Jenny McCarthy is at it again, but she's not talking about vaccines anymore. She's moved on to promoting therapies to "cure" autism that are expensive, time consuming, not backed by science and (shocker!) don't work. This woman is a medical menace.
Other Science News
We thought that our fellow scientists and physicians — our peers — who joined Theranos in order to increase its transparency and communication would be willing to talk about their role on the advisory board, and the developing technology. But, after we tried to engage them, boy were we wrong.
Ben & Jerry's wants us to believe that global warming, while catastrophic enough in its own right, could also deprive us of some of our favorite dessert flavors. Immediate action is necessary, the company implores us, or the chocolate, nuts and coffee used as ingredients could vanish from the Earth. By rolling out this disingenuous marketing gimmick the ice cream maker must think its customers are dimwitted rubes with no ability to engage in critical thinking.
I must admit that I still love books, not e-books, but the physical object and that lets me wander through bookstores making serendipitous discoveries. To my great joy, I found this new release, The Kingdom of Speech, as I was about to leave my local bookstore. Here is my report.
AMR is inevitable. As people keep finding ways to kill the microbes that infect us, those microbes, through evolutionary processes, will mutate to counteract them.
The UK’s report, A review of Antimicrobial Resistance, is a well-considered blueprint of a financially viable way forward. While it may not find its way to your nightstand, it should be required reading for our legislatures.
Karl Meltzer's newest feat, setting the land speed record traversing the Appalachian Trail from Maine to Georgia, was unquestionably remarkable -- and newsworthy. Yet among its media coverage, two of the most prominent reports played up the angle that one particular aspect of his achievement — the ultra runner's food consumption during his historic dash — was in some way bizarre. However, for the most part, that was just not the case.
For the second time this year, the EPA has published a report placing glyphosate in the "not likely to be carcinogenic to humans" category.
Claims that the “the science isn’t settled” with regard to climate change are symptomatic of a large body of ignorance about how science works. So what is the scientific method, and why do so many people, sometimes including those trained in science, get it so wrong?
The first thing to understand is that there is no one method in science, no one way of doing things. This is intimately connected with how we reason in general.
Science and reasoning
It might be wise to consider that while Dr. Amir Attaran was completely wrong in his predictions that the Summer Olympics in Brazil might possibly lead to worldwide Zika virus transmission, there are reasons to believe that the Canadian professor's clarion call turned out to be notably, if inadvertently, beneficial to global health.
When most of us listen to music, we hear more or less the same thing. But not everyone. There are people who have extra-sensory abilities to hear what other cannot, and they're others who either can't, or can, but simply don't enjoy it.
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Zika: The mosquito-borne virus that causes microcephaly in newborns has taken the world by storm. To date, more than 80 travel-related Zika cases have been reported, with new information surfacing daily. And yet, we still know very little about the virus, but what we do know is concerning. For everything you need to know about the virus, we have compiled some of our reports below:
The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CPSI) is threatening to sue Bayer Healthcare if they continue to advertise a multivitamin as a method of prevention against prostate cancer based on the fact that it contains selenium, a supplement whose prevention abilities have been thoroughly refuted.
This is a rare instance of harmony between ACSH scientists and CSPI lawyers - but after three decades they were bound to be right on a health issue one time.
We join CSPI in criticizing Bayer because they're right, though it undermines CSPI posturing that the pro-science community won't criticize industry if non-profits receive unrestricted grants from the private sector.