In 1989, the communist dictatorship oddly named Union of Soviet Socialist Republics reached the extent of a third giant hole in the Arctic Circle, Kola Superdeep Borehole SG-3, where they'd been drilling for 19 years. It clocked in at nearly 8 miles deep.
If you listen to political pundits in Virginia and nationwide, House Bill 207 is a covert effort to hinder evolution education. (1) The bill never mentions evolution, it instead "encourages students to explore scientific questions, learn about scientific evidence, develop critical thinking skills, and respond appropriately and respectfully to differences of opinion about scientific controversies in science classes" which sounds lovely. Who is against critical thinking and respect for diverse opinions?The bill sponsored by Richard "Dickie" Bell got a lot of attention from science media, who believe it is aimed at evolution.
Alchemy, which most people have at least heard of, along the lines of 'the quest to turn lead into gold', is getting rehabilitated. In one paper, anyway.Alchemy, like chemistry, had 'chem' at its core. Chem derives from Khem ('black land'), which was the name for what we call Egypt, due to the dark alluvial soil provided by the flooding Nile each year. Egypt was well known to Greeks and Romans but it wasn't until the 8th century that Arab Muslims, having conquered it in the previous century, re-introduced the science from their new state to Europe, a state which they called Al-Khem. This science believed that metals were composed of sulfur and mercury. Gold was the perfect metal and a Philosopher's Stone could transmute baser metals into it.
In the early part of the 20th century, after we had entered the Age of Flight, a strange phenomenon in Arabia was sighted. Air travel had become more common and thus so did air delivery. British pilots flying from Cairo to Baghdad reported seeing ruins that no one had ever noticed before.
If you care about what is in your food, you have no greater sympathetic intellect than me.But if you are an anti-science activist, you may not understand the distinction between what is in your food and what it simply is - and there we part company. A genetic modification (GMO) is your food, for example, it is no different than any other food from a health perspective. Cataloging the numerous ways agriculture has genetically engineered food for as long as food has been grown is outside the scope of this piece, but GMOs don't bother me and that science shouldn't bother you either. (1)
A new analysis has affirmed what many in the science audience already knew; mainstream media prefer weak observational studies. It's why you're reading this article here instead of the New York Times.And that is not just in regards to social psychology correlations made using surveys of college students or sociology mysticism, it happens in medical coverage too. The examination found that observational studies get far better coverage than actual randomized controlled trials, which are what should really be important to most people.
Some recent poll results show that right wing people in America have widened the gap of evolution acceptance. Generally, only a few points on this issue have separated the parties but if you know your framing of the last decade, you know that meant it's been okay for Democrats to say Republicans are 'more' in denial of science. This latest Pew survey (1,983 adults, +/- 3 percent at a 95% confidence interval, weighted results) shows the acceptance gap has widened in numerous demographics - but if you do a search about these results you will find people are only talking about the stupidity of the political party they happen not to be.
When it was fashionable to do so, Germany claimed they were scuttling their nuclear power plants. Their energy companies, bolstered by billions of Euros in government subsidies, rushed to replace nuclear energy with solar and other alternative energy schemes.But the projected increases in efficiencies never came to pass - companies that rely on subsidies are not in any rush to make technology better. And Germany has seen the US send its CO2 emissions from the energy sector drop back to early 1990s levels, and from dirty coal back to early 1980s levels, using natural gas - so now policymakers have decided they want to be a part of it.
Comic book heroes get into all kinds of crazy situations, everything from alien invaders to losing their powers. Most often, though, might simply makes right - but what happens when the thing you are fighting gets stronger from being hit? How do you defeat something like that?It actually happened in "The Mighty Thor" #140 from 1967.Comics were a lot different in 1967; fantastic, supernatural events were routine plot devices, but even then Marvel was the more 'scientific' of the two large superhero comics companies. Marvel loved genetic mutations and scientists were often heroes or villains but decades ago the resolution of the plot was going to be fast and likely something of a letdown.
There's no greater feel-good fallacy than the belief that organic food is somehow superior to conventionally farmed food. In reality, organic food isn't more environmentally responsible, it is worse, it isn't better for your health, it is worse and, for the most part, it isn't even grown by small farmers, it is giant conglomerates who, like with gluten-free, fat-free or any other food fad, encourage proponents and the mythology of health benefits because they can charge more money.
President Obama called it a 'Sputnik Moment' and, when you weren't wondering why a guy who is against war uses a lot of military terminology and invokes Ronald Reagan(1), you may have still wondered what his summoning of the military-industrial complex of the 1950s that his core constituency hates and ridicules had to do with science education.
http://www.sciencecodex.com/children_allergic_to_eggs_can_benefit_from_… have increased a lot in the last generation and it's unclear why. Some people claim they can taste GMOs and have an allergic reaction to those while some contend there is a special white, American, middle-class gene that has made their children sensitive to wheat.
The biggest surprise I got after starting Science 2.0 and getting to know scientists in a number of fields was that the private sector did no basic research.This was a surprise to [ insert link text here ] me, since at previous companies we did a whole lot of basic research and a little company called Bell Labs was kind of famous for it. Of course, the whole assertion was silly, no matter how many times I heard it. And I did hear it a lot, so much that it became like a mantra, and with it was the implied belief that corporate science was mercenary and 'for sale' while university science was more pure.
