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When combined, science and religion can be a powerful force for good. Let's use it to vanquish COVID.

There's a new vaccine in town and all the nut logs and screwballs are blabbering nonsense rumors all over the Internet. Here's one that is especially bad – that the Pfizer/Moderna COVID vaccines can give you COVID. No, they can't. It is physically impossible. Here's why.

Aging is a failure to communicate? Should we have national sea parks? COVID-19 is not an equal opportunity disease. If a virus is not truly "alive," is this the zombie apocalypse?

This week, Jay Barber, one of our readers wrote to us asking about an article he had seen in The Intercept regarding the EPA ignoring a possible cancer risk. Luckily we have two toxicologists among our Board of Scientific Advisors, one of who was able to offer a critique.

The mainstream media is repeating the unscientific claims of a dishonest book. A deeper dive into the author of the book would have revealed duplicity and enormous conflicts of interest.

No one will argue that we have a serious weight control and obesity issue in the United States and every industrialized country. For the most part, public policies to combat the problem have been failures. To understand the underlying problem, we must first begin with understanding our physiology.  

Race is a social construct; until we consider healthcare and research, where it is an increasingly outdated biomarker. Before treatment disparities get worse, we need to have a discussion. Let’s get started.

Modeling the COVID-19 pandemic has become a quasi cottage industry, both in creating the models (as well as their subsequent failed predictions and criticisms). A new model takes on the hardest of variables to accurately portray: behavior. Not of the virus, but of its human hosts.

Dr. Joe Schwarcz, the director of McGill University's Office for Science and Society, (somehow) churns out one video per week in his "The Right Chemistry" series. "Dr. Joe" manages to make all of them fascinating. This one is about polyurethane, a substance that should NOT be used in place of hair spray.

"If you dust off a turd, it's still a turd." Even by my (admittedly) low standards, this is rather crude. But, what does it mean? I take aim at Genexa, a company that advertises "real medicine, made clean." A clever marketing scheme, but I don't know what it even means.

Dr. Vivek Murthy, President Biden’s nominee for Surgeon General, previously did a credible job, and presumably if confirmed, that will be true once again. But with the Washington Post reporting that his income last year was $2.6 million, some see a possible conflict of interest.

A new study out of Barcelona -- one that was not peer-reviewed -- suggests that vitamin D reduced COVID deaths by 60% and admission to the intensive care unit by 80%. However, the results are highly flawed.

According to the CDC, food allergies continue to be a growing problem for children. Peanut allergy is the number one food allergy among children, and its incidence has increased by 21% since 2010. What happens to our body when we have a peanut allergy, and why are some schools declaring themselves nut-free?

On Feb. 20, a large headline from CNN crosses my screen: ‘’Chemicals in plastics damage babies’ brains and must be banned immediately, expert group says”. A shocking, scary headline based on cherry-picked data that misleads the public. What are these chemicals that must be banned immediately?

We are surrounded by sounds creating a soundscape just as the land and buildings create landscapes. They are distinctive. The sirens and traffic of Manhattan, the silence punctuated by honking geese and their splashdowns in the nearby pond. The oceans, too, have soundscapes, humpback whales, the snap of a predatory snapping shrimp stunning its prey, and increasingly, the sounds of men and women.

The risk of radiation on a trip to Mars, the dark segments of our DNA, the role of "caste" in defining the elite, and how will our war with COVID-19 end?

Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube are well-known for the misinformation they spread, not as content providers – but as platforms. But Amazon? How could the superstore behemoth sow the same problematic information? For the answer, one only has to look to its algorithm.

There are numerous opinions about the best way to handle (or perhaps end) the COVID pandemic. They range from more strict lockdowns, to "let's open as quickly as possible" coupled with the hope to keep it in check. A pandemic expert picks the first way. It's very unpopular. Is it even a realistic choice?

March 5, 2020, was my last trip on the hideous New York City subway. At that time COVID has just begun to hit the city. By any measure, the last year sucked (as does the subway) but now that I'm inoculated I'm able to ride the damn thing again. Here's the one-year anniversary update of the trip report from last year. Things are much different now.

A century ago, the Flu Pandemic was bimodal. Its first peak was in late winter of 1917, before returning with vengeance in the fall-winter of 1918. COVID-19, too, has shown a seasonal variation, with its early peak last year and another rise now that seems to be fading away. So, some questions: Where do these viruses go? Do they leave at all? What makes them seasonal? Let’s explore.

How will the COVID-19 pandemic end? Will it burn itself out, find an equilibrium more like the seasonal flu, or will it continue to rage despite all we try?

Richard Lawhern of the ACSH Board of Scientific Advisers points out that US national policy for regulating prescription opioids doesn't lack for data. It instead drowns in persistently biased anti-opioid misrepresentation of the data we already have.

Why do books smell? Dr. Joe Schwarcz, a professor of chemistry at McGill University's Office for Science and Society explains in his own unique way in one of his own unique (and wonderful) videos from "The Right Chemistry" series. (And a way to poison readers that may or may not work.) Enjoy.

Safety data based on more than 17 million Pfizer and Moderna COVID vaccinations was just published in a JAMA online article. How safe were they? Very.

Last spring, New York City was the first major COVID-19 hot spot in the U.S., with cases and subsequent deaths surging out of control. Residents sought refuge from the burgeoning plague by fleeing the City, and suburban real estate markets became inflated. However, by midsummer and fall rates of new COVID cases in New York dropped and became among the lowest in the nation. What happened?