that  might upset special interests from standardized tests. Which special interests?  Apparently all of them, if you look at the list, even special interests no one knew existed.

Krafla, in the north of Iceland, is a caldera ten kilometers wide. It is basically a geological cauldron, created when the core of a volcano collapsed in the distant past. The crater Víti (it means “Hell” in Icelandic) is inside Krafla.
 
In 1724 this crater erupted but now scientists want to use the awesome power of Hell for good; so they have drilled a two-kilometre deep well into the crater to see if they can put a geothermal plant there.   A geothermal plant in Hell?  Who has the last laugh now, Satan?

If the government can make you buy something, why can't it make you buy anything?  You may one day need health care so if they can make you buy health insurance now, why can't they make you buy broccoli, since you will need food? If all people do not buy cars, cars may become more expensive for those who do, so should the government make everyone buy a car?

“Could you define the market — everybody has to buy food sooner or later, so you define the market as food, therefore, everybody is in the market; therefore, you can make people buy broccoli,” Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said during arguments for health care reform called  the Affordable Care Act, colloquially called ObamaCare.

Last night, off the coast of Virginia, NASA launched five small rockets in five minutes as part of the ATREX (Anomalous Transport Rocket Experiment), to test the winds of the upper atmosphere. The rockets flew up to a height of about 100 km (60 miles) and released a chemical that was blown by those winds, forming an amazing, milky, ghostly scene:

A lower appeals court ruling allowing human genes to be patented has been overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, which sends the case back down for a continuation of the battle between those who believe that genes carrying the secrets of life should not be exploited for commercial gain and companies who argue that a patent must be the reward for years of expensive research that moves science forward.

The ruling again overturns patents belonging to Myriad Genetics Inc. of Salt Lake City on two genes linked to increased risk of breast and ovarian cancer. Myriad's BRACAnalysis test looks for mutations on the breast cancer predisposition gene, or BRCA.  Now they must go back for a rehearing and the impact could be substantial.

Paul Callaghan, a top New Zealand scientist who gained international recognition for his work in molecular physics, has died after a long battle with bowel cancer. He was 64.

In a time of increasing desire for nationalized funding of science, Callaghan, best known for his work with magnetic resonance, argued in favor of commercializing science. He was able to make science accessible to regular New Zealanders by explaining it in a straightforward and entertaining way, and that he was able to use radio, books and public lectures to promote his view that the country could use science to become a wealthier and better place.

What trans fatty acids were to 2007 and global warming was to 2006 and cigarette smoking was to...well, every year since 1960...fracking was to 2011.  That is, to say, the blame-all for everything, even without any science basis. Third hand smoke causes cancer believers, I mean you.

Sure, there are lots of earthquakes in California, and it has no fracking, but that does not prevent anyone from contending earthquakes are caused by fracking, along with the poles flipping or any other nonsense related to fracking we all read last year.

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, which owns Albert Einstein's papers, is pulling never-before seen items from its climate-controlled safe, photographing them in high resolution and posting them on the Internet.

Since 2003, 900 manuscript images have been posted online but a grant from the Polonsky Foundation UK, which previously helped digitize Isaac Newton’s papers, is going to make all 80,000 items available.

Want to read his love letters?  See a handwritten explanation of his theory of relativity and E=MC^2? His thoughts on fellow Jews even before Hitler rose to power?  It's all there. They also dispel another urban legend - that he did poorly in school - by publishing his grades.

While other states find creative ways to perhaps lessen abortions, notably by requiring a waiting period, it is no surprise that California wants to find ways to do more of them. That’s not a shock and it isn’t bad. Yes, California is kooky and anti-business and overwhelmingly progressive but in a diverse country, someone is going to be the most at those things so it might as well be California.

But if you know anything about medicine, you have to wonder why a midwife is somehow qualified to perform abortions when the whole point of making abortions a federal right was that botched abortions risked live.