When I walk in a seminar or lecture room, it looks mostly as 30 or 40 years ago. Then lifting my eyes I would notice that the "data"-projector is still there hanging from the ceiling, in addition to…

We're in a hyper-regulated society. Everyone wants to regulate other people while they claim to care about freedom and choice. If you claim to care about freedom and then want to ban marriage or IVF…

I wrote before about the controversy involving the release earlier this year of a genome sequence of the HeLa cell line, which was taken without consent from Henrietta Lacks as she lay dying of…

How do you demonize scientists who added 3 genes to the 30,000 in rice in order to stop vitamin A deficiencies in poor countries with rice-dominated diets? There are zero pitfalls to it yet an…

There are two ways to influence the public - basically carrots and sticks. A stick is, of course, taxes and fees and regulations and armed federal agents at your house should you choose not to obey…

Though Oregon voters gave a thumbs down to a 2010 ballot measure to create state-certified marijuana dispensaries, the Legislature bucked that tyranny of the majority and made them legal this month.…

Taxes reduce consumption and usage of the products being targeted, it is just often the case that it isn't reducing consumption among the people being targeted. As a way to spur consumption of '…

There's still no free lunch. Finite budgets based on taxes that give equal treatment to everyone aren't really resulting in equal quality. Instead, most ward nurses in NHS hospitals say they are…

In California, there are runaway wildfires because no one is allowed to take a machine into the woods and clear dead trees. Other countries have the opposite problem; a shortage of dead wood in…

I've long said that energy is the biggest issue we face in the 21st century - with energy, I can solve the problems of food and water and that helps solve poverty too. I can even turn lead into gold…