Fake Banner
Fortified By Silk: Nutrients And Pesticides Get A New Targeted Approach

Greenpeace is in a longstanding campaign to oppose a public domain Golden Rice created by scientists...

Safe Water May Be Killing You

The drinking water treatment process is designed to remove harmful pathogens that are prevalent...

'Here Is The Letter That Has Destroyed My Universe' And 4 More Astrophysics Revolutions

On this day, April 25, in 1929, the world learned how astronomer Edwin Hubble had discovered that...

Big Organic Continues To Oppose Food That Uses No Pesticides

I get pitches for stories every day and sometimes I want to see if the world that opposes science...

User picture.
picture for picture for Fred Phillipspicture for Robert H Olleypicture for Tommaso Dorigopicture for Hontas Farmerpicture for Ilias Tyrovolas
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 »

 Blogroll
No Goldilocks, Webb Telescope Didn't Discover Life On K2-18b

No Goldilocks, Webb Telescope Didn't Discover Life On K2-18b

Apr 17 2025 | comment(s)

K2-18b, detected in 2015, orbits a star 124 light years away. Though it is over 800% as large as Earth, its space in the habitable zone of its star, like where we are, means the possibiliy that liquid water could exist on its surface.

The science community calls it The Goldilocks Zone. Like the character in the children's story who wanted porridge neither too hot nor too cold, a Goldilocks planet that might have life we could recognize would need to be in a similar narrow band.
Climate Change Is Causing More Snowflakes

Climate Change Is Causing More Snowflakes

Apr 16 2025 | comment(s)

In a bizarre experiment, scholars declared that survivors of one of California's annual wildfires instead suffered PTSD due to climate change.

It was a small group, 27 who had been near a fire in 2018, 21 who had seen smoke, and 27 in the control group. Participants had EEG brain scans taken while they engaged in behavior which could provide monetary rewards. The scholars also subjectively scored their Win-Stay behavior, basically how often they sought the highest long-term rewards.
The Government Wants More Coal To Get Energy Costs Down - Is That Bad For The Air?

The Government Wants More Coal To Get Energy Costs Down - Is That Bad For The Air?

Apr 08 2025 | comment(s)

President Donald Trump is about to sign an executive order restarting coal leasing on federal lands while classifying coal as a critical mineral. 

Social media critics, and academics being quoted in media, are declaring the end of the world due to American pollution. Are they correct?
How Proposition 65 Made Products More Expensive Even Outside California

How Proposition 65 Made Products More Expensive Even Outside California

Apr 07 2025 | comment(s)

When the Proposition 65 referendum, the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986, was being debated, concerns about abuse and high cost were dismissed by the lawyers behind it with the assurance that lawyers wouldn't decide what products would be deemed carcinogens, the state would abdicate that to France's International Agency for Research on Cancer.
French Chicks Impacted Most: Activists Set Their Sights On Banning Tebuconazole

French Chicks Impacted Most: Activists Set Their Sights On Banning Tebuconazole

Apr 04 2025 | comment(s)

A French team conducted experiments using sparrow chicks and write in Environmental Research that their tests led to slower growth, with females impacted most. 

They targeted the common fungicide tebuconazole, popular on food crops because it can stop everything from necrotic ring spot to blights, mildews, and smuts. They compare it to the popular weedkiller glyphosate, which they claim has caused a decline in birds in Europe, despite scientists showing the top reason for bird population changes in various areas has been land use changes and not the use of pesticides lacking an Organic™ label.
With Fluoride Ban, Utah Sets Out To Be The California Of The Right Wing

With Fluoride Ban, Utah Sets Out To Be The California Of The Right Wing

Mar 28 2025 | comment(s)

When asked about an effort to ban fluoride in drinking water, Utah Governor Spencer Cox said, "It’s not a bill I care that much about” but he still signed it, despite the health benefits being well-established and claims of harm being the kind of slimy epidemiology that claims "risk" of BPA, weedkillers, PFAS, and too many products to count.

Utah wants to be the California of the right-wing; ban things because it matches the politics of their voters and science will be marginalized.(1)