Science 2.0

Halloween is the most rumor-prone of holidays. If you read the folklore that passes as social media, Halloween has its own holiday character, like Santa, but he's named Secret Sadist and putting razor blades in candy bars. Or LSD in...candy bars again.

Elites say his work is cliché but that only happens when everyone quotes you. His psychological insights also deserve a modern rethink.

No one wants food coloring that dissipates after an hour, a problem for natural alternatives to Red Dye No. 40 and No. 3, and a more natural solution is at hand. But it still requires more of the science activists distrust.

Protein-maxxing is the latest rage in people who learn just enough science to be wrong about nutrition health, but if you adopted a gluten-free diet despite not being celiac, that vaccines cause autism, or swore off carbs, or believe a class 1 carcinogen like wine prevents cancer, there is good news in the condiment space.

On this day in 1945, an atomic bomb on Hiroshima began the countdown to the end of World War II. Of the Axis Powers, Italy had surrendered in 1943 and Germany in April of 1945. Only Japan remained, but it was an island.

Happy birthday to the World Wide Web, born on this day in 1991 with absolutely no attention.

Marek’s disease can wreck a chicken flock fast, causing tumors, paralysis, and then death in 100 percent of cases in organic chicken farms that refuse to accept vaccines.

In 1925, the Rivoli Theater in Times Square, owned by film mogul Adolph Zukor, created demand for summer movies. Because he had Willis-Carrier install the first large, modern air-conditioning system.

A populist campaign has built up around data centers and their impact on rural areas but, like with claims that natural gas and coffee cause cancer, they are lawyer-driven rather than scientific.

In modern times, breastfeeding has become more culture war than health epidemiology. Activists have created nearly as much disinformation around infant formula as they have weedkillers and food coloring.

In December of 1900, a civil engineer in The Ladies Home Journal made predictions so accurate about today it's spooky.

Humans are calorically dense enough that it is no surprise that some ancient cultures engaged in cannibalism - or even more modern people in the right circumstances.(1) Yet it is also taboo. In Christopher Nolan's recent version of The Odyssey, cannibals appear twice.