Traces of 2,500-year-old chocolate on a plate in the Yucatan peninsula may mean chocolate was a condiment or sauce with solid food in pre-Hispanic cultures rather than as a beverage reserved for the elite.

Or it could have spilled. 

The discovery announced by Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History also suggests that there may be ancient roots for traditional dishes eaten in today's Mexico, such as mole, the chocolate-based sauce often served with meats. The traces of chemical substances considered "markers" for chocolate were found on fragments of plates uncovered at the Paso del Macho archaeological site in Yucatan in 2001 and recently analyzed.

"Total Recall" may be getting creamed by critics but fans of VR headsets are firmly behind the Oculus Rift.

The Oculus Rift is a head-mounted display with a few features that make it ideal for gamers;  impressive head-tracking capabilities; stereoscopic 3D rendering; a wide field of view - 110 degrees, compared to around 40 degrees for most headsets —so you don’t see the screen. And multiple inputs (DVI/HDMI and USB). When wearing the Oculus, each eye gets close and personal with a 640x800 LCD screen for a total resolution of 1,280x800 in 720p.

The poles in the climate change debate always insist the other side is either stupid or motivated by funding. It's likely true in some cases but lots of policy issues have worked out even though highly paid people were against it.  It can't be a constructive thing to throw a blanket over 50% of the society who will all need to get behind a policy decision, though.

Kinesio tape, developed by Dr. Kenzo Kase decades ago, claims to provide muscle and joint support without restricting movement.  And it's so popular that Kinesio's product website advocates a particular taping technique which practitioners need to learn on a special training course. 4000 in Britain are qualified in this 'art' of Kinesiotaping, but the big question is, does it really work? 

If necessity is the mother of invention, then surely poor farmers will invent more than billion-dollar corporations or highly paid academics.

Or so believes Prof. Anil Gupta, who has spent two decades traveling rural India and searching for for its hidden innovations. So far, Gupta says he and his aides have uncovered more than 25,000 inventions.

Some examples:

 A bicycle-mounted crop sprayer

An electric paintbrush that never needs to be dipped in a paint can.

A rice cleaner designed by a 13-year-old after he watched his mother wearily picking pebbles from yet another sack of grain.

A washing machine mounted on the back of a scooter and powered by its engine

The downside to an MP3 culture is that its pretty solitary. If I want to make a mix for the wife, I have to buy an .mp3 player and just give it to her - or I have to go retro and burn a CD. It's better than the 1990s, when people made cassette mix tapes - but they certainly showed you care. It was no trivial thing.  You can bet if I told my wife today I made a mix tape for another woman, she would be going to get her pistol.

Makerbot has brought them back - but with a modern twist.  You can make it in your house on a 3-D printer.  But it won't work in a cassette player, it is still basically a USB drive.

Can you be sure no one will get cancer if they only use cancer-free products?

Of course not, but anti-science kooks don't understand how cancer risk factors work and so Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.) has proposed H.R. 6191, which would allow companies to apply to the government to allow their products to bear a "cancer-free" label. . It says approved labels would state, "This product does not contain known or likely carcinogens that increase your risk of cancer."

Why would anyone on a science site bother to mention that a scientist has endorsed a Democrat?  It's only news when a scientist does not endorse a Democrat - well, if anyone in science media were to report it.

In 2008 76 Nobel laureates endorsed Senator Obama and, of course, blasted Bush. What has Obama done differently?  Not much, he simply replaced conservative anti-science positions with progressive ones.  Did he have science reports edited to match his ideology? Check. Do we still limit federal funding for hESC research?  Check.  Subsidize the president's pet energy projects?  Check.

Cuba is adored by communists - maybe they like 1950s decor. 

No, they like the socialized medicine. Specifically, they like to claim that a lower infant mortality rate means Cuban health care is better than in America. It doesn't take long to see through that. America does not abort at the first sign of trouble, like Cuba does, and so America has more babies that don't live very long.

Abortion is not the issue in this case, except to show that abortion rates are not a bellweather of health care. What is a bellweather of health care is the health of the country overall. Cuba's cholera epidemic shows that its health care system, which they present with pride, is not all that terrific.