Declaring War On Frappuccino And Diet Soda Is Not A Valid Government Nutrition Guideline

You're not a Frank-people because you eat Doritos, despite what people writing lifestyle/diet...

Physician Burnout Is Common - And Informal Rationing Is One Big Cause

If the government promises every home a great gardener, most people recognize they won't get a...

Cancel Culture Prevents The Best Researchers From Engaging With The Food Industry

After Chris Wild took over the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a UN-funded...

Vermont Should Stop Showing Leadership In Overruling Scientists On Farming

Despite Vermont's Agricultural Innovation Board (AIB), created to inform regulatory recommendations...

Hank Campbell

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 »

Users of new browsers

Jun 22 2008 | comment(s)

There are lots and lots of ways to reach the site but, for contributors, basically two ways to write blogs and articles (well, 2.5, but one is quite rare.) There are significant new releases of various browsers out there and those always bring some problems. Firefox 3 we anticipate issues because, really, Firefox 2.X never worked all that great, so we're still testing that on various configurations (primarily XP and Vista - everything else works okay.) Sometimes you just have to wait until they fix the problems they introduce, else a small group like ours ends up fixing and re-fixing new things that are introduced anew in a month. Most of the problems will only occur in one article entry configuration so it should have little impact.

Finally, Women's Underwear Gets Its Own Study

Jun 20 2008 | comment(s)

If you watch popular shows like “Undress the Nation” or Gok Wan’s “How to Look Good Naked” - what, you don't watch them? That's because that guy behind American Idol hasn't brought them here yet, and in these times of strife we need shows about women in underwear - but if you live in England and watch them you may have noticed something a researcher also noticed; when women wear the right underwear, they are more confident about their bodies and about their overall appearance which, to men, is the same thing.

Who knew underwear was so important? Not me. All I know is there is 'dating' underwear - bras and panties match - and then 'dating a long time' underwear. You do the math.

Homeopathy: Putting Your Money Where Your Science Is ...

Jun 17 2008 | comment(s)

A few hundred years ago, the Germans played a practical joke on the rest of the world; they invented a medical field based on the idea that you could cure a disease by using something that caused similar symptoms.

It is called homeopathy and some people still haven't caught on to the joke. Why do I say joke? It's medicine that relies on the "energetic imprint" of substances to provoke the symptoms they already have - they're often so diluted that not even a molecule of the original substance remains - and the more diluted, the more powerful the cure, they say.

Reminder: Garth Sundem's Foolproof Equations On The Science Channel Tonight At 6PM

Jun 15 2008 | comment(s)

Garth Sundem and his 'Foolproof Equations For The Perfect Life' will be on the Science Channel tonight at 6PM.

If it's hosted somewhere online (legally) we'll post a link to it afterward.

Sugary Drinks For Kids Exonerated In Study Of Child Obesity, Says Sugary Drink Organization

Jun 14 2008 | comment(s)

As a science site, one thing we understand is physics and how it can be exculpatory - no snowflake in an avalance ever has to take the blame.

The American Beverage Association(ABA) knows this too. They are the trade association representing the broad spectrum of companies that manufacture and distribute non-alcoholic beverages in the United States - that means soda and juice but also water and things that are basically good for you. Dr. Maureen Storey is their senior vice president for science policy and former director of the University of Maryland's Center for Food, Nutrition, and Agriculture Policy.

The ABA recognizes there is a lot of talk about childhood obesity and the link to sugary drinks. Since no snowflake in an avalanche takes the blame, that means obesity should be Doritos or it can be bread or it can be bad parents who buy their kids sugary drinks but the one thing that cannot definitively be linked to obesity are sugary drinks or the advertising departments at sugary drink companies. To prove this, Storey and colleagues did a meta-analysis (see notes) of 12 recent studies and published it in the June issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

How The Bubonic Plague Made Europe Great

Jun 09 2008 | comment(s)

The bubonic plague, often called 'Black Death' after its most famous outbreak in the 14th century, still exists today and, like then, is caused by bacteria called Yersinia pestis that are found mainly in rodents and the fleas that feed on them. When other animals or humans contract this bacteria it is primarily from those infected rodent or flea bites.

Bubonic plague affects the lymph nodes resulting in swollen lymph glands (called buboes, thus the name bubonic), fever, chills and flu-like symptoms but in addition tiny broken blood vessels called petechiae can result in black spots on the skin and those black spots earned it the nickname that stuck when it reached England in 1348 AD.