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Hank CampbellRSS Feed of this column.

I founded Science 2.0® in 2006 and since then it has become the world's largest independent science communications site, with over 300,000,000 direct readers and reach approaching one billion. Read More »

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I generally didn't have much of an issue with the intent behind the High Quality Research Act.
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders knows that the The Food and Drug Administration will not require any special label on foods just because a competitor seeks to market its product differently.

And marketing is the only distinction between organic food and traditional food. It's a process and they don't require regular meat to have a big NON-KOSHER label on it either. Kosher food just puts a 'kosher' label on the package and has to obey truth-in-advertising laws.
Did you ever have breast milk or spinach? You might as well start shooting up heroin.

If dihydrogen monoxide doesn't scare you enough, food activists have been rehashing an old term - opiates. 
Dr. Daniel Freeman, professor of clinical psychology at Oxford, has good news if you believe women are more nuts than men: there is a 40% chance you are right.

We know that discussing biological differences between men and women is taboo - men and women are no different in any physical way, as former Harvard President Larry Summers will rush to agree these days. But what about in psychological ways?  

Calibration does not always mean fixing a device, it sometimes means adjusting to solve a problem.  In the early years of America, the famous Kentucky longrifles that conquered the frontier (and some British) had fixed sights. Since they couldn't be adjusted, frontiersmen - Kentucky was part of "The West" then - would adjust for wind, elevation and range by experience.  If their shot was hitting low and left, they aimed high and right. Inference helped them get a better result.

Fred Astaire is, of course, beyond compare. As a dancer, he had already set the bar for everyone and then he set it a lot higher when he appeared in 1951's "Royal Wedding" at age 52. Echoing a Voodoo shaman, he animated what most of us regard as inanimate and poked a little fun at younger competitor Gene Kelly in the process when he danced with a hat rack the way only a genius can.(1) 

But he blew minds when he danced on the ceiling in that same movie, to the tune "You're All The World To Me", written by "Brigadoon" lyricist Alan Jay Lerner.

Like all great illusions, it relies on our grounding in science. Gravity works, people don't dance on the ceiling. Audiences raved over it.