The CDC just announced the pause of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in the U.S. because of six blood clots among seven million people vaccinated.  If you're shaking your head trying to figure out why the CDC pulled a life-saving vaccine after a few adverse events so rare -- where you'd have a much greater risk from dying from crossing the street or getting into a car -- you are not alone. Is the U.S. shifting regulatory policy to the Precautionary Principle?

Google Maps and privacy, mRNA vaccines - an overnight + 40 years sensation, can plants solve our CO2 problem, the cost of subscription services.

A seemingly simple, seemingly non-controversial story from a local news outlet in New York talks about efforts to ban glyphosate (aka Roundup) from the city's parks and public places. But if you dig a little, the facts change. Plenty.

Our country continues to be plagued by maternal deaths, and there are disparities in outcomes when stratified by race or ethnicity. So what’s going on? A new study that looks back over 18 years searches for some answers.

America eats a lot of potatoes, well over 100 pounds per person annually. According to Harvard’s School of Public Health, a potato is not to be considered a vegetable. What up with that?

It is far easier to view the past, with 20-20 hindsight, than to be able to predict the future. That's especially true for COVID-19, as it continues to challenge the human race.

In addition to AstraZeneca’s self-inflicted injuries in misreporting its vaccine efficacy and conducting the initial Phase III trials, it’s now contending with off-again, on-again concerns about clotting. Can we talk?

Space is a harsh environment. We’re all familiar with the big risks from television – asteroids, solar flares, lack of air, extreme temperatures, and the occasional testy alien ships. What we don’t think about quite as much is the radiation. With trips to the Moon and Mars, in the planning stages, we are once again about to send people into that harsh universe. In addition to the engineering, logistics, and everything else that goes into such trips, NASA is looking at revising the limits for radiation exposure its astronauts can receive. 

Mainstream news outlets have gone after COVID-19 conspiracy theorists with a passion. But when it comes to equally important science topics, they have no problem ignoring evidence and promoting conspiratorial nonsense. This blatant hypocrisy causes confusion and fuels the public's skepticism of science more broadly.

It's been a pretty ghastly 14 months thanks to COVID. But, let's look on the bright side. Here are four benefits that resulted from the pandemic. Maybe.