Science Education & Policy

Fat Tax: Because Body Shaming Obese People Is Not Enough

At this time of year it is common to see food drives for the less fortunate- and then we see reports saying that low-income people are disproportionately obese and can't control themselves and need to be taxed more heavily in order to eat less. How c ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 21 2015 - 3:06pm

Vegan Just Mayo Gets Approval By Redefining "Just"

The Code of Federal Regulations, which govern ‘standards of identity’, was created in 1938 specifically to prevent companies from selling fake food using established names and duping customers into thinking they got one thing while spending money on anothe ...

Blog Post - Hank Campbell - Dec 21 2015 - 1:01pm

Tarmac Rules Mean More Airline Passenger Delays And Cancellations

In the rush to solve mainstream media stories about airline passengers sitting on the place on the tarmac for hours and hours, the U.S. Department of Transportation's 2010 Tarmac Delay Rule glossed over concerns that it would lead to more delays and ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 8 2016 - 2:27pm

Dry January: Abstinence Campaigns Usually Don't Work

Could alcohol abstinence campaigns like Dry January may do more harm than good? The Dry January campaign estimates that last year over 2 million people cut down their drinking for January, but popular doesn't necessarily mean effective, and the claim ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 14 2016 - 3:01am

Guilt Goes A Long Way: Show Privileged Students They're Not Special To Create Social Justice

"Privileged" has become one of those words thrown at everyone who has been successful; it's generally a bad idea because it tells people nothing they do matters, social classes and wealth are fixed, and that cultural determinism rules it al ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 14 2016 - 11:53am

Consumer Confusion: How Process Labels Are Used To Misinform

In the early days of food labeling and regulations, it was just about mandating honesty. If you go to buy mayonnaise, you shouldn’t have to wonder if it is mayonnaise, the government reasoned, so they passed a law in 1938 requiring honesty about ingredien ...

Article - Hank Campbell - Jan 14 2016 - 1:08pm

Young People After Obamacare: Mental Health Costs Way Up

The reason to force young people to buy health insurance under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was because they are an easy profit center. They won't use much in the early years but they will when they are old, when a new generation of young people wil ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 19 2016 - 2:30pm

China Is Beginning To Catch Up To The US In Science And Technology Leadership

In the 1990s, the Clinton administration sharply reduced the number of foreign work visas- the reason was protectionism, the belief that foreign workers were taking American jobs. Things didn't work out as planned. Jobs instead went overseas and sinc ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 19 2016 - 3:11pm

Group Learning Makes Children Better Decision Makers

Children who participate in collaborative group work to learn about significant social issues become better decision-makers than their peers who learn the same curriculum through teacher-led discussions, a new study finds. More than 760 fifth-grade studen ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 25 2016 - 10:01am

Uninsured Texans Say Cost Of Health Insurance Is Still Too High

When you don't have much money, you have to prioritize, and that is a key issue that the wealthy elites who set off on insurance reform forgot to factor in. Massachusetts, which the Federal government claimed was a model for its Affordable Care Act, ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 28 2016 - 5:13pm