Sprouts Extraordinaire of Colorado has been implicated in 30 cases of Salmonella, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Salmonella Reading and Salmonella Abony infections have been reported in nine states. Five people have been hospitalized. Since 1996, there have been at least 30 reported outbreaks of foodborne illness associated with different types of raw and lightly cooked sprouts.If your sprouts or your milk are raw, you are making a huge mistake.

President Obama has officially designated the bison as the official mammal of the United States. I didn't actually know we didn't already have a national mammal but I suppose if we have to show we are still capable of designating official stuff of the United States in bipartisan fashion, the buffalo is as good as anything. 

The latest bee population numbers for 2015 came out last week and while they are a guesstimate,  they show a tiny (3%) decrease since their 20-year high from 2014. No big deal to scientists, bee numbers fluctuate a lot from year-to-year and always have, and overwinter losses do not equal bees in decline, but activists are portraying it as an ecological catastrophe. Genetic Literacy Project has the latest on the Colony Collapse Disorder that never was and produced a handy infographic for the evidence-based world.

In a forthcoming American Minerologist paper, Hazen and Ausubel outlined a new mineral-classification system to help geologists better understand the designation of “rare.” They based their work on a similar system by the biologist Deborah Rabinowitz, who studied rare biological species.According to Rabinovitz, a species can be considered rare if it meets at least one of three criteria: a small geographic range, highly specific habitat requirements, or a small population size.

Project7 makes sugar-free chewing gum flavors like "front porch lemonade"  and now they are adding something extra for gum aficionados - the ability to make combinations. A new package has  complementary flavors in each bag
so you can chew them on their own or combined in things like "cookie dough ice cream" and "key lime pie". "Build a Flavor" gum is being sold exclusively at Target.

The Supreme Court has blocked a key Obama administration environmental rule to limit carbon emissions from power plants.

Hampton Creek may have won the battle - to get around the 1938 Code of Federal Regulations, which govern ‘standards of identity’ and was created specifically to prevent companies from selling fake food using established names - but lost the war.If they can sell mayonnaise outside the definition of mayonnaise, so can food giant Unilever. And that is just what is happening. "Just Mayo", meet the egg-free alternative to Hellmann's. 

Marge Bloom, who gave birth to American Council on Science and Health Director of Chemical Sciences (and Science 2.0 Featured Columnist) Dr. Josh Bloom - and has never lived that down - is celebrating her 89th birthday today.Since it is winter time, I hope she is taking a day off from her usual gig escorting lost tourists around Central Park in the Manhattan borough of New York City.Here she is with her favorite child:

The days when Whole Foods could rely on elite prestige - customer were buying self-identification with higher prices on food - are gone now that organic marketing has actually convinced customers that it's food is not just a process or an ethical way of life but, as economist Chuck Benbrook often tried to claim, actually more nutritious than regular food.If the food itself is better just by paying for a sticker, then it becomes a price issue; and Whole Foods share prices continue to languish.They may get worse. An analyst for the stock commissioned a survey and customers said they did not notice any price changes, even after Whole Foods lowered prices. 

We have a really dangerous anti-science problem in America and it involves short-term, pressing issues that can harm people right now - food and medicine. In America, those beliefs are primarily among rich, educated progressives: as Seth Mnookin recounted at NPR and I mentioned in Science Left Behind, you can draw a circle around a Whole Foods and find a whole host of crazy notions about supplements, homeopathy, vaccines and organic food.