Science & Society

On Monday, Cameron revealed that he would not be seeking a third term as PM. He chose an informal interview with the BBC’s deputy political editor, James Landale, as the platform for his surprise announcement.The announcement caused feverish media speculation about his motivation for dropping this political bombshell, and the consequences for the electoral fortunes of the Conservative Party. We do not know exactly what went on behind the scenes – in the Conservative Party and the BBC – to occasion and shape the announcement. The interview with James Landale was the first in a series of…

A columnist at the New York Times has written that he believes that technologies like Apple’s upcoming watch could be as as dangerous as cigarettes and cause cancer. The idea, and the evidence that the New York Times columnist Nick Bilton presented, has been universally panned. Not only by a range of publications like Wired, The Verge and Slate amongst many others, but by the New York Times itself. Margaret Sullivan, the New York Times Public Editor, has called foul over the article, pointing out that the tech columnist Nick Bilton shouldn’t have been commenting on Science, which he clearly…

It may seem like blasphemy to scientists and journalists to have anyone argue that perhaps mainstream media should do less science coverage, but the world is changing fast. Trying to be all things to all people is increasingly difficult and science is more and beyond the abilities of journeyman writers no matter how talented they are. Unless the story is really big, television newscasts don't go very deep into science, they understand that they are competing with three-minute YouTube videos about science, and serious people are going to read more specialized publications. Why should the New…

Who volunteers to have sex in a laboratory? I was struck by this question when reading about an experimental study of ideal sexual positions for men with back pain. For the purpose of the research, couples were filmed using motion capture and infra-red technology while they had sex. The researchers were in a separate booth where they could hear, but not see, the participants. Electrodes were used to record muscle activity in certain parts of the body, to get an idea of force. Other sex studies are more invasive. Penile plethysmographs measure penis circumference in response to sexual…

In politics, all parties have their own 'fact-checking' and supposedly non-partisan organizations debunking each other, so they can't really be trusted. But in science true neutral fact-checking is actually possible. So why would any real group ignore science and instead place weight on weak and discredited studies like those of Gilles-Eric Séralini? It remains a mystery and yet the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) did just that with its paper on organophosphate insecticides and pesticides in Lancet Oncology. It didn't take long for Academics Review, a group of experts from…

Consumer driven food trends are nothing new. “Organics”, gluten-free, and more recently buying “local” have all captured consumers, encouraging supermarkets around the globe and in Australia to respond. But the next emerging European food trend that may have the biggest impact on what we buy each week is “ugly food”. What is the ‘ugly food’ movement? It is estimated that a third of all the food produced in the world is never consumed, with the total cost of that food waste being as high as US $400 billion a year. In response to the European Commission’s plan to make 2014 the “European Year…

America has the luxury of being able to dash from one culture war to another, primarily because we are a wealthy country with plenty of food and medicine and energy, providing ample opportunity for people who have never lacked for any of those to be opposed to science related to food, medicine and energy, while others can claim pollution is our friend or worry about abstract ideas like the conflict between science and religion. You would never know we are not doomed by this looming science/religion conflict if you read science and political media over the last decade or two - a chunk of…

How much of feeling healthy is subjective?  People today feel less healthy than ever, even though people live far longer far better than ever in history, according to a new paper. The reason they feel less healthy, and thus demand more medical treatment, is because of the decline in subjective health - people used to go to the doctor when they needed it - and expectations of more and more egalitarian "good" health. Because of the increased demand for zero health defects, there are demands for more doctors and more expansion and the cycle continues. The result: In the Western world, 25…

Last Friday and Saturday, the 2015 Synopsys Sac STEM Fair was held at Folsom High School. I moved here from the football town of Pittsburgh and one thing everyone in football fandom knows about football towns is that for 8 or more days during football season, the parking lots at stadiums are jam-packed with "tailgating" fans, even if they don't have tickets to the actual game. Tailgating is named such because in its earliest form it was just driving a truck up before the game and putting down the tailgate and sitting on it and having a refreshment. Then it became about bringing a grill and…

Countless blogs share stories about everything from potty training to preschool struggles while Facebook posts and Tweets are overrun with kids playing dress up, having meltdowns and dancing to the likes of Beyonce and Taylor Swift. Today's University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health concludes that "sharenting" is here to stay, with more than half of mothers and one-third of fathers discussing child health and parenting on social media and nearly three quarters of parents saying social media makes them feel less alone. But how far is too far…