Science & Society

When the United States Environmental Protection Agency wrecked the ecosystem in Colorado, CEOs across the America likely had a private sentiment - if a corporation not being paid by the EPA had done it, they'd be in jail. Sure enough, when the EPA caused toxic sludge to spill into a river, their bureaucrats assured us nature would fix itself. It's not a surprise, according to a new paper. Government entities are less likely to comply with federal environmental regulations and government regulatory authorities are less likely to enforce the rules when government is at fault. Government…

As smoking continues its inexorable southward journey toward single-digit percentages of populations being smokers, it’s common to hear people say the smokers who remain are all “hard core”, heavily dependent smokers, impervious to policies and campaigns. The argument runs that the ripe fruit of less addicted smokers have long fallen from the tree, and that today anyone still smoking will be unresponsive to the traditional suite of policies and motivational appeals. This argument is known as the “hardening hypothesis”. The hardening hypothesis is predictably most often used by pharmaceutical…

. Clothing brand Patagonia gives 1% of its sales “to support environmental organisations around the world”. Carpet-maker Interface takes an “aggressive approach” to reach its goal to source 100% of its “energy needs from renewable sources by 2020”. Nudie Jeans meanwhile, repairs, reuses and recycles its denim products, as well as using organic cotton to produce them in the first place. So, what’s going on? After decades of activists campaigning against companies’ poor environmental records, are companies suddenly becoming environmental activists themselves? Normally, companies are…

In the early days of food labeling and regulations, it was just about mandating honesty. If you go to buy mayonnaise, you shouldn't have to wonder if it is mayonnaise (1), and then labels became a marketing distinction. Better ingredients meant a better product and that appealed to people who cared about higher quality or superior health for their families.  More recently, labels have become a way to promote self-identification with a world view - you could show you are more ethical and care more about your children and the developing world, and even the whole planet, if you buy a…

Physicians' unconscious attitudes toward special patient populations like disabled and LGBT patients may be partially responsible for poorer overall health observed in these communities, according to a Rowan University professor of family medicine. Physicians' reluctance to discuss disabilities, sex, work and independence with disabled patients, who comprise nearly 20 percent of Americans, deprives patients of high quality care by leaving important health concerns unaddressed, said Joshua Coren, DO. Primary care providers frequently fail to discuss contraception, sexually transmitted…

Perversion and sexual assault is what Geoff Marcy is accused of not “harassment” or treating a conference like a “dating market”.  In our collective zeal to protect women from unwelcome but otherwise ordinary advances let us not conflate asking someone at a cocktail party over drinks on a date with doing what UC Berkley Prof Geoff Marcy is accused of.   The short version is he reached for and touched women in places that you never touch someone without some form of asking consent.  Preferably explicit oral consent or at least with the typical progression of passion…

A significant proportion of medical treatment decisions are not clear-cut. How can patients and doctors know is better for a specific patient -- medication or surgery, therapy, or even no treatment? If medication, which class of drugs? If surgery, what type of surgery?   Presenting and discussing a menu of treatment options is good for both the patient and the physician according to Regenstrief Institute and VA Center for Health Communication and Information investigator Kurt Kroenke, M.D., writing in a commentary in the Sept. 28 issue of JAMA Internal Medicine. "If a patient has…

A new study reveals viewers of "Law and Order" have a better grasp of sexual consent than viewers of other crime dramas such as "CSI" or "NCIS," suggesting that individuals who watch programs in which sexual predators are punished may avoid sexual predatory behavior in real life. Published in the recent issue of the Journal of Health Communication, the study by The Edward R. Murrow College of Communication at Washington State University shows a connection between how sexual violence is portrayed and how people view sexual consent. "One of the marked differences between 'Law&Order' and…

"John, Jim, Jake, Josh, Jack ...and Jane." Five out of every six names that appear in the media today are those of men, a McGill-led sociology team claims. Indeed, the more mentions a person receives in the media, the higher the chances are that this person is a man. That's because 82 percent of the names mentioned in media are male.  The scholars combed through data from more than 2,000 U.S. newspapers, magazines, and online news sources covering the period from 1983-2009 for the first time to arrive at this conclusion.  Despite significant social and economic advances in many…

In an effort to keep the pressure on scientists who accept the overwhelming consensus on genetically modified organisms (GMOs), the hard-left political magazine Mother Jones has written another article using emails provided to the organic lobbying organization US Right To Know(1) to undermine science it has chosen not to accept.  In this instance, the writer is Tom Philpott, but the name of the writer is unimportant, since you don’t get hired there unless you are firmly against science and willingly forgo journalism. Though the emails listed have nothing to do with the American Council…