Chinese athletes had been warned by the country's Sports Ministry to avoid meat because it may contain clenbuterol, banned by the International Olympic Committee as a performance-enhancing substance.  China bans clenbuterol because of the chemical's noxious long-term effects on human health.  The World Anti-Doping Agency issued a warning last year about clenbuterol-tainted meat in China. Mexico also has a serious issue with it but pork farmers in China still use it because it produces leaner meat so the choice was avoidance or take risks. 

Can you be sure no one will get cancer if they only use cancer-free products?Of course not, but anti-science kooks don't understand how cancer risk factors work and so Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.) has proposed H.R. 6191, which would allow companies to apply to the government to allow their products to bear a "cancer-free" label. . It says approved labels would state, "This product does not contain known or likely carcinogens that increase your risk of cancer."

It's a recurring theme that we're failing American students, but then the chief critics of U.S. kids say the solution is to throw more money at the government union machine that controls education.Fareed Zakaria argued on CNN that the U.S. economy is struggling in part because President Obama gutted federal research and development funding, and that American students have fallen behind in science education.

Why would anyone on a science site bother to mention that a scientist has endorsed a Democrat?  It's only news when a scientist does not endorse a Democrat - well, if anyone in science media were to report it.In 2008 76 Nobel laureates endorsed Senator Obama and, of course, blasted Bush. What has Obama done differently?  Not much, he simply replaced conservative anti-science positions with progressive ones.  Did he have science reports edited to match his ideology? Check. Do we still limit federal funding for hESC research?  Check.  Subsidize the president's pet energy projects?  Check.

How did we arrive where we are? A dainty, quill-like sea creature called a lancelet provides the best evidence that vertebrates evolved over the past 550 million years through a four-fold duplication of the genes of more primitive ancestors.

Cuba is adored by communists - maybe they like 1950s decor. No, they like the socialized medicine. Specifically, they like to claim that a lower infant mortality rate means Cuban health care is better than in America. It doesn't take long to see through that. America does not abort at the first sign of trouble, like Cuba does, and so America has more babies that don't live very long.Abortion is not the issue in this case, except to show that abortion rates are not a bellweather of health care. What is a bellweather of health care is the health of the country overall. Cuba's cholera epidemic shows that its health care system, which they present with pride, is not all that terrific. 

The European Commission, which controls one of the world's largest science budgets, has backed calls for free public access to taxpayer-funded research. Reed Elsevier is not thrilled."Taxpayers should not have to pay twice for scientific research and they need seamless access to raw data," said Neelie Kroes, European Commission vice-president for the Digital Agenda, though Kroes does not understand taxpayers are still paying twice.   The largest open access publishers do tens of millions of dollars in revenue by shifting the cost from readers to scientists - who are taxpayer funded.

A giant herd of cattle are not huddled together to get away from evil oil companies or other things that have overwhelmingly improved the ecosystem in Alaska, these Northwest caribou are avoiding nature.Namely, mosquitoes.

Science can be a sweet gig if you don't have to work so much.  Doing research in Theoretical Phys Ed, for example, doesn't take all that much effort, but some fields require experiments and those can be a real time sink.If you're envious of people who can just make up data, John Timmer at Ars Technica has a wonderful primer for you.Credit: Aurich Lawson. Link: Ars Technica

The Great Wall of China is the longest man-made structure in the world but that doesn't mean it's known exactly how big it is.A five-year archaeological survey done by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage (SACH) found that the total length of the Great Wall was 13,170 miles long and reached across 15 provinces, more than twice the length previously stated just two years ago, when the same organization reported that the wall was 5,500 miles and stretched across 10 provinces.