A new paper says scientists can make their work more appealing to the public by making it more personal. I learned of it through a paid university PIO but few scientists will see the irony in that.

I certainly agree with the point. I have been part of two communities, science and the military, that in defiance of public perception are filled with hilarious people who have great stories. But when the recorder comes on, it's often like talking to someone in marketing who hasn't been cleared for media by their boss. They clam up or give canned answers.

You might know blue whales are an endangered species while pandas are not. Yet there are 25,000 blue whales and only 2,000 pandas.  There are 100,000 sea otters yet they are still classified as endangered. Who drew that line between endangered and not endangered? And why are there suddenly so many more endangered species? A new tiny species might be discovered and someone is immediately petitioning government to declare it endangered, even though there may be lots of them and western ecologists just don't know it.

Sildenafil (viagra) is used to treat erectile dysfunction and is safe, with known side effects, but a few people have experienced light sensitivity and color vision impairment at the highest recommended dose.

That doesn't mean men who need it should stop taking it, the psychological consequences of erectile dysfunction are of more concern than side effects, which can include headache and blurred vision that disappear quickly. These occur because sildenafil was originally developed as a treatment for high blood pressure, and it also dilates blood vessels and relaxes smooth muscle in the penis, making it easier to achieve and maintain an erection. 

A recent study identified the coronavirus responsible for the pneumonia epidemic in the Hubei province of China and finds the bat-origin virus is related to other known pathogenic coronaviruses.

The 2019 coronavirus (CoV) causes fatal pneumonia that has claimed over 1,300 lives, with more than 52,000 confirmed cases of infection by mid-February, along with various impacts to the lives of the scholars who revealed the virus against the wishes of the Chinese government. 

A recent paper finds that vaccine disinformation is common on social media while a few years ago I had employees watch food documentaries on Netflix and write about their impression and the results in both cases are startling for people who don't realize the extent of the problem. 

Those with conspiracy theories about the modern world can now gain a worldwide audience, using social media and free markets.

If you were long concerned about Russians exploiting American media for their gain, you turned out to be right. But before they were meddling in American elections, they were meddling in American science. The Obama administration Director of National Intelligence warned that Russians were using offshore "donor advised" funds to launder dark money anonymous donations to activists opposing natural gas - Russia's top export. And they did the same thing with food, their second largest export.

A new study shows there is a reason USA Today is the most popular newspaper in America - they won't specify "laparoscopy" when "minimally invasive surgery" gets the point across to more people.

While America leads the world in adult science literacy, that is still with under 30 percent of the population. To really reach the public, we need to use language that won't be a turn-off. Jargon may make us feel smarter, but it makes people who lack the vocabulary feel dumber, and that is a violation of smart journalism.

We know the left and right side of our brain are specialized for cognitive abilities like language (left hemisphere) and the right hand. That functional lateralization is reflected by morphological asymmetry too. The left and right hemispheres differ subtly in brain anatomy, distribution of nerve cells, connectivity and even neurochemistry.

It can be seen on endocasts. Most humans have a combination of a more projecting left occipital lobe (located in the back of the brain) with a more projecting right frontal lobe.

A U.C. Riverside environmentalist is sounding the alarm about your commute. 

Professor David Volz and colleagues hand-picked 90 commuter students who were given silicone wristbands to wear for five days. The goal was to find organophosphate esters on the wristbands, because some papers link those to harm in zebrafish and some epidemiologists will link anything to anything in humans.  They found one, TDCIPP - chlorinated tris - at higher levels and speculate that it is oozing out of car seat foam and into our bodies.

Just correlation, no testing

Despite what you've heard, birds of a feather often don't flock together. In the real world, multiple bird species are often flying and feeding together. In the Amazon, 50 species may travel as a unit.

But are birds in these mixed flocks cooperating with one another or competing?

A new study suggests both. Just like a K-pop band such as BTS, Blackpink, or Red Velvet.