Exposure To Wildfire Smoke May Increase Preterm Birth Risk – But It Would Be The PM10, Not PM2.5
A new study statistically correlates wildfire smoke to pre-term birth risk. There are a number of confounders in that, of course, like that exposure to wildfires creates a great deal of stress and often hurried actions and those are huge factors, but they instead dredged up a link to something that makes little sense - air quality far from fires. And since they came up with a suitably cosmic number - 7,000 extra preterm births in just 5 years! - it is sure to get attention in a state where everyone hyperventilates over everything.EPA Is Lowering The Ethanol Mandate Below 2020 Levels – They Should Lower It To Zero
I am not running for President so I don't have any need to cater to Iowa corn farmers and voters, as former Vice-President Al Gore admitted he was doing when he broke a tie in the Senate and forced ethanol mandates on Americans.Fact Check: Is Chewing Gum ‘Made’ Of Plastic?
A reader sent me an email asking about chewing gum and if it was really made of plastic and my first thought was 'Why ask me? Do what scientists do and go to Google, skip the first 10 entries, which will all be gamed by SEO experts at anti-science groups like Ecowatch, and then you will find the answer' but I was hooked when I saw the article linked was in The Economist.COVID-19: This Form Of Coronavirus Can Be Eradicated, But Is It Worth It?
We have shown diseases can be eliminated, like polio and smallpox, but can you eliminate something like COVID-19?Coronavirus was only recognized as distinct from the common cold in the 1960s so it's impossible to know what impact it had throughout history and was just called flu or something else. COVID-19 was the third coronavirus pandemic of this century and we didn't worry about eradicating SARS and MERS, it was just important than the pandemic would stop.
Yet COVID-19 and the media attention it brought has thrown out the virology rulebook; some epidemiologists are overruling scientists and declaring everyone needs to wear masks until it is eradicated, but is that even possible?
Chewing Gum, Lördagsgodis, And The Wild Swedish Studies That Settled The Debate On Sugar And Cavities
Nearly 70 years ago, results of a Swedish experiment, now called the Vipeholm studies, correlated frequent candy consumption and tooth decay. With the benefit of scientific hindsight, this is no surprise. What is a surprise is how different cultures reacted.For example, instead of public awareness campaigns highlighting the effects of carbohydrates on oral health, as Americans might expect, Sweden asked people to cut back on candy drastically, to eating candy one day per week. Thus was born lördagsgodis - “Saturday sweets.” Parents only let their kids eat candy on Saturday.
People Who Who Say They Trust Science More Are Also More Likely To Promote False Science-y Sounding Claims
A short while ago a prominent physicist made the offhand claim that bees were dying because of a class of pesticides called neonicotinoids - seed treatments that protect plants from pests at their most vulnerable stage and result in far less chemical use than mass spraying. It's not true, and bees are not dying off anywhere, but that claim was still made by environmental fundraising brochures and lawyers hoping to sue so it's no surprise Mother Jones readers believe it.But a scientist? That should be odd. Yet it isn't.
Silent Spring Institute Claims Hundreds Of Chemicals Increase Breast Cancer ‘ Risk’
A study by the Silent Spring Institute(1), with funding from the politically sympathetic National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences during the days of organic industry keynote speaker and Ramazzini Institute member Linda Birnbaum, claims that hundreds of chemicals are endocrine disruptors.If Higher Tides Really Threaten Bay Area Roads, Stop Dumping Fresh Water Into The Bay During A Drought
San Francisco is worried that highway 37 may be in danger of flooding. They invoke environmental justice, of course, but it's really about rich people going to their second homes in Napa's wine country on weekends. Rich people need peasants toiling to feel elite and without roads they can't get there.Yet if San Francisco journalists and editors are concerned about rising water, why are they continuing to support dumping the water that poor people need into the Bay? It clearly does not need more water. Poor people who can't afford to live in Napa do.