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Despite Lacking Science, FDA Made 10,000 Vaping Products Illegal. Now It Wants More Armed Agents To Enforce It

It will be up to science history to try and gain insight into the reasons the federal government...

Amanita Muscaria Mushrooms Are An Alternative Medicine Fad More Toxic Than Fentanyl

Online supplement marketers prey on consumers by exploiting the margins of President Bill Clinton's...

Is It Safe To Buy Food At A Farmers Market?

There is populist rhetoric about Buy Local but what few in the public realize is that the definition...

COVID-19 Made Stereotyping Of Asians Uncool - Mostly To Gain Political Traction

Only a few years ago, American colleges used a "secret sauce" of race in admissions that voided...

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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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Happy 1400th Birthday, Anania Shirakatsi

Happy 1400th Birthday, Anania Shirakatsi

Apr 20 2011 | comment(s)

Anania Shirakatsi (Ananias of Shirak) was an Armenian scientist and mathematician, famous there for authoring two important works, Geography and Cosmography and the Calendar, which tackled astronomy, meteorology, and geography.

He is considered the father of natural sciences in Armenia and his books, while readable to a lay audience, were also technical enough to be used as textbooks for centuries.   
U.S. Greenhouse Gases Drop To 1990s Levels - And Why That's Bad

U.S. Greenhouse Gases Drop To 1990s Levels - And Why That's Bad

Apr 19 2011 | comment(s)

When European politicians picked a target date for greenhouse gas emissions in the Kyoto accord, American environmentalists applauded despite the motivation - economic harm for the US with little to Europe, since Germany simply had to scuttle Soviet-era factories they acquired in the re-merger with East Germany and France switched to more nuclear power in order to try and meet their CO2 targets.
One More Thing To Blame Your Mother For - Her Diet During Pregnancy May Have Made You Obese

One More Thing To Blame Your Mother For - Her Diet During Pregnancy May Have Made You Obese

Apr 18 2011 | comment(s)

In the 'we need to make sure all people can abdicate any responsibility for their actions' department, a new study makes obesity exculpatory by determining that a mother's nutrition during pregnancy influences the child's risk of obesity many years later.

Whew.  And here you were worried too many pizzas would influence the risk of obesity.

The downside to epigenetics studies is that they run the risk of turning legitimate aspects of biology into the DNA equivalent of evolutionary psychology by making bizarre correlation-causation claims.
Save Our Skiing - Protect Snow In Bubble Wrap, Says Climatologist

Save Our Skiing - Protect Snow In Bubble Wrap, Says Climatologist

Apr 18 2011 | comment(s)

You may not know this, but the fourth most popular sport in Scotland, behind head-butting people and kicking them when they are on the ground, golf and caber-tossing, is skiing.

Skiing is so popular in Scotland a University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI) climatologist believes they need to cover snow there in bubble wrap to make the skiing last longer - because there is so little sunshine.  And all the rain makes snow melt faster.

Aside: Seriously, why does anyone live there again?   There is a reason my ancestors left 150 years ago.
Epigenetics: Is Stress Carried In Your DNA?

Epigenetics: Is Stress Carried In Your DNA?

Apr 07 2011 | comment(s)

People may object to my calling for Ph.D. programs in Theoretical Phys Ed and Quantum Paleontology, but humor is not far off the mark.  Evolutionary psychology, for example, is practically self-ridiculing.   

But I was somewhat intrigued by recent research I saw about stress being a genetic issue and the person behind it called it theoretical evolutionary biology.    This concerns me on a few levels; first, evolutionary biology has detractors by a fringe religious minority obsessed with what Darwin did not know 150 years ago so slapping the word 'theoretical' in front of evolutionary biology will make people think 'made up', like people do about a lot of the more obscure physics ideas, which is more hypothetical than theoretical.
Feed People Or Preserve The Environment?

Feed People Or Preserve The Environment?

Apr 06 2011 | comment(s)

If you read this site, it won't surprise you to see me write that some people feel like the environment is more important than their fellow man.  I am not saying they all want to kill their fellow man, though some advocate forced birth control, while others just want us to "live small" - but by that they don't mean lower your carbon footprint they mean literally make your footprint smaller by genetically forcing people to be shorter.