I live in California but my pre-Baby Boomer mother is still a Florida girl, ensconced in a nice house courtesy of my brother, with terrific neighbors who care a lot about her and kind people…

2020 started out being a weird and devastating way to end the decade yet we naively thought those Australian wildfires were as bad as it could get. Now people outside that country barely remember…

In November of 2019 The Atlantic asked "experts" what they would change if they could go back in time. The experts had titles like "mythographer" - no scientists invited - so it's no surprise only…

For the past 11 years I have blogged for Science2.0 (formerly Scientific Blogging), and I have considered this site my true personal web page, too - the articles I have published here for over a…

Defund the police or even abolish the police is a politically ignorant statement especially because when asked they who say it describe extensive reforms.  Those words mean no money, and no…

Most public restrooms are grungy in the best of times. Now, we have the coronavirus risk to contend with, too. There are lots of risks – dirty sinks and door handles, airborne particles and other…

Surgisphere, a company that bills itself as having one of the largest and fastest hospital databases in the world, was riding high a few days ago. Their data had led to papers in both New England…

Surgisphere, a company that bills itself as having one of the largest and fastest hospital databases in the world, was riding high a few days ago. Their data had led to papers in both New England…

Ten years ago science journalists talked about functional MRI (fMRI) scans all of the time. Because if a part of the brain lit up when someone did, said, or read something, it went into a paper. Few…

From Australian wildfires to COVID-19 to murder hornets to race wars in Manhattan, 2020 looks to be a challenging year. It could still get worse, but science shows it won't be due to Yellowstone…

As the search for an effective COVID19 treatment goes on, one therapy keeps re-appearing in the headlines: hydroxychloroquine. Early, observational studies on the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat…

The antimalarial drug chloroquine (analogue hydroxychloroquine) is also successfully used to treat lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, and autoimmune diseases said to have similar biological mechanisms as…

Cover crops are touted for their soil and water quality related benefits. A new paper found that incorporating cover crops with tillage results in increased cover crop decomposition rates and…

A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial to test hydroxychloroquine as post-exposure prophylaxis found that it does not prevent illness.  Enrollment began on March 17th, 2020.…

A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial to test hydroxychloroquine as post-exposure prophylaxis found that it does not prevent illness.  Enrollment began on March 17th, 2020.…

Thanks to COVID-19, the public has gotten a lot more skeptical about claims that chemicals, food, and medicine are corporate conspiracies created to replace natural products that worked just fine.…

A new paper uses a combination of cosmic voids – large expanding bubbles of space containing very few galaxies – and the faint imprint of sound waves in the very early Universe, known as baryon…

Black people are no angels but when we are not being angelic, we still should have rights.  All people should have the same rights when under the power of law enforcement that they do when they…

The antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine, touted as a miracle cure for COVID-19, appeared to have had it’s Titanic moment, at least according to a study published in the Lancet. The retrospective…

The flu kills over 600,000 people each year and in 2020 another virus exploded in public health circles for the third time in 17 years; coronavirus. SARS-CoV-2, which causes the COVID-19 disease, has…