Science & Society

Most of us have experienced unwanted calls at home. This is in spite of efforts by regulators, including the Information Commissioner’s Office and Ofcom, whose most recent report shows that around half of the UK population still receive nuisance calls. Many of these unsolicited calls annoy us because they interrupt our dinner or favorite TV show – but some, such as sales or scam calls, can cause distress or even harm. To curb nuisance calls, you can sign up for an automated call blocking or filtering service, opt out from receiving unsolicited calls by registering for the Telephone…

There have been more celebrity suicides during the COVID-19 pandemic and while tragic, they may help to bring great awareness to the risks of depression and anxiety in other populations at all times. Such as pregnant and postpartum women. For new moms, those stresses come with side effects. Such effects can include premature delivery and reduced mother-infant bonding. "We know that experiencing depression and anxiety during pregnancy and the postpartum period can have detrimental effects on the mental and physical health of both mother and baby that can persist for years," says Dr. Margie…

A team of epidemiologists who correlate specific types of calories, rather than simply too many calories, to obesity have written a new paper advocating for cigarette-style warning labels on soda.  During the COVID-19 pandemic, disease epidemiologists were concerned that the public did not take their models more seriously, but since most exposure the public has to epidemiology consists of using statistical manipulation to link certain foods to positive health outcomes (e.g. the Mediterranean Diet) or chemicals to negative ones (too many to count, but since Dr. Frank Schnell just wrote…

Thanks to COVID-19, the public has gotten a lot more skeptical about claims that chemicals, food, and medicine are corporate conspiracies created to replace natural products that worked just fine. Even more ridiculous has been the belief that millions and millions of people are dying from these newer products even though there are no bodies to be found. Science is back, and that may be why Business Insider published what can perhaps be described as an advertorial for environmental groups who have to be sweating now that their campaigns against the modern world are being laughed at. It is…

A teenager held her phone steady enough to capture the final moments of George Perry Floyd’s life as he apparently suffocated under the weight of a Minneapolis police officer’s knee on his neck. The video went viral. What happened next has played out time and again in American cities after high-profile cases of alleged police brutality. Vigils and protests were organized in Minneapolis and around the United States to demand police accountability. But while investigators and officials called for patience, unrest boiled over. News reports soon carried images of property destruction and police…

Two cities, Los Angeles and Indianapolis, reported higher than usual domestic violence incidents once COVID-19 stay-at-home restrictions were implemented in March. For their paper, the scholars analyzed police calls for service before and during the coronavirus pandemic; from Jan. 2 to April 18 in Los Angeles and from Jan. 2 to April 21 in Indianapolis.School, restaurant and bar closures were ordered in both cities on March 16th. Los Angeles implemented government lockdown orders on March 20th and Indianapolis enacted similar orders on March 24th.  The researchers also analyzed reported…

How to scientifically answer questions like wear a mask or not?  Anyone and everyone can think scientifically.  It is thinking systematically and critically about the information and considering the ethics of your choice given that information. It is also being open to new information which can change your mind. The key is knowing that public science is a process of independently assessing information gleaned from reliable sources.  The hard part is being open to that information even if it goes against our own biases or preferences. Lastly thinking ethically about your choices…

A year ago, and for this entire century, the nexus of anti-vaccine beliefs and other denial of science has been Democratic states. While places like Mississippi and Alabama had vaccine rates near 100 percent, an infectious disease crisis that began on the west coast forced politicians in California, where kids without vaccines totaled more than the other 49 states combined, to shuck off their wealthiest constituents and mandate them. (1) Then COVID-19 took the world by storm and  all of that changed. Wealthy people now demand a vaccine. California Governor Gavin Newsom, who had signed…

If you had a choice, would you rather set your own hours or work around your schedule around family needs, or would you prefer being forced to go into an office where a corporate manager applies constant pressure to do more in the same amount of time and you have to pay for babysitting? Many people opt for the former, and the "gig economy", where you set your own schedule, has been a boon for them. But fewer employees mean less payroll taxes and California has $500,000,000 in unfunded liabilities, primarily for government pensions and debt, so if a company is not paying payroll taxes to the…

Dr Fauci is the most trusted public scientist on all matters regarding SARS-COV-2, however he gets his pure logic wrong on the subject of Covid-19’s origin. That scientific research was the transport mechanism for this virus from Southern China to central China is a valid logical hypothesis. Like all scientist he is not an expert on every aspect of a complex phenomenon. He is a public health expert focused on saving lives in the here and now and doing a great job of it. To him discussion of the origin of the virus is irrelevant. He claims that the logic of the hypothesis that a lab was…