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...
read moreWhen you have been around as long as Harvard, and your library contains 15 million books, you are bound to have a few that are bound in human flesh.Wait, what?Yes, an interesting article by Samuel Jacobs in The Crimson from 2006 got resurrected recently. It detailed what librarians would rather not become an object of morbid fascination - that some of their books are bound in human skin. Odd,...
read moreIf there is one thing wealthy elites across the developed world share in common, it is increasingly denying vaccines and genetically modified foods. read...
read moreWe often think of April 1st as more of a modern event, because it's sort of stupid and we think of our ancestors as being more serious. Not so. Even the eminent biologist Charles Darwin got pranked by his shipmates on the HMS Beagle, April 1, 1832, as evidenced by his diary. While March 31st only noted a "A fine rattling breeze" the following day had him excited to make a new...
read moreThe reboot of Cosmos was on the must-see television list for many; it is a prime-time non-fiction science program, with one of the best hosts in science media, a generous budget, airing on 10 channels, and even had music by the guy who did Captain America. Excitement was high.Then it actually began. It had an alarming non-science gaffe - the story of the likely insane philosopher Bruno...
read moreWho is to blame for the latest weekly decline in Cosmos ratings? The Walking Dead, NCAA basketball games, a mass exodus due to its opening effort to be culturally in-your-face? There is always going to be competition on TV, just like there will always be competition for a government R01 grant. No point in whining about that. And Cosmos still takes shots at religion, but it isn't devoting 25...
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