Rutgers Study - Forcing DEI Programs On People Increases Hostility

If you have done nothing wrong, do you want to be treated like a criminal? That was always the...

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...

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 »

There Is Reasonable Discourse In The GMO Label Debate

Jul 15 2016 | comment(s)

In response to an overtly science-hostile bill by the state government in Vermont (1), the U.S. House of Representatives preemptively passed a softball GMO labeling law in 2015.

Anti-science groups (Friends of the Earth, NRDC, Union of Concerned Scientists, et al.) and their paid Deniers for Hire (Sourcewatch, US Right To Know, every other organic trade rep) were understandably apoplectic, because it was not going to handicap domestic agriculture and thereby make the organic food process more attractive.(2)

IARC Has Flip-Flopped On Coffee Due To Backlash, And That Throws All Their Findings Into Doubt

Jun 27 2016 | comment(s)

The World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) says it doesn't know if coffee causes cancer or not, a switch from 1991 when the agency said it did.

That is bad for people who want to trust IARC's recommendations -- because its reasons to reverse course on coffee are no more valid than its reason to have declared it possibly carcinogenic to humans (Group 2B) in the first place. And the coffee claims are no more valid than any other claims the agency has made about the hazards of common things.

Watt a Box: KFC Lunch Will Also Charge Your Phone

Jun 26 2016 | comment(s)

KFC is launching a 5-in-1 meal with a built in power bank so you can charge your phone while you eat lunch. Watt a Box is designed to offset the drop in discretionary spend brought on by the moribund economy. One way to gain a competitive advantage over other companies is to introduce a feature they don't have. And that feature is a phone that won't die during chicken.

Sorry, US diners, right now it is exclusive to Delhi and Mumbai.

Dear California: Why Is Farming Science A Bad Thing Again?

Jun 23 2016 | comment(s)

For decades we have been told that salmon is good for us, for everything from heart health to brain function. And we should eat more of it.

But if more people actually listened to those dietary recommendations, they would run squarely up against environmental activists and the media outlets (i.e. Mother Jones) and anti-science Deniers for Hire (i.e. SourceWatch) they fund.

The Supreme Court Has Set Back Diversity In Education

Jun 23 2016 | comment(s)

Should your ethnicity determine whether or not you are accepted into college?

Of course not, but once upon a time it was. Half a century ago, it certainly made a difference in which schools and universities you could attend. After what was morally obvious was rightfully struck down on legal grounds, discussion then turned to how to fix the problem that remained. The "shackled man" theory holds that if two people are running a race, and one has shackles on their feet, taking the shackles off their feet 100 yards into the race does not suddenly make it fair. They deserve to make up for that lost ground.

23andMe is Monetizing Your DNA The Way Facebook Monetizes “Likes"

Jun 22 2016 | comment(s)

If you paid 23andMe to take a look at your DNA, maybe you wanted to know more than why you like cilantro or are related to Genghis Khan, maybe you thought you were advancing science.

Well, you are, in the same old way marketers have long advanced science - by selling information about customers. In this case, the DNA information of 1.2 million people, sold to more than 13 drug companies. Genentech paid $10 million to look at the genes of people with Parkinson’s disease.

Now, that's good, it isn't like a Parkinson's treatment is going to come from the government, but 23andMe customers paid to have their DNA info sold to other companies. That is a sucker move.