R.I.P. Jean-Claude Bradley
Prof. Jean-Claude Bradley, a true open science pioneer, has passed away.Many people worked with him, he was willing to challenge the status quo and that means a lot of people wanted to be around him - he was one of the earliest scientists to sign up to help Science 2.0 after this first component launched. I don't know how he heard of us, he was just in tune with the broad science community that way.
Weekend Science: Pigs That Taste Like Rye Whiskey
If you're like me, you always throw a little Pabst Blue Ribbon on meat. Some people use whiskey in their marinade.At the Templeton Rye Distillery in Templeton, Iowa they are cutting out the middleman - they are trying to create pork that already tastes like whiskey.
3,100,000 Vs 0: GMOs Win
Vermont is still milking the slavery thing.Yes, yes, you were first to ban it. It's easy to ban something you never had in the first place. That does not mean you are right in everything you ban and, let's face it, comparing GMOs to slavery is a little weird, even for Vermont.
Nonetheless, “We’re first again,” gushes organic farmer Will Allen in The Economist, which makes the rest of the country wonder if it is the organic farming or the Vermont air that makes people goofy.
You Like Me. You Really Like Me!
American Council on Science and Health is an advocacy group consisting of hundreds of scientists, doctors and policy experts devoted to science outreach. They've been around since the 1970s, when the core of their original group, including Nobel Laureate Norman Borlaug, the "father of the Green Revolution", wondered why there were no science groups that offset the wonks promoting fear and doubt about researchers.Since then, they have gone where the data takes them. Co-founder Dr. Elizabeth Whelan has been attacked by both food fetishists and Big Tobacco for promoting inconvenient truths about science. Bipartisan disdain means they are probably right where they need to be.
What Scientists Say And What The Public Hears
Richard Somerville and Susan Hassol have some recommendations for how to improve science communication.Atrazine And The Forever War On Science
I'll tell you up front, I am not a big fan of chemicals.It's not that I have chemophobia, or any science-phobia, I instead have that special sort of elitism that is available to people who have just been lucky enough to not need chemicals. I don't even like to take aspirin and I have that luxury because I haven't needed to take any drugs for a recurring condition, so it's really easy for me to embrace such naturalistic posturing.
Food Activists Declare Synthetic Biology In League With Lucifer
If you want to find a hotbed of anti-science sentiment, sure, you could go to a cigar bar full of Republicans and mention that the temperature outside must be up because of global warming - and you would get lots of predictable responses, but you would not get someone claiming you were on the IPCC because they remembered reading your name somewhere this one time.If you want to see true cluelessness coupled with denial of science, even the Republican National Convention won't do it - you have go to sites about food that are run by anti-science groups.
Adult Stem Cells Changed Into Pluripotent Stem Cells By Nuclear Transfer
In 2009, President Barack Obama slightly eased restrictions on the human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research that was first funded by his predecessor, President George W. Bush, but limited to specific lines. Using an executive order, Pres. Obama allowed for a few more lines to be created while still obeying President Clinton's Dickey-Wicker Amendment, which limited research on embryos.The 2014 Food Revolution Promises To Save You From Science
Food is interesting to me. It's essential, of course, but it's also a lot of cutting-edge science that people don't see. It's hard to imagine now that when I was a kid, Prof. Paul Ehrlich (and then later our current science czar, Dr. John holdren) were projecting that we would be having worldwide riots and mass starvation by now.Instead, while I was living on a small subsistence farm, American agricultural science ignored that apocalyptic memo, and they began producing far more food on far less land.
Vermont’s Problematic GMO Bill
Genetically modified foods are so common that it seems a little strange to put a label on, basically, everything. But some states are trying.Vermont just did. The governor says he is signing it.
And it's a weird law, even from a policy point of view. From a legal point of view, the FDA is not going to be happy about yet another unscientific piecemeal approach to arbitrary food labels. Then there is the business aspect. How long before a lawsuit comes up because so many products are exempt from this new law that is supposedly about food transparency?