"Climate-anxious" college students are pushing to have low-risk pesticides banned from their campuses. Meanwhile, states that have legalized recreational marijuana use are concerned that their new policy may cause more car accidents. We examine the science behind both stories on episode 14 of the Science Dispatch podcast.
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For years, we’ve heard that social media is dangerous- especially to kids. The data was sketchy, but the anecdotal reports horrific - the perfect ground for band-aid remedies, poorly thought-out responses, inadequate legislation, and lawyers trolling for personal injury clients. But now, it seems a new threat has been detected: Addiction. Is it real? Other countries seem to think so.
Cannabis is a complex mixture of hundreds of chemicals. Here’s a look at one of them.
Of all the world's problems, arguably the most pressing is "which Tootsie Pop flavor is the most natural?" Another would be "why is Dr. Oz's head in that picture?" A lesson on artificial flavors and people.
In 1974 I called a nuclear engineer to interview him for a term paper on nuclear fusion power. We talked about all the advantages of fusion power, its prospects for the future, the impact on civilization, and so forth…and at the end of the interview, I asked him when he expected to see commercial fusion power. “I think it will be about 20 or 25 years from now that we see the first fusion reactor come online.” And that’s been the standard joke about fusion power since before I wrote my paper – that it’s about 25 years in the future…and always will be. But maybe that’s changing.
We spend quite a bit on body-affirming surgery in the US. According to the Aesthetic Society, in 2021, we spent $14.6 billion on procedural care, including liposuction and breast augmentation, to mention the top two. That doesn’t include the nips, tucks, revisions, or injectables to fill or paralyze. One form of body-affirming surgery remains quite controversial, genital gender affirming surgery – a new study follows up on our earlier reporting.
For those of us working, or in my case, having worked in the medical community Don Berwick is a well-known gentleman. He is the former administrator of the Center for Medicare Services, President Emeritus of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, and the author of healthcare’s triple aim – expanding care, improving quality, and lowering cost. He has a new message today, the Ten Teams.
Water (H2O) is essential to life and is ubiquitous; found even on planets, asteroids, and comets. It is a deceptively simple but very complex entity with many facets. Many people in developed countries consider access to quantities of drinkable (potable) and other water to be a given and at a low cost. The United Nations says that access to sufficient, safe water is a human right, but you get what you pay for. Access to universal assured safe drinking water has existed for only about 120 years with the development of microbiology to test for pathogens and engineering for filtration and disinfection water treatment.
A recent survey conducted at schools in England has yielded additional evidence that vaping is an effective smoking-cessation tool.
Many Americans are obsessed with nutrition or totally disinterested in it. Why are these extremes so common? ACSH contributor David Lightsey joins us to explain. Public health officials committed many blunders during the pandemic. Part of the problem may have been the incomplete and often inaccurate information they were working with. How can they avoid the same errors next time around?
The FDA has released the latest results from its Pesticide Residue Monitoring Program. Activist groups are scrambling to dismiss the report.
In general, the dietary supplement industry has the scruples of a three-card monte game. One of the most popular products is melatonin, which is used as a sleep aid because it's natural (wrong) and not a drug (also wrong). Let's take a look at some supplement sleight of hand.
The “hard problem” – nuclear waste
Our bookshelves speak to our inner nature.
A sustainable diet is not a choice of meat or plants; it is meat and plants.
China is 'seeding' clouds to increase rainfall and fight a severe drought. Will it work? A large body of research shows that soda taxes are ineffective, so why do public health experts continue to endorse them? Finally, has climate change increased the number of heart attacks we suffer? No.
It’s now been established that vaccination may be the last best hope of stemming the tide of increasing COVID-19 infections. We are currently in the 5th round of vaccinations, all of which performed as expected in the laboratory, hence their FDA certifications. However, vaccine effectiveness in the field depends on human elements that are not controllable in a free society.
Last week I stopped breathing. If it was not for my wife, who gave me some breaths, and the village of people who subsequently cared for me, we would be speaking through a Ouija Board.
Let's say that your car gets 300 miles on a full tank of gas. Would you expect it to go 600 miles with a half tank? Or 1,200 with a quarter tank? If that sounds crazy welcome to Homeopathy World, where the same "logic" applies. This article might not get your car to go further but it could save you the 20 bucks you might otherwise throw away on Arnica.
World War II ended with the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Those bombings and the late effects of radiation on the development of cancers in those “survivors” spurred scientific inquiry into the mechanisms underlying human carcinogenesis – the development of cancer. Today’s regulatory science of chemical carcinogens is based upon assumptions and beliefs that are now 75 years old. Our understanding of carcinogenesis has evolved; should our regulatory models shift?
The Non-GMO Project claims that drought-tolerant crops won't help "feed the world" as climate change threatens crop yields. The evidence says otherwise.
Dr. Jeffrey Singer has written repeatedly about the "iron law of prohibition" and how it has contributed to soaring drug overdose rates, as generally safe medications are replaced by those that are far more dangerous. Not, it's not fentanyl. A class of illegal narcotics called nitazenes is now making the rounds, leaving devastation in its path.
Not that they asked my advice, but if a group is going to pour food on a famous oil painting, in a protest against oil companies, don't you think that they should have at least chosen the right food?
Mandating vaccination isn’t the greatest governmental policy. Catherine the Great knew that back in 1768 – more than two hundred and fifty years ago. Maybe politicians should look to history for ideas on what works when influencing population behavior. Perhaps they should also eschew involving themselves in scientific matters where they are ignorant.
Hardly a day goes by when the "opioid crisis" doesn't make the news. But as you'll see, alcohol causes far more damage in terms of addiction, health problems, deaths, and economic impact yet is rarely mentioned. Why the discrepancy? It just doesn't add up.
An Israeli group has discovered that some cancers can be identified by blood tests that identify the DNA of different fungi that grow within different tumors. Could this be a breakthrough in cancer screening? Or maybe more? A strange but fascinating theory.
Sepsis is an overwhelming infection: bacterial, viral, or fungal. It requires immediate medical attention and intervention. EPIC, the company with the largest share of the electronic medical records market, developed an algorithm to help physicians timely identify at-risk patients. An independent study shows that it is not helpful. Is this healthcare’s 737Max moment?
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