Science 2.0

Hank Campbell

Hank Campbell

Hank Campbell is an American science writer, author of the bestselling book 'Science Left Behind', and the founder of Science 2.0®, the world's largest independent science communications site. His work has appeared in USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, Wired, Chicago Tribune, and CNN.

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Preventing Murder: 3 Ways To Predict Who Will Become A Killer

Preventing Murder: 3 Ways To Predict Who Will Become A Killer

Right now, the police can't do much to help you until after a crime has been committed. In a science-fiction tale about free will and psychological determinism, Philip K. Dick's "Minority Report" detailed a world where PreCrime officers stop acts before they happen. They know who is going to do it.
But psychic mutants are a simplistic convention, criminologists have instead been trying to do it in the real world.

Science Left Behind 2014: The Anti-Vaccination Update

Science Left Behind 2014: The Anti-Vaccination Update

Science Left Behind, a book I co-authored in 2012 with Dr. Alex Berezow, covered the ways that anti-science beliefs had become mainstream among political progressives in the United States. It addressed dozens of topics but the three biggest ones denied by progressives (along with a few fellow liberals and Democrats) were the findings that anti-vaccine, anti-biology and anti-energy science positions were overwhelmingly left.

VSV-EBOV: The Race For An Ebola Vaccine Heats Up

VSV-EBOV: The Race For An Ebola Vaccine Heats Up

Canada, which has roughly 1,500 vials of an ebola vaccine called VSV-EBOV, has offered 1,000 vials to the World Health Organization and said the rest would be used for upcoming clinical trials in 5 locations: two in the United States, and one each in Germany, Switzerland and a non-Western-African country that isn't battling ebola.
 

Is Chess The New Texas Hold 'Em?

Is Chess The New Texas Hold 'Em?

Credit: Millionaire Chess tournamentWhen I was a kid, no one outside Texas played Texas Hold 'Em. We played Stud, we played Draw, we played Liar's, but not Hold 'Em.Like Esther Williams movies and organic food, some things just make their way into pop culture and there is no rational reason why. Texas Hold 'Em is now the most popular card game in the country, every month or so our neighborhood gets together at one of our homes and puts in 20 bucks each and we go at it.

Cyborg Bacteria Can Defeat Bioterrorism

Cyborg Bacteria Can Defeat Bioterrorism

The 21st century promises to bring a kind of science warfare only dreamed about in science fiction. Already it's become clear that it is possible to paralyze a large chunk of America and get policymakers in perpetual crisis mode, even with something as well-known as ebola.(1)That kind of threat is getting mainstream attention now, but it has long been researched by government agencies that are in the business of predicting threats. And scientists working for them have recently created a hybrid bacteria - a cyborg mix of computer chip and genetically modified organism - that can not only detect infectious diseases but automatically mobilize to defeat them. This ain't your daddy's Deathlok.(2)

Blind Spot: Our Coming Eye Disease Epidemic

Blind Spot: Our Coming Eye Disease Epidemic

Almost 2 million Americans have an advanced form of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and about 100,000 are blind from the disease. In AMD, cells in the retina, that layer of tissue in the back of the eye, begin to break down. What was once sharp central vision becomes blurry. 

5 Cool Things About Artificial Hearts

5 Cool Things About Artificial Hearts

Artificial hearts were invented at a time when progress in science couldn't come fast enough. In 1969, when they first went into human use, DDT hadn't been banned, vaccines were considered the medical highlight of the century, and the Green Revolution promoted genetic modification as the way to feed the world's poor in the future.

Game Of Thrones Weather: Winter Is Coming Vs. You Know Nothing, Jon Snow

Game Of Thrones Weather: Winter Is Coming Vs. You Know Nothing, Jon Snow

The seasons are about to change and that means a new round of projections, prognostications, sooth-saying and doomsday forecasts.If you think you know which of those are done by the civilized world and which of those are done by pagan Wildlings, you know nothing about modern climate science and culture.In George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire", a wall separates two very different people - think England and Scotland. South of The Wall, the people of Winterfell are always preparing for the worst. North of The Wall, they are just living their lives and rolling with the punches. And there is a lot more (consensual) sex. These two groups live in the same world but approach it in very different ways.

Health Off The Range: An Anti-Vaccine Conspiracy Tale

Health Off The Range: An Anti-Vaccine Conspiracy Tale

Mystery virus EV-D68 exploding among vaccinated children; U.S. medical system clueless without a vaccine warns blogger Mike Adams, who calls himself a "Health Ranger" and seems to exist to undermine medicine.

4 Warning Signs That Impartial Paper On Politics And Science Really Isn't

4 Warning Signs That Impartial Paper On Politics And Science Really Isn't

Talk of a 'secret sauce' in decision-making and charges that government groups like the Environmental Protection Agency are politically motivated are not new. Every president has its opposition party contending that the administration is manipulating science to suit its agenda - in the 1990s, Democrats got it for scuttling the Superconducting Super Collider and gutting the NIH and NASA while a decade later Republicans were called anti-science for limiting federal funding for human embryonic stem cells to existing lines.
No one voted or did not vote for a candidate because of the SSC or hESCs, they were simply talking points to confirm decisions.

21st Century Toasters - Why Utilities Want You To Buy That Electric Car

21st Century Toasters - Why Utilities Want You To Buy That Electric Car

Why would anyone bake bread and then turn around and toast it?I lived in a Pennsylvania house heated by wood. The idea of using our manual labor, in the form of wood, to toast bread was silly - but we owned an electric toaster. Somehow, being removed from the direct labor equation made toasting more acceptable, though our ancestors thought it a pastime for the idle rich.