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
Healthcare Patients May Be Biased Against Chatbot Avatars

Healthcare Patients May Be Biased Against Chatbot Avatars

A decade ago, automated telephone menus were what everyone hated. It was common to press 0 or yell 'Agent' at the phone because you knew that after inputting everything it wanted, when you got to an agent they were going to ask you for everything all over again.Today, you probably ignore the chat window that opens up on a website, especially if you think it is a bot. A Verizon bot is going to be able to help you with nothing, so going back to find your account number, which means closing the chat window, is a waste of time, when the real agent who replies will ask for it all over again(1)

UPF OMG: The Dinner Table Is Not A Periodic Table

UPF OMG: The Dinner Table Is Not A Periodic Table

A short time ago, the National Institutes of Health 2025 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee held its second public meeting to discuss recommended changes. It was very authoritative, they said they were concerned about cancer and chemicals and obesity and they assured us they were looking at all of the new literature. The panel signaled it wants to go after Frappuccinos and aspartame. The problem is that none of those issues are why they were created.

Why Organ Donation Centers Might Skip Top Candidates

Why Organ Donation Centers Might Skip Top Candidates

An organ donor waiting list is not just who has been waiting the longest, an equation ranks patients based on age, waiting time, and other checklist. Yet the 'other factors may' mean a secret sauce that leads to disparity the same way EPA panels refusing to disclose data in studies its epidemiologists choose to use leads to erosions in public trust.Transplant centers may be ignoring such secret sauce determinations. A new analysis of 11 centers between 2015 and 2019 found that 78 percent of kidneys offered to these centers were not placed with candidates at the top of the list of around 6,000 transplant candidates - which meant 4,700 transplants. 

Climate Justice: Economists Claim The World Owes Itself $298 Trillion

Climate Justice: Economists Claim The World Owes Itself $298 Trillion

A new op-ed in Nature argues that countries which have air conditioning owe the world up to $298 trillion. And counting.That figure is virtual money. Like virtual water, or virtual pregnancy, it isn't a real thing, it is a computer model by activist economists who love to use terms like "reparations" because the modern world doesn't have people routinely freezing to death.

FDA Targets Puff And Hyde Disposable E-Cigarettes

FDA Targets Puff And Hyde Disposable E-Cigarettes

In the early days of changes in laws to products like alcohol, some people below the new legal threshold were still able to get it. It was impossible to arrest everyone selling illegally, and there was a certain freedom argument many made, i.e. why can I shoot a Nazi in Europe but not buy a beer in the US?

COVID-19 Led To More Youth Obesity - And More Bariatric Surgery

COVID-19 Led To More Youth Obesity - And More Bariatric Surgery

Calories cause obesity and while everyone wants a magic solution to eating too much for a prolonged period of time, those with the means can make it reality in the form of surgery.COVID-19 set off a panic in much of culture. Schools were closed, people were ostracized if they didn't think flipping masks up and down between sips of water was clinically valid, but decisions were being made in real-time so a lot of things that once again seem silly in hindsight were the Precautionary Principle in all its glorious flawed reasoning.

The Scramble To Govern Generative AI In Healthcare

The Scramble To Govern Generative AI In Healthcare

In the 19th century, charlatans traveled around selling magic potions, tonics, and salves but to stop them no one decided to ban actual medical research.The issue facing "AI", which is short for Artificial Intelligence, is that the only people who will feel bound by top-down control were never going to be a problem in the first place. Large Language Models, termed Generative AI, can be a huge positive in health care, but because it is misunderstood and there is a lot of exploitative media coverage there are ongoing efforts to kill it before it really gets going.

Virtual Pollution Statistically Linked To Irregular Heartbeats In China

Virtual Pollution Statistically Linked To Irregular Heartbeats In China

A new paper in Canadian Medical Association Journal has linked irregular heartbeats in 322 Chinese cities to small-micron particulate matter, invisible pollution that needs an electron microscope to visualize. Given its minute size, PM2.5 is one-fourth the size of real pollution, PM10, there is four times as much of it, so the paper could have used PM10 and achieved the same statistical significance. It just would have been less dramatic

National Academies Of Sciences: The US Needs Nuclear. Will Democrats Listen?

National Academies Of Sciences: The US Needs Nuclear. Will Democrats Listen?

Prior to natural gas hydraulic fracturing making played out gas wells viable again, America was in a real climate emissions pickle. In 1994, Democrats finally won their war of extinction on nuclear energy, they cheered as President Bill Clinton and Senator John Kerry(1) created regulations that act as bans and eventually forced through a series of anti-nuclear activists at the head of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Prenatal High-Fat Diets Linked To Preference For Salty Food - In Female Rats

Prenatal High-Fat Diets Linked To Preference For Salty Food - In Female Rats

Many women eat healthier during pregnancy, but that may mean whatever version of 'healthy' is trending in any given year. Sugar-free, low-fat, gluten-free, paleo, organic, it all has proponents, it all has suspect epidemiology papers claiming it should be a reason to buy some New York Times bestselling diet book built around it.