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Detecting Seafood Fraud Using Chemical Maps

Posted by on Sep 13, 2022 in Chemistry | Comments Off on Detecting Seafood Fraud Using Chemical Maps

Food fraud is common. Probably 25 percent of imported food with an "organic" label is just conventional food and even in America some organic farmers are just selling regular food. In Europe, everyone knew that Russia was not magically producing all of the organic food they were selling to France and Germany so those companies could pretend it works to feed the world.

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Survey Results Show That For Many, Vaping Was A Fad And Not An Addiction

Posted by on Jul 25, 2022 in Public Health | Comments Off on Survey Results Show That For Many, Vaping Was A Fad And Not An Addiction

Vaping devices, e.g. the unfortunately named e-cigarettes, were a valuable tool for smoking cessation and harm reduction, with better results in ending smoking that nicotine patches and gums.

Then suddenly they were everywhere, a market so large that a tobacco company whose primary business was cigarettes spent billions for a small stake in Juul, which had become the leader in vaping products. Now they have written 90 percent of that investment down because it turns out that while nicotine is addictive, vaping never had the 'cool' factor of cigarettes. Cigarettes were boosted in culture by film and television prevalence but vaping never attained that kind of traction.

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If You Don’t Get A Third COVID-19 Shot, Are You A Narcissist?

Posted by on Jul 15, 2022 in Psychology | Comments Off on If You Don’t Get A Third COVID-19 Shot, Are You A Narcissist?

One thing that must annoy psychiatrists is that everyone will try to claim expertise in their field if they want to make a political point - in the case of a recent paper it is literally humanities scholars who want more mask and vaccine mandates.

To achieve that, and despite having nothing we might consider qualifications, they used profiling to suggest a clinical diagnosis. They did it by creating their own custom analysis to claim that while other studies showed there were lots of reasons people might not like to wear a mask, opponents casually claiming they were selfish or even narcissistic are clinically correct.

Let's unpack that. 

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Observations From The Past Can Help Inform Climate Changes

Posted by on Jul 7, 2022 in Atmospheric | Comments Off on Observations From The Past Can Help Inform Climate Changes

Prior to the 1980s, most thermometers were both inaccurate and not placed using scientific methodology. But tree rings need time and ice cores even longer, which means for recent periods of time have to rely on observational claims and hope to control for their accuracy.

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Would Peer-To-Peer Charging Reduce Range Anxiety And Make Electric Cars Mainstream?

Posted by on Jun 17, 2022 in Energy | Comments Off on Would Peer-To-Peer Charging Reduce Range Anxiety And Make Electric Cars Mainstream?

One of the sillier commercials for a cell phone I have seen in recent memory is some guy shaking his head in sadness that his phone is out of battery and a kindly person places her phone on his to give him a boost. They were able to use the Qi wireless charging capability to share energy with each other.

This looked like a solution without a problem. If you are going to be that despondent without your phone, you bring one of those little charging packs, you bring a power cord, you are not shaking your head like you unwittingly got placed into an episode of "Alone" and have been dropped into Alaska with nothing but a neck gaiter and a frying pan. You are prepared.

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The Biden Admininstration Is Mandating Condensing Furnaces – That’s Bad For People And The Environment

Posted by on Jun 15, 2022 in Energy | Comments Off on The Biden Admininstration Is Mandating Condensing Furnaces – That’s Bad For People And The Environment

The Biden administration has issued a decree that any furnace sold after 2029 must be a "condensing" furnace, and his environmental group allies are thrilled they have locked in another win.

It may not be a win for the public.

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For Electric Cars To Be Viable, Charging Station Locations Need To Be Optimized

Posted by on Jun 6, 2022 in Energy | Comments Off on For Electric Cars To Be Viable, Charging Station Locations Need To Be Optimized

One thing electric car owners who have lost the mystique tell you is that you live your life around them. Some report going to a store like Costco to charge their cars, they need new service panels at their house, and one owner famously blew up his Tesla with dynamite rather than pay $22,000 to replace the batteries when they wore out. An article in the Wall Street Journal was by someone excited to rent an electric car for a trip, only to find they spent more time charging it than sleeping.

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Stop Eating Affordable Vegetables, It’s Just Too Dangerous. Claims Organic Industry Funded Paper

Posted by on Jun 2, 2022 in Public Health | Comments Off on Stop Eating Affordable Vegetables, It’s Just Too Dangerous. Claims Organic Industry Funded Paper

There is some produce advice coming from the activist camp yet again, but what they are selling is rotten.

A recent paper senior author'ed by famed organic industry proponent Dr. Michael N. Antoniou raised an alarm about insecticide and herbicide residues found in the fecal microbiome of 65 twins in the United Kingdom. The big problem with it is that it preys on modern science journalists not knowing that dose matters. Any detection of any chemical that can kill a rat at high doses is correlated to pathology in humans, despite that being nothing close to reality.

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Canadian Activists Wants To Ban Decabromodiphenyl Ethane – That’s Bad News For The Public Worried About Fire Safety

Posted by on May 20, 2022 in Chemistry | Comments Off on Canadian Activists Wants To Ban Decabromodiphenyl Ethane – That’s Bad News For The Public Worried About Fire Safety

The activist group Environment and Climate Change Canada has gotten political allies inside the government's Health Canada division to try and lobby for bans on decabromodiphenyl ethane - without having a replacement for a flame retardant used to keep home appliances, electronics, and electric wires and cables safe.

That is an unnecessary increase in risk, not to mention a high price increase for Canadians already in the midst of a supply chain crisis.

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The Dose Makes The Poison – And That Is Why Venom May Soon Be A New Medicine

Posted by on May 16, 2022 in Pharmacology | Comments Off on The Dose Makes The Poison – And That Is Why Venom May Soon Be A New Medicine

In the 16th century, it was shown by Paracelsus that 'the dose makes the poison' - too much medicine or anything else could kill while too little did nothing. In the 21st century activists have sought to dispel that. They claim homeopathic effects from chemicals at safe doses, endocrine distuption and u-shaped curves, but science knows better.

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