Category: Science
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Stink Bugs Could Add Cilantro Flavor to Red Wine
There are two kinds of people in the world: Those who eat bugs knowingly and those who eat bugs unknowingly. Oh yes, you eat bugs. Even vegans eat bugs. Read the rest at Live Science.
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Cancer Fear-Mongering Has Got to Stop
Imagine what a typical American might do for breakfast: Fry a few slices of bacon, slather Nutella on a piece of toast, and pour a hot cup of coffee while checking e-mail on a smartphone. If we are to believe everything we read in the news, then that rather common daily ritual could cause you…
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Ignore Anti-Vaccine Hysteria, Mr. Trump
The environmental activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a vaccine skeptic, told reporters Tuesday in the lobby of Trump Tower that the president-elect has asked him to lead a commission “to make sure we have scientific integrity in the vaccine process for efficacy and safety effects.” Mr. Kennedy also suggested that Donald Trump “has some doubts…
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Junk Science Is No Way to Win a Jackpot
A jury in St. Louis awarded a woman over $70 million last month because her lawyers convinced a jury that talcum (baby) powder caused her ovarian cancer. This is the third jackpot verdict issued by a jury in that city against Johnson & Johnson. Since sharks are smelling blood in the water, surely more lawsuits…
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Replace Annual Physicals with Real-Time Biomarker Monitoring
The annual physical exam is under fire. Increasingly, physicians believe that the yearly ritual of having our bodies poked and prodded is completely useless, save for the fraction of patients who have a chronic illness or predisposition to disease. Worse, the annual physical is estimated to cost our healthcare system approximately $8 billion for arguably…
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Nature’s Cruellest One-Night Stand: Sexual Cannibalism in Spiders
ANIMAL mating can be a cruel and unusual process. Male bedbugs inseminate females by piercing their bellies and depositing sperm inside their paramours’ body cavities. Male chimpanzees and lions kill the suckling infants of females before mating with them, as this brings those females more rapidly into oestrus. Male dolphins routinely engage in rape. Nor…
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Patent Judges Should Be Scientists, Too
Patents are the lifeblood of biotechnology, the force that motivates companies to develop innovative medical treatments and bring them to market. The trouble is that these patents must be enforced in a court system that isn’t set up to adjudicate highly technical matters—resulting in rulings that seem arbitrary or even scientifically suspect. Read the rest…
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Hot Water Causes Cancer? Don’t Believe It
If nanny state critics want a fine example of regulation gone wild, they should look to the World Health Organization. The group’s International Agency for Research on Cancer has given us a reason to fire up our espresso machines by declaring that coffee does not cause cancer. But don’t celebrate too hard. The IARC also…
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Consensus Is Part of the Scientific Method
I like to imagine the scientific method as resembling the solar system. The planets, traveling in perfect orbits, represent the pillars of the scientific method: Observations, hypotheses, predictions/experiments, and continuous refinements. What holds all of this together — the inward tug of gravity in this analogy — is consensus.
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To Your Health: Is Wine Good for You or Is It Not?
FEW things arouse such warm adulation and sharp denunciation as alcohol. It is beloved by some and despised by others, and its consumption is governed by legal and religious rules. Wine is central to Christian rites but is widely considered by Muslims to be forbidden by the Quran. It is also the subject of debate…