Science 2.0

Hank Campbell

Hank Campbell

I founded Science 2.0® in 2006 and since then it has become the world's largest independent science communications site, with over 300,000,000 direct readers and reach approaching one billion. Revolutionizing the way scientists Communicate, Part…
RSS Feed
3 Pro-Science Action Items For EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin

3 Pro-Science Action Items For EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin

Yesterday, the Senate confirmed former Congressman Lee Zeldin to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. Though the Trump administration has promised reform, there will be big challenges in that. Though high-profile jobs are appointees, the nuts-and-bolts work of governance is done by career employees, and nearly 90 percent of them are Democrats.

Gym Paradox: People Want To Get Healthier But Until They're Healthier Don't Feel Comfortable

Gym Paradox: People Want To Get Healthier But Until They're Healthier Don't Feel Comfortable

Gym Bro, Curl Gurl, Gym Rat if you choose not to identify as any gender - everyone knows what it means, and it can be pretty intimidating if you walk into a fitness center as a new member. Imagine feeling like you have to get in shape before you can join a gym to get in shape.Fitness executives don't want that but store managers know not to alienate their best customers for someone who will join on a special deal, go for a month, and then cancel the first time they download RocketMoney and remember they have a gym membership.

Two Fewer Almonds: That's All You Need To Prevent Weight Gain

Two Fewer Almonds: That's All You Need To Prevent Weight Gain

When people see labels or menus listing the calories in their food, it doesn't change their consumption in any way beyond what experts call "statistical wobble." About two fewer almonds worth of calories per meal. But two almonds over time can add up to a lot.That's the conclusion in the data of a systematic review by The Cochrane Collaboration. The team of academics reviewed 25 papers which discussed the impact of calorie labeling on consumption and found a minute reduction in the foods selected - about 11 calories.

Vaccinate Plants Against Insects And Disease

Vaccinate Plants Against Insects And Disease

Science is always looking for new ways to protect plants and the environment. In Hawaii, for example, when their staple papaya was under attack by aphids that transferred the "papaya ringspot virus" to plants, legacy breeding and pesticides did not work. A gene gun sending in a GMO did.(1) In the Wall Street Journal, I discussed how a non-corporate, free modification by academics could save the American Chestnut from the natural blight that had devastated billions of trees.(2)

Brits Associate Accents With Crime But Trust Scottish Accents Most

Brits Associate Accents With Crime But Trust Scottish Accents Most

With Burns Night this weekend,  Scotland will celebrate its heritage. In the First Among Equals country to the south that controls them, Scottish accents used to mean trouble. Now, it is the sound of safety for both English men and women.A new study finds that the English, even some Welsh and Scottish, associate a "working-class" accent with criminal behavior. In a jury trial, that could have serious ramifications, but it likely also matters before that. Arrests and voice identification, for example. You're more likely to be one of The Usual Suspects(1) if your accent is criminal.

Smoking Marijuana Is Both Smoking And Drugs - Stop Doing It Around Children

Smoking Marijuana Is Both Smoking And Drugs - Stop Doing It Around Children

Doctors who would never tell a patient to smoke cigarettes in moderation, they are a legitimate class 1 carcinogen, oddly say just that about an identical class 1 carcinogen, alcohol, and as recreational marijuana has become legal they have given it the same umbrella.Legal or not, marijuana is a drug just like alcohol, and it includes the toxic smoke of cigarettes.I am not a social authoritarian progressive so I won't tell you how to behave just because my health insurance premiums went up so 50,000,000 others could get it cheaper, but you absolutely should not be smoking marijuana around kids. It ain't the 1980s, hippie.

USDA Awards Grant To Study Acidic Coatings To Protect Organic Food From Bacteria

USDA Awards Grant To Study Acidic Coatings To Protect Organic Food From Bacteria

Have you purchased organic food and wondered what the chemical is that you need to wash off? Those are alkaline wax-based coatings, designed to preserve food so it looks nice longer. Just like conventional growers use. But chemical wax coatings made including olive bud oil don't prevent fungi and bacteria common in organic food, and a new program would like to change that.

The US Discourages Pregnant Women From Drinking Alcohol - Vegetarian Diets Are Worse

The US Discourages Pregnant Women From Drinking Alcohol - Vegetarian Diets Are Worse

The Biden administration recently issued a new report showing causal links between alcohol and cancer, and it's about time. The link has been long-known, but alcohol carcinogenic properties have been waved away with 'use in moderation' rhetoric. We don't tell young people to use cigarettes 'in moderation', even though nicotine doesn't cause cancer, only cigarettes smoke does, so that alcohol has gotten political free pass shows science is always second to politics.

Bathynomus Vaderi: The Sea Bug Of Your New 'Star Wars' Nightmare

Bathynomus Vaderi: The Sea Bug Of Your New 'Star Wars' Nightmare

If a giant bọ biển (“sea bug”) in Vietnam hasn't been 'named' by an academic in a journal, does it really exist?Yes, because they are impossible to miss. Isopods of the genus Bathynomus are 10 inches long so they are hard to miss, but discovery is a lucrative business in academia so a new one has been named and because the authors say it looks like Darth Vader from "Star Wars" they have deemed it Bathynomus vaderi. 

Honeybees Are Boutique Agriculture: Here's What Keepers Want Almond Farmers To Do

Honeybees Are Boutique Agriculture: Here's What Keepers Want Almond Farmers To Do

Despite nearly two decades of marketing campaigns insisting bees are in decline and science is to blame, the data show otherwise. Bees are not entirely irrelevant in the food supply, and do valuable pollination work in nature, but there are 25,000 other species of bees that are important also, it is only in boutique agriculture that honeybees are meaningful to our food supply.For crops like almonds, bees are rented. They are flown on planes or shipped on trucks and do their work and then go somewhere else. California only has 1.3 million acres of almond trees, which means about 2.6 million honey bee hives are needed every year. That is why 90% of rented bee colonies are in California. It's a lucrative market and they can ship bees elsewhere as needed.

Ants Are Like Philadelphia Eagles Fans: They Hold Grudges Forever

Ants Are Like Philadelphia Eagles Fans: They Hold Grudges Forever

I'm a Steelers guy now but I was a late fan. Where I was young in Pennsylvania, three teams in New York and two in Pennsylvania were the same distance to drive - and we did not drive to any of them. So I remained a Cowboys fan.(1) My brother, though, was an Eagles fan of early on. And he's never wavered.Ants think that's the proper way to be. Eagle fans hold grudges and ants respect that, but there is no comparison between the level of grudge Philadelphia has against Michael Strahan or Terrell Owens or Kevin Allen or Jerome McDougle and what ants have against their enemies.If they could write, it would be the stuff of legends.

Homeopathic Chemophobia - Pregnant Women Impacted Most

Homeopathic Chemophobia - Pregnant Women Impacted Most

Blood samples of pregnant women have detectable levels of chemicals and that 'chemical cocktail' may pose "neurotoxic risk", according to a paper published in Science whose senior author is strangely on the board of reviewing editors at Science.This "chemical cocktail" nomenclature has been popular among activists like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other environmental lawyers for decades, because it needs no science, it instead means science 'needs more testing', and there will never be enough testing.