From Los Angeles to Portland to New York City, political protests have become common. That provides data for what may be happening in brains and how engaged people can avoid becoming a Tyler Robinson or Luigi Mangione or Antifa in Oregon.The US is not special when it comes to protests, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace says there have been over 140 mass demonstrations globally in the...
read moreA cross-sectional analysis of emergency Medicaid expenditures from data in the 2022 Medicaid Budget and Expenditure System found that of the 38 states plus Washington, DC, was nominal compared to overall spending.There are confounders. Not all states allow it and 11 did not report emergency Medicaid spending on illegal immigrants and some, like California, now give health care for free to anyone...
read moreThe next time someone tries to tell you ancient folk medicine was equivalent to modern science, remind them that people once consumed other humans as part of legal trade. Apothecaries sold powdered mummies, or at least what they claimed were powdered mummies, because of belief in medical cannibalism and that it cured everything from headaches to the plague.Take that, antibiotics, your job could...
read moreSamhain, All Hallows Evening. Hallowe'en, Halloween. The name has changed but the world’s fascination with a day of spooks and scares has never wavered. Except it has also always been about harvests and farming and food. It may seem odd to lump together food and ghosts but that is Halloween in a cultural nutshell; a confusing mash-up of cultures and beliefs. That is actually a good thing. It...
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Are kids walking at night on Halloween safe? What's the physics of ghosts? How many toxic chemicals are in that organic pumpkin I bought? Is there a Secret Sadist out there putting razor blades in candy? You can find out the answers to all those questions and more in Halloween Science 2.0. It covers the history of the holiday, of course, this is Science 2.0, not a textbook, through the lens of...
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