Science & Society

Businessman Jim McCormick Guilty Fake Bomb Detector Vendor Convicted For Fraud - Assets Seized For some years now, scientists, science writers, bloggers and others have been writing about the bogus…

At least when it comes to an analysis of malpractice lawsuits, diagnostic errors - not surgical mistakes or medication overdoses - accounted for the largest fraction of claims, the most severe…

Widening The Net - The Capture of Dzhokhar TsarnaevWhenever there is a high profile criminal act like the Boston Marathon Attack, we usually hear from the media that "the net is closing" on a suspect…

It becomes increasingly tedious that this question invariably elevates pure speculation to the verge of almost claiming actual science, simply because we can't imagine it otherwise.  Arguments…

Pharmaceuticals don't have a discovery problem, or a financing one, they have a political one that impedes everything else. Politics have a greater direct effect on the pharmaceutical industry than…

"It is a melancholy experience for a professional mathematician to find himself writing about mathematics. The function of a mathematician is to do something, to prove new theorems, to add to…

In the great debate over genetically modified organisms - GMOs - few institutional nods have been sought so keenly as that of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. A “no” from the influential…

Violent crime is undercounted or overcounted, depending on who you ask. Some statistics count gun violence twice, for example, as a criminal getting shot and a police officer doing the shooting. On…

Long ago, obesity and high blood pressure were signs of being a wealthy elite. But the world has progressed and now even the poorest countries can eat enough to be fat. As recently as 1980 those…

Health plans that offer low premiums and high deductibles believe that patients with deductibles of $1,000 or more for individual coverage (or twice that for family coverage) will shop around for the…