During the Obama administration, he was concerned about vaccines causing autism and it showed when it came to guidance about swine flu vaccines. His administration banned multi-use vials because of his party's insistence that preservatives caused the disorder.
http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2012/11/lies-dirty-tricks-and-45-million-… past election, California voters shot down an initiative to put labels on GMO foods, which adds to a puzzle about California other states do not understand.Namely, how a state with more support for gay people and more anti-science hippies than any state in the country can be 'against' gay marriage and labels on food. isn't this state 66% Democrats?Well, of course, Californians are not against gay marriage and food labels at all but no one likes bad laws and in both cases the original efforts were designed to fool people into agreeing to lawsuits.
http://www.sciencecodex.com/node/68900/edit?destination=admin%2Fcontent… election season and that means you will hear and read lots of reasons why you should vote for one political candidate or another. Even science reasons.
It's the 50th anniversary of Rachel Carson's polemic, "Silent Spring", which means there will be no end to her 'impact'.
A recent paper uses neuromarketing techniques - basically, electrodermal activity to detect fluctuations in the emotional and attentional state of subjects in response to commercial stimuli - to try and deduce a relationship between the hand and the use of stone tools, and the cognitive functions associated to the sensory and exploratory process of manipulation, in addition to the spatial relationship between hand and object.
Last week the U.S. Food and Drug Administration hinted a restriction on menthol in cigarettes might again be coming - and the stock markets reacted as expected, reading a government restriction as the first step toward a ban, which led to a casual government statement costing investors billions. Domestic cigarette company Altria stock dropped 3.6 percent, and it probably still isn't a good buy, since it was at a price/stock ratio of 4.7, about 30 percent above other cigarette companies.
As Science 2.0 approaches its 12th anniversary people have asked me about the reasons for its longevity. Some of if it just riding out the ups and downs of culture, of course, we are a boring but reliable science site, and obviously there was some luck. (1)
In the world of government-funded science, there is usually no applied outcome, no direct benefit to the public, and so the (1) struggle to be relevant (which in practical terms means continue to be allowed to do it) is real. As a result, there is no greater conflict than between those who recognize the need to popularize science and those who want it to be what they envision as pure and bereft of populist catering.Dr. Leon Lederman
Cardiac surgeon and television personality Dr. Oz was on The Today Show this week talking about cold remedies, and as usual he was a mix of evidence and shamanism. It's easy for the pro-science community to know when he's talking about magic potions and when he has a modicum of science.It's easy to be fooled. When Science 2.0 began, I quickly learned cancer was going to be cured, antioxidants and red wine would make us live forever, and NASA was about to find life on other planets. Then six months later we had university and government writing those same press releases all over again and journalists dutifully repeated them.
SmirnoffDrake's
Woo meter: 6, for vegan, gluten-free, kosher, Non-GMO Project, USDA Organic, and suggesting they are healthy alcohol.Square One Cucumber Vodka, which is their regular rye vodka mixed with, you guessed it, cucumber.
I don't smoke, I never have, and even just a few years ago I was in the "quit or die" camp regarding smokers. I got more compassionate after learning about the issue, when "vaping", the action verb for poorly named "e-cigarettes", got war declared on it by the Obama administration. It wasn't my knowledge of the science that changed - I already knew nicotine is not as harmful as tar and arsenic and hundreds of other toxic compounds found in cigarette smoke - it was more my empathy. Someone who's never been addicted to anything can't really be organically empathetic about smoking cessation and harm reduction, so I had to try.
Before I begin, to the general science public who visits Science 2.0 (some 300,000,000 in 12 years, so thank you for supporting independent science media!) - this article is of no value to you, unless you like "inside baseball" discussions of why people do the thing the public visits here to see them do.
The Washington Post has long been a left-leaning publication and it is said that's the paper satirist Mort Sahl was lampooning when he began joking about the headline of a liberal outlet after a nuclear war between the United States and the USSR: “World Ends: Women and Minorities Hardest Hit.” Some are concerned that since being taken over by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos they lurched even farther from the center and that may sound truth-y, if you believe America is more polarized than ever, but it's not like Washington Post was ever seen as centrist by most. It was on the left in 1988, when Sahl made his joke, and it was so in 1968 and before I was even born.
