Muons are very special particles. They are charged particles that obey the same physical laws and interaction phenomenology of electrons, but their 207 times heavier mass (105 MeV, versus the half MeV of electrons) makes them behave in an entirely different fashion.

For one thing, muons are not stable. As they weigh more than electrons, they may transform the excess weight into energy, undergoing a disintegration (muon decay) which produces an electron and two neutrinos. And since everything that is not prohibited is compulsory in the subnuclear world, this process happens with a half time of 2 microseconds.

Researchers are on the hunt for a COVID-19 vaccine to eliminate the need for mask wearing and current limits on interpersonal gatherings (except protests), but a new model says it still may not help the world exit a lingering economic depression.

One problem with studies that create an outcome and then find data to support it is they don't have real world application. International Agency for Research on Cancer epidemiologists, for example, have been caught creating a desired warning label for chemicals and then hand-picking studies to support that goal - the opposite of what scientists do. Harvard TS Chan School of Public Health is frequently criticized for data dredging, where they take questionnaires with so many foods and outcomes they are sure to be able to link something and claim it has statistical power.

Yet in the real world, weedkillers don't cause cancer, neonicotinoids don't kill bees, and there are no "miracle vegetables." 

The number one cause of traffic jams in larger U.S. cities is high occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes, which were created by government to force people into carpooling to prevent traffic jams. It did not work, nor did pretending single-use electric cars were carpools, because blocking off 25 percent of the road for 6 perfect of cars makes no sense and people did not change jobs to be able to work in the same factory in the same town, the way it was possible 60 years ago.

Epidemiologists assured us S-shaped curves would be the case for COVID-19, but many countries had decreases of infection numbers "social distancing" and a linear rise of infection curves after the first peak.

A new paper offers an explanation for the linear growth of the infection curve.

Traditional epidemiological models required so much fine-tuning of parameters that they became scientifically meaningless. Linear growth, with an R number at 1, in the epidemiology models that were being used would have to mean reducing contacts by the same exact and constant percentage. That was never going to happen outside the world of statistical hope.

There are disparities in many fields of academia; physics has fewer women, for example, while psychology has fewer men. Some contend that is due to discomfort in not having equal representation.

But fewer members of the same sex is assuaged if there is more money, and that is the case for female academic surgeons. They are outnumbered by men but get more NIH funding than men do. They get nearly 50 percent more R01 grants.

What do anti-vaccine believers have in common? A similar distrust in other settled science like GMOs and nuclear power, for one. And they all are more likely to share similar voting patterns, which means that even though only 20 percent of Americans hold negative views of vaccines, they have an outsized impact on policy. Because most of them are on the same political side.

Historically, lung cancer incidence rates have been higher in Black people than White people among men of all ages and among younger women, likely reflecting historically higher smoking rates in Black adults.

That is no longer the case, and in women the trend has even reversed.

That is a big win for science and health nonprofit groups like ours, which have warned about the perils of smoking for our entire existence.

Between 6 and 8 million people worldwide suffer from inflammatory bowel disease, a group of chronic intestinal disorders that can cause belly pain, urgent and frequent bowel movements, bloody stools and weight loss. New research suggests that a malfunctioning member of the patient’s own immune system called a killer T cell may be one of the culprits. This discovery may provide a new target for IBD medicines.

Only 16 percent of Americans believe that Russia leapfrogged American scientists and successfully created a viable COVID-19 in a recent survey. They may be the same 16 percent who believe Russian propaganda sites like Russia Today and Sputnik when it comes to food: that Russia became the world leader in "organic" food with a press release saying they were; and energy, where Russia funds environmental groups to undermine natural gas so they can control Europe using a strategic resource while Germany can claim they have a larger percent of "renewable" energy domestically than would be possible if their energy was generated locally.