Chemicals & Chemistry

Spring is just around the corner, and with it comes another growing season.

By Joel Shurkin (Inside Science) -- Drilling below the floor of the Dead Sea, scientists have found evidence of cataclysmic droughts, far worse than anything ever recorded by humans -- a time when the Dead Sea was much deader.

In a world that is jam-packed with things to worry about—most of them nonsense—we have more nonsense, courtesy of California State Sen.

Every once in a while, I like to write about unusual elements. While you don't run into them all that often, some of those bad boys are pretty strange. Here are a couple that I've written about in the past:

"Lying" is considered one of those words civilized people should never say. That's why politicians never use it. Instead, their opponents are "misinformed" or "misspeaking" or "using alternative facts." 

It's that time of year again. Flowers are beginning to bloom, trees are turning green, the birds are chirping a little louder ... and the Environmental Working Group is scaring you about perfectly safe and healthy food. 

At the American Council, we specialize in taking complex scientific and medical issues and crafting them into a form that can be understood by non-scientists, while at the same time not omitting crucial information. And talk about timing!

The line between deliberately manipulating a story or poorly reporting the facts is perilously thin, and often based on the subjectivity of the reader.

No matter the evidence, some people always will refuse to accept it. Some of those people are university professors.

It's a good thing that there's always someone around to scare us, or we couldn't possibly be perpetually scared.