If you listen to political pundits in Virginia and nationwide, House Bill 207 is a covert effort to hinder evolution education. (1) 

The bill never mentions evolution, it instead "encourages students to explore scientific questions, learn about scientific evidence, develop critical thinking skills, and respond appropriately and respectfully to differences of opinion about scientific controversies in science classes" which sounds lovely. Who is against critical thinking and respect for diverse opinions?

The bill sponsored by Richard "Dickie" Bell got a lot of attention from science media, who believe it is aimed at evolution.

Alchemy, which most people have at least heard of, along the lines of 'the quest to turn lead into gold', is getting rehabilitated. In one paper, anyway.

Alchemy, like chemistry, had 'chem' at its core. Chem derives from Khem ('black land'), which was the name for what we call Egypt, due to the dark alluvial soil provided by the flooding Nile each year. Egypt was well known to Greeks and Romans but it wasn't until the 8th century that Arab Muslims, having conquered it in the previous century, re-introduced the science from their new state to Europe, a state which they called Al-Khem. This science believed that metals were composed of sulfur and mercury. Gold was the perfect metal and a Philosopher's Stone could transmute baser metals into it.

In the early part of the 20th century, after we had entered the Age of Flight, a strange phenomenon in Arabia was sighted. 

Air travel had become more common and thus so did air delivery. British pilots flying from Cairo to Baghdad reported seeing ruins that no one had ever noticed before.

If you care about what is in your food, you have no greater sympathetic intellect than me.

But if you are an anti-science activist, you may not understand the distinction between what is in your food and what it simply is - and there we part company. A genetic modification (GMO) is your food, for example, it is no different than any other food from a health perspective. Cataloging the numerous ways agriculture has genetically engineered food for as long as food has been grown is outside the scope of this piece, but GMOs don't bother me and that science shouldn't bother you either. (1)