We've all offered an excuse for a poor reaction or any behavior we recognize we should not have engaged in; many have rationalized it to mitigate consequences or even make it socially acceptable. 

Stress, headaches, even ignorance can be proffered, but what makes an excuse plausible? In law, things are a little more clear, duress and coercion and psychological maladies have all been successful, but to families and friends it might not be as easy as convincing a jury of strangers. Especially if you do it often.

At the recent Academy of Neurology Congress, scholars reported that among 1,034 people recruited from 35 countries via an online crowdsourcing platform asked if they'd ever had an Near Death Experience, 289 answered 'yes.' When were asked for more details, using a 16 point questionnaire called the Greyson Near-Death Experience Scale, 106 reached a threshold of 7 on the Greyson NDE Scale. Some 55 percent perceived the their feeling as truly life-threatening.

Among respondents, 73 percent who claimed a near death experience said it was unpleasant, but those with a score of 7 or above on the Greyson NDE Scale had 53 percent pleasant descriptions of it.

Doctors, like scientists, often aren't big on putting themselves into stories and getting selfies with patients, or even accepting pictures as part of care. But selfies are a part of modern culture, and that means they are empowering to patients, so allowing pictures from patients and parents of patients may streamline health care and also keep costs lower.

DDT and other chemicals remain the most effective way to contain malaria - by eliminating the disease vectors that spread it.
But even though the U.S. EPA has written the book for how DDT is to be sprayed inside homes, it was banned here over the objections of scientists and remains controversial for environmental groups who want to ban all chemicals. A new method may make chemicals less necessary but it involves another area of science activists oppose; genetic engineering.

For those who used to believe that taking on massive student loan debt to pay for increased salaries for university employees that would lead to a high salary, a new reality has set in: the gig economy. 

And that counts in journalism too. In the days of Walter Cronkite and Watergate, media enjoyed a great deal of trust, but as the public got more savvy about bias that trust declined and people began to seek out alternative sources. If media are going to be biased, people believed, it might as well be biased in ways they like. 

Some species have thrived only because they are food sources. Cows, for example, would be endangered and likely extinct if not for human animal husbandry. The same goes for many vegetables. They would be sparse or even gone if not for our genetic intervention.