Science Education & Policy

More Regulations, Taxes, Unlikely To Create A Tipping Point For A US Black Market In Cigarettes

Tobacco use has plummeted in the past few decades, due to high taxes, bans on advertising and generous contracts for public relations companies to vilify smokers- but there are still more than a billion people worldwide who regularly use tobacco, including ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 22 2015 - 7:39pm

Government Created The Drug Discovery Problem- Now People Want Government To Fix It

The discovery, development and approval of new drug treatments has been stymied. Bureaucracy, coupled with a short patent window and attorneys waiting to pounce, has led to increased interest in vaccines, which require a separate litigation process than j ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 23 2015 - 10:55pm

Just Three Natural Gas Grants In Texas Generated $128 Million Last Year

If wind and solar companies want to continue to get government money, they should take a page out of the natural gas playbook- a new economic analysis found that just three state grants to support natural gas programs totaling $52.9 million generated $128 ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 24 2015 - 4:27pm

FCC Internet Regulation Plan Ignores History Of Past Failures

Will the FCC repeat past mistakes of regulating telecommunications as utilities? Shutterstock Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman Tom Wheeler claims that his plan to regulate Internet Service Providers (ISPs) under Title II of the 1934 Teleco ...

Article - The Conversation - Feb 24 2015 - 5:52pm

Britain Becomes First Country To Allow Three-Person IVF

Britain's House of Lords voted 280 to 48 to permit the use of three-person IVF- mitochondrial donation to prevent incurable mitochondrial diseases, which afflict around 4,000 children per year- on a case-by-case basis. On February 3rd, the UK House of ...

Blog Post - Hank Campbell - Feb 27 2015 - 12:09am

Should No Child Left Behind Be Re-Authorized?

Children show a vastly improved ability to absorb knowledge when they are allowed to make some of their own decisions about what they want to learn. Testing, in other words, gets in the way – and worse. Indeed, as the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislati ...

Article - The Conversation - Feb 26 2015 - 8:30am

Opt For Flexibility In Environmental Policies

Life is unpredictable, and we move forward the best we can despite not knowing every detail. It's no different in the natural world. The Earth is warming in some places and in some places it isn't, the weather is more variable today except it wa ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 27 2015 - 8:51am

Too Much Of A Good Thing: Warning Labels For Licorice Advocated

A 10-year-old boy suffered seizures after over-indulging in licorice sweets and that has led to calls for manufacturers to put a warning on the labels of licorice.  After suffering a 2 minute tonic-clonic seizure, a 10-year-old boy was admitted to hospital ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 2 2015 - 11:36am

Are You Cut Out To Be A Teacher? The VAIL Assessment Might Be Able To Tell

In America, teachers with tenure can't be fired and so it is more important than ever that the best people get the jobs in the first place.  Accountability is not going away in the American educational system, and neither are education unions, so new ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 2 2015 - 1:16pm

Stage, Not Age- Knowing Your Child's Reading Ability And How To Help Them

A child's reading progression isn't based on age, so you need to know what stage your child is up to in order to help them. Image credit:  Shutterstock Learning to read is a complicated process and parents often wonder if their child is developi ...

Article - The Conversation - Mar 3 2015 - 8:30am