Science & Society

I don't drink much milk now, though I did when I was a kid. I think I eat more cheese than I did then, and that makes sense. We were a poor family on a subsistence farm and cheese is expensive. Milk was not. At least if you got it right from the farmer.  But most of us don't get it right from the farmer, which is one reason why an increase in milk prices in the U.S. won't help dairy farmers much, any more than it will in Australia or any other country. Most people do not buy dairy products from a local farmer, they buy food in stores. And the products in those stores may not even have…

The preliminary findings from Finland’s basic income experiment are out and they show mixed results. Both advocates and critics of the idea of a universal basic income will find cause for consternation and celebration. Though widely anticipated by basic income enthusiasts, the Finnish experiment will only fuel further debate on whether or not the idea works. The experiment ran for two years from January 2017 and was implemented by a center-right coalition government. It was motivated by a distaste for costly welfare bureaucracy and a desire to eliminate work disincentives that arise when…

In vitro, in utero, these are science terms that have become commonly known. In vitro means studies in cells, like using test tubes, or a test for a fetus in the womb in the case of in utero. Studies done in feces - yes, excrement - haven't really had a name, they though are common in gut bacteria analyses. Now they might, thanks to UNC School of Medicine scientist Aadra Bhatt, PhD, and colleagues; in fimo. Their proposal is published in the journal Gastroenterology. Why, you might ask, do we need a scientifically accurate term based in Latin for the study of poop?  And if feces is too…

A recent paper in JAMA Internal Medicine had all of the ingredients mainstream media love in food stories; a cosmic sounding number of participants (44,551), which sounds like it adds statistical power, and a provocative conclusion about the perils of the modern world - in this case that eating "ultra-processed food" is lowering life expectancy.  Don't be afraid to eat a convenient dinner. The statistical correlation was made based on a few 24 hour diet diaries, which is alone a huge confounder, over a 7 year period. And that just over 14% of  processed food intake increased risk of…

“I’m sorry.” These two words may seem simple, but the ability to express them when you’re in the wrong is anything but – particularly for those in the public eye. Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, to name a recent example, was forced to apologize after his 1984 medical school yearbook page resurfaced showing two unnamed men, one with blackface and another wearing the Ku Klux Klan’s white hood and robe. That he seriously botched his effort to apologize is arguably one of the reasons many people are still calling on him to resign. As a language scholar, I wanted to get to the bottom of just what…

When the HPV vaccine was first introduced, there were a number of reasons people listed for being critical. Some were just corporate cynicism - a company that just lost $5 billion in a Vioxx settlement was working its way under the same vaccine halo as polio and smallpox, they said. Others argued that it didn't work very well. And then there was a more subjective cultural claim that protecting teenage girls against a future cancer by making sex seem safer would lead to promiscuity. The good news on the first two is that there have been no issues. Though we doubled the costs to get new drugs…

This is another of my articles to help people who get terrified by news stories, which often get exaggerated titles even by responsible journalists. In this case many are scared that withdrawal from the INF is going to lead to a nuclear war. So, yes, it's in the news now that US has announced it will withdraw from the INF treaty, and Russia has responded with an identical move the day after. The US withdrawal has been expected for some weeks now and the Russian symmetrical response is hardly much of a surprise. IT IS NOT A DECLARATION OF NUCLEAR WAR. This is an example story. This is by…

For the last 20 years, insects have been touted as the next big thing in food, because they have a lot of protein and would be reasonable to produce at scale. And people who don't understand agriculture think land only suitable for animal husbandry could magically support amber waves of grain if we stopped eating steers. But are insects too icky? Perhaps to people who have never seen animals slaughtered but have killed an insect. However, people who claim to know a lot about animal welfare and food, vegetarians, are okay with insects. Zoologically, they are correct, insects are not animals…

UPDATE - NO HIT - AS PREDICTED BY ASTRONOMERS - The red top tabloids were quoting from something astronomers said 16 years ago. They aren't like the false prophet date setters. If they give a date they also give a time and timezone, just as they do for eclipse forecasts. It was 11:47 UTC (same as UK time in winter) . That's over an hour ago now. Back in 2002 the astronomers said that 11:47 on Feb 1 was the only virtual orbit that hit Earth. They later proved, later the same month, that it was not on that orbit which is how they knew it would miss and why the sensationalist press news was…

If you read media accounts, Republicans deny global warming and evolution while Democrats deny vaccines and GMOs. Republicans hate immigrants and Democrats hate unborn babies. Yet such simple 'us' and 'them' narratives aren't true, even if it makes for compelling framing, according to a new paper.  Instead, diverse groups around the world share more in common in terms of their beliefs and values than polarized reporting too often suggests. It's certainly true that people who have a cultural axe to grind use social media to grossly overestimate the difference between groups, and…