HFO-1234yf, a climate-friendly alternative refrigerant for car air conditioning systems touted by environmental activists, may instead be a greater problem than the products they insisted was causing pollution.
http://theconversation.com/rise-and-shine-new-horizons-awakes-ahead-of-… the Mars Rovers and the Rosetta spacecraft will continue to make headlines in 2015, the stage is set for the solar system’s next great mission – the Pluto-bound New Horizons.Discovered in 1930, it was assumed that Pluto was a planet, with a mass comparable to that of the Earth. This was partially based on its brightness, along with the mistaken assumption that it was perturbing the orbits of Neptune and Uranus.
It's the time of the year when there are jokes about politically correct people demanding equal time for a Festivus pole on the steps of City Hall and pundits on the other side are scourging culture for the fact that we have any religious events at all.
An old legal joke goes that a man accused of lifting wallets is arrested brought into court. The judge asked if he wants a trial by judge or a jury of his peers. The accused replies, "You judge, I don't want 12 pickpockets deciding what happens to me."It is a common psychological tendency to assume most people are 'like' us, that is why rationalization about behavior occurs so easily - everyone else is doing it. So what do we make of it when a journalist repeatedly claims that everyone else is a shill for corporate interests?The obvious: That the journalist sees it everywhere because she assumes people are like her. I prefer to talk about individuals rather than issues but sometimes the journalist is the issue, because they make themselves into one.
“Here’s my bet: the kids are going to win and when they do, it’s going to matter,” prophesized environmentalist Bill McKibben about fossil fuel divestment in 2013.If so, they are going to be led by Quakers, who were among the first to officially say no to fossil fuel stocks. Though Quakers were considered anarchists in the Old World, in America they banned slave ownership way before government did and created Pennsylvania as a commonwealth without social elites, established churches, tithes, high taxes or compulsory military service. Are they thought leaders once again?
With the advent of government-mandated health insurance, there has developed an ongoing national debate about what exactly they can mandate. Can the government force consumers to eat broccoli? Can the government force the Catholic church to pay for contraceptive coverage, which violates their principles?
President Obama is getting credit for one odd thing in a new paper - diminishing American exceptionalism and confidence. America is a lot less egotistical than it used to be.
If you are skeptical of nutrition advice in general, or Miracle Vegetable of the Week claims in mainstream media, you have good reason: In a world where the United Nations body on cancer meta-analyses, which self-identifies as the most important carcinogen-finder in the world, lists sausage as the same level of hazard as cigarettes and mustard gas, it's fine to roll your eyes and groan and wonder how long before yet another meaningless Prop. 65 warning label shows up in California.
Organic food has managed to wrap itself in both a health and ethical halo and a lot of the credit for that has to go to outstanding marketing and the work of trade groups that represent organic farmers. They have turned what was once a niche market focused on a different process into a $100 billion juggernaut where mothers chide other mothers as bad parents if they don't buy organic.That will be taught in business classes for decades.
In the early days of food labeling and regulations, it was just about mandating honesty. If you go to buy mayonnaise, you shouldn't have to wonder if it is mayonnaise (1), and then labels became a marketing distinction. Better ingredients meant a better product and that appealed to people who cared about higher quality or superior health for their families. More recently, labels have become a way to promote self-identification with a world view - you could show you are more ethical and care more about your children and the developing world, and even the whole planet, if you buy a special label.
In an effort to keep the pressure on scientists who accept the overwhelming consensus on genetically modified organisms (GMOs), the hard-left political magazine Mother Jones has written another article using emails provided to the organic lobbying organization US Right To Know(1) to undermine science it has chosen not to accept.
If you get money from a corporation, are you for sale?It’s obviously a silly question, since almost everyone in America signs the backs of checks ratherr than the front of them, yet much of the public tends to think that if a scientist gets funding from the government or a corporation, they are mandated to produce a specific, pre-chosen result, even though those same people would not agree that their own “funding source” — an employer — controls their beliefs.
If you have to go without gluten but want to maintain the texture of popular foods that contain this sticky protein, you are forced to use substitutes containing extra sugar, extra fat, hydroxypropyl methyl cellulose and xanthan gum, none of which are all that great from an overall health perspective. Given that, opting for a gluten-free diet makes little sense unless it's necessary.
