Minnesota Trial Lawyers Want To Ban Neonics - Here Is Why That Is A Mistake

Minnesota is having a challenging year, so challenging they are approaching California as the wackiest...

The Toxic Masculinity Of Disney Movies

Once upon a time, stories were just stories. They were fantasies that took people to a new world...

AI And The Poetry Problem

Artificial Intelligence is artificial, but it is not intelligence. That could change some day but...

Morte Alla Francia Italia Anela - The Secret History Of Organized Crime In 1343

Italy as we know it today had not been such since the days of the Roman Empire. You can see that...

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. Read More »

23andMe Stumbles Into An Ethical Gray Area - And Why That's Good

Jun 28 2010 | comment(s)

23andMe, Inc., a direct-to-consumer personal genetics company, is arguably the most well-funded and therefore highest profile group out there (being married to a Google co-founder will do that) and by doing a somewhat humorous new study associating traits with single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs - a type of common DNA sequence variation), they may have spurred discussion of some new ethics guidelines to help future science policy.

The Value Of Listening In Science Outreach

Jun 27 2010 | comment(s)

Frustrated in dealing with the public? You are not alone. It may seem to researchers that the public is either stupid or intentionally ignoring evidence but it's not that one-sided, writes Chris Mooney in the Washington Post.

Chris generally doesn't think a lot of the science IQ of Americans (and don't even get him started on Republicans!) but he recognizes something more scientists should (and most do here, thus the whole Science 2.0 thing) - making scientifically smarter people does not mean they will always agree with you.

Science 2.0: Can I Share Your Lab?

Jun 26 2010 | comment(s)

Remote access ... for lab equipment?

Labshare Australia wants to create a shared network of remote laboratories. Yep, with costs going up - and science and hospitals are two of very few industries where competition drives costs up, because if Lab X has a new machine, Lab Y may need one to be competitive - while there is current laboratory utilization at less than 10% (they say - things are quiet in Australia?), a group of technology initiatives have joined together to lower some maintenance costs while improving access among students and researchers in labs that have less funding.

Science 2.0 - The Blessing And The Curse

Jun 24 2010 | comment(s)

It's no secret we have done things our own way here - no marketing, no corporate hierarchy, no political or cultural litmus test and no requirement that you already be popular before you can join.

The big net of Science 2.0 is exactly what some people in science resent about it. ScientificBlogging is one crucial part of the Science 2.0 experiment but it's not the only part. Therefore it can be a threat to people who regard science communication as part of their fiefdom, either corporate or perceptual. Basically, a way for them to make money and control the message.

Open Access And Good Citations: The PLoS Factor

Jun 22 2010 | comment(s)

The big war in science during this decade has not been Republicans against human embryonic stem cell research or Democrats against agriculture, it has instead been open access publishing versus subscription peer-reviewed journals.

Open access publishing of science results, freely available to all, would clearly kill subscription-based peer-reviewed journals. Right now, those peer reviewed journals are terrifically profitable for multiple companies despite the fact that everyone is saying print is dead. These companies add value to researchers, they say, by having a higher impact than other companies that do less marketing, etc.

Should The BP Oil Spill Be A Weapon In The Culture War?

Jun 21 2010 | comment(s)

The BP oil spill in the Gulf is doing unmeasurable damage to the local economy and ecology of the region. Are government efforts geared toward making undersea oil extraction safer or cleaning up the damage done?

Not really. Pres. Obama's BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling Commission instead seems primarily focused on ending America's "addiction to oil" and a disaster like this is a heel-clickingly delightful way to frame the debate to advance that agenda.