It's a commonly held belief that a full moon brings out the crazies and the craziness. The word "lunatic" – derived from the combination of "luna," or moon, and "atic," meaning “of the kind of” – was first mentioned in a fourth-century Bible. A new study looks at the influence of the moon and some circadian genes on the incidence of suicide.
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Twenty years ago, Nobel Laureate Norman Borlaug wrote about agricultural biotechnology – its promise, importance, over-regulation, and the mindless opposition to it from activists. His words ring true today.
The spread of SARS-CoV-2 infections through many mammal species in the wild raises the specter of deer becoming a SARS-CoV-2 reservoir — a permanent home for the virus and a regular source of outbreaks in other animals, including humans.
Borlaug was a brilliant scientist and plant breeder, but the other secrets of his success were his perseverance and persuasiveness.
The recent Office of Science and Technology Policy report demonstrates that the federal government is not serious about feeding the country or developing a strong bioeconomy. The White House’s assessment contains decades-old unworkable initiatives. So we ask: Is the administration moving a ‘bold’ and ‘innovative’ agenda – or one simply focusing on climate initiatives, while China advances its bioeconomy?
The FDA is responsible for the approval of medications in the U.S. Many similar agencies are doing the same work in other countries. But unlike the U.S. – where cost is not a consideration – several countries including the UK, Canada, and Australia, apply a Health Technology Assessment to consider a new medication’s clinical and economic cost and benefits. A recent study shows they disagree with the FDA’s decision about 20% of the time.
Traditionalism, a synonym for conservatism, is defined as “the tendency to embrace what are perceived to be the longstanding norms and values of one’s group, while rejecting changes to them.” During COVID, much of the writing on human behavior revolved around the actions of the conservatives vs. liberals. An anthropologic study looks at the role of traditionalism during COVID more globally.
Johnson & Johnson is working on a drug to repair liver damage caused by Tylenol, which has made the company billions since it was launched in 1955. Isn't this a bit like having a dentist's office in the back of a candy store?
He invented the thermos and smokeless gunpowder.
Rising angst
Right to repair
What are we drinking
With much fanfare, the EPA announced the proposed drinking water regulations for two “forever chemicals,” PFOA and PFOS. EPA Administrator Michael Regan said, “Communities across the country have suffered far too long from the ever-present threat of PFAS pollution. That is why President Biden launched a whole-of-government approach to aggressively confront these harmful chemicals, and EPA is leading the way forward.”
Long COVID will take a toll on the nation's healthcare system for the foreseeable future, but we can reduce new cases by treating acute COVID infections with a commonly prescribed, inexpensive medicine.
If you're susceptible to motion sickness, traveling can be a nightmare. Fortunately, there are drugs that can help, maybe a lot. And there are also drugs that people take that do little or nothing. Here's an article in which I "bring up" the classes of motion sickness drugs and "regurgitate" some knowledge about which ones are helpful and also the ones that are "wretch(ed)." This is no "gag." It's serious info that could be the "nemesis of emesis."
Senators Michael Bennet and Susan Collins co-sponsored the bill passed last December to combat the overdose crisis. While the bill had some good features, some will make matters worse. That’s because lawmakers refuse to accept the evidence and still cling to erroneous beliefs about the root causes of the crisis.
A belated Valentine’s day thought
Work vs. labor
Mass killings are not all the same; consider the Lost Boys
Two Idaho state legislators have introduced a bill that would criminalize providing or administering a vaccine produced with mRNA technology to any person or other mammal. It represents the apotheosis of elected officials' irresponsibility and stupidity.
I was struck by this large heading on an EPA website, “Rebuilding the Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program.” This program does not need to be rebuilt; it should be eliminated and consolidated with existing programs within the EPA.
Can we agree that whatever of the multifactorial causes of obesity you emphasize, obesity results in other health-related problems? Can we also agree that many of those multifactorial causes are present in childhood? Then doesn’t screening for obesity and early intervention make sense; that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure?
America is facing a critical shortage of many medically important drugs. The good news? There's a simple solution if we're willing to implement it. The Biden Administration is poised to invest billions of dollars in America's "bioeconomy." Will this really boost the US biotech sector, or just waste valuable resources that should be spent elsewhere?
Media coverage of the Ohio train derailment focused, understandably, on the personal tragedies of the town’s citizens. There was also considerable confusion about the chemicals' impact on the community's health. Yet there has been virtually no focus on the regulations already in place and why they weren’t more effective.
Millions of stars surround us, but every year our skies brighten from the lights we use to keep the dark at bay. As skyglow – the term for that brightening – increases, the number of stars we can see with our eyes is reduced. Let’s talk about light pollution.
“Humans are taking colossal risks with the future of civilization and everything that lives on Earth.” So begins a report in Nature attempting to quantify Safe and Just Earth boundaries. The findings “are meant as a transparent proposal for further debate and refinement by scholars and wider society.” I took them at their word; let’s consider and then debate their proposals.
Russia's decades-old propaganda machine is vast and vicious. Its goal is to damage the health and prosperity of the country's adversaries, especially the United States.
“As the field of transgender health care has transitioned from pathologizing patients to a gender-affirming and patient-centered model and from an understanding of gender as binary to a fuller picture of gender as a spectrum, its associated diagnoses have similarly evolved.” An article in JAMA’s newest spinoff, Journal of Ethics, tries to explore the benefits and problems of a medical diagnosis.
The EPA recently completed a draft health assessment on Chromium-VI that is causing controversy in the scientific community because it concludes that Chromium-VI is likely to cause cancer through drinking water. This conclusion is at odds with EPA’s previous assessments, much of the scientific literature, and assessments by other countries, including Canada.
Kimchi, initially a household staple of Korea, has increasingly found its complex flavors of vegetables, garlic, ginger, and fish sauce being accepted as a global star. Long before refrigeration, fermented foods were a winter staple. A new study looks at the physics underlying the of making Kimchi.
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