Science & Society

California, chemaphobia, and the 'Erin Brockovich chemical' (Chromium-6) Chromium 6 found in elementary school's drinking water On March 11, 2016, Coyote Valley Elementary School near Middletown, California (north of San Francisco), started handing out bottled water following reports that the Hidden Valley Lake municipal water supply had levels of chromium-6 higher than were allowed by the state division of drinking water. As a result the school turned off its drinking fountains and handed out bottled water. How much higher? Three parts per billion (ppb) higher. In California, 10 parts per…

We see all of the rosy claims coming from the Federal government about unemployment rates yet around us we see no one can buy a home, young people have resigned themselves to living with their parents, and the deficit this year has climbed at a rate that is unprecedented. It's because government unemployment statistics only tally people who get unemployment, and unemployment checks expire. It does not count people who have given up or who are chronically unemployed but that shows we have been in a period of stagnation for almost 10 years.  Labor Day is about to arrive but since 2009 it…

Female plastic surgeons need more equitable representation in leadership roles, according to an op-ed in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. "Women bring unique qualities to leadership, yet there remain barriers to gender equality," according to the article by five leading women plastic surgeons. "Our failure to attract, nurture, and sustain women for leadership positions significantly reduces the talent pool of capable leaders in plastic surgery," writes Debra J. Johnson, MD, of The Plastic Surgery Center in Sacramento and colleagues. What has gone wrong? It isn't sexism now, but in the…

This is the reply after asking a scientist to endorse putting a draft of an article into a more fitting category on the arXiv, which is a mere preprint archive (not a journal or anything like that) where I already put almost 20 articles, and the endorsement would be anonymous, so this established scientist fears that the enforcers at the PC arXiv may notify his or her University - this is the state of free speech today, the reality of the scientific community: Hi Sascha, Unfortunately UC Santa Cruz and many other college campuses have been changing their code of conduct to make it hard for me…

Associate sociology professor Julie Brines and doctoral candidate Brian Serafini claims there is quantitative evidence of a seasonal, biannual pattern of filings for divorce - determined by analyzing filings in Washington state between 2001 and 2015. Statistics show that they consistently peaked in March and August, the periods following winter and summer holidays.  In order words, no one gets divorced over Christmas or wants to ruin the summer holiday for the kids. But it's sociology, so they always want to be reductionist, and the paper instead goes over the top and claims that …

America had an illegal alien problem long before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, but with the border to Mexico so porous, homeland security quickly focused on heightening surveillance - and this racialized Latino immigrants, according to a sociology paper which used media accounts and government reports, often drawn on anecdotes, to make their case. "Neither contemporary political rhetoric, nor policy, nor institutional change in regards to immigration and terrorism can be properly understood in isolation without taking into account how these issues are brought together at…

In 2012, Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney was criticized for speaking an uncomfortable truth; 47 percent of voters are voting for the same party regardless of the actual policies. In academic science, the turnout will be huge for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton because her actual science policies are irrelevant. Her stance on science is irrelevant because she does not need to cater to academics, she knows they are never voting for a Republican.  This is the same with religious people and Republicans. The only worry is 'will people stay home?' Meaning will their party vote…

Like other claims about binge diets, if this becomes a thing, someone out there will try to claim there is a biological mechanism. But unless it is a gene only in middle class white women it probably won't get a lot of traction.http://www.euractiv.com/section/health-consumers/news/report-drunkorexia...

There is no question that in recent decades academics have veered sharply left, and none more so than the humanities fields - but linking government spending to male body image may have set a new standard. Whereas the academic left used to attack the right, now they attack the left that won't continue to raise taxes - neoliberals. Dr Jamie Hakim of the University of East Anglia School of Film, Television and Media Studies has written 'The Spornosexual': the affective contradictions of male body-work in neoliberal digital culture' in the Journal of Gender Studies and contends that more young…

Though Britain has consistently been part of formal European trading, it was with some hesitation that they entered the European Union (EU) in 1993, and they famously balked at adopting the Euro currency in 1999. During that time, fears about giving a lot more than they get have been realized.  Some claims have been that science in the UK would be impacted by Britain's exit from the EU - "Brexit" for short. So is that fact or hype? It's hype. In 2014, the private sector account for 65 percent of research funding so government funding has never been much. For the first four years of…