Endocrine disruptor.No one knows why Hypospadias, a birth defect where the urethral opening is abnormally placed, became more common among Swedish boys in recent decades. Before 1990, it happened in 4.5 per 1,000 boys, and after that increased to 8 per 1,000 boys.Researchers looked at past attributed causes (in epidemiology, they find two curves that go the same direction and attribute...
read moreWant to scare people about a pesticide? Compare it to DDT. 40+ years after it was banned in a bit of scientization of politics, people have still heard of it. DDT may be the only pesticide many people have ever heard of. Environmental groups love to invoke it for that reason.But if you are a fan of science, when you see a DDT comparison, you know evidence has left the building. DDT, when...
read moreAt a time when the EPA is rushing to place new regulations on the one thing that is still cheap and increasingly environmentally effective in America, energy, it may seem strange to laud the EPA. But career scientists do solid work there. read...
read moreAre you worried that genetically modified corn will imperil the earth and ruin your organic sticker status if the air blows toward your fields? Horticulturalists have a solution; let science grow transgenic crops that can feed billions and create high-value medicinal antibodies. Organic believes can put their corn in caves. read...
read moreWhen Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" was taking the country by storm 50 years ago, it was a puzzle to scientists and farmers who did not see the cultural future looming in front of them. Scientists dismissed it as anecdotal evidence while farmers recognized that if you don't use a pesticide according to instructions, bad things happen. Both knew that without pesticides, yields would be...
read moreThere is a good reason I was not a fan of Energy Secretary Steven Chu's nationalistic claim that we are in a 'race' to beat China in creating cheap solar panels. read...
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