Do you have questions about the COVID-19 vaccines, and wonder how safe and effective they are? Of course, you do. We all have them, so you've come to the right place. In his latest video presentation of A Dose of Science, Dr. Joe Schwarcz, the Director of McGill University's Office for Science and Society, clearly and simply explains how the vaccines were tested, and why they are all both safe and effective. Overall "we are very happy with what we are seeing," he says, so "go get the vaccine" because the health "benefits greatly outweigh the risks."

According to Sen. Rand Paul – an ophthalmologist, not an infectious disease specialist – natural immunity is better. While not being an infectious disease expert myself, I at least know enough to fact-check before speaking. So the answer, as is frequently the case, is: it depends.

Most individuals simply have a very unrealistic expectation as to how many calories they burn during exercise and what they can achieve in weight loss through exercise alone, even though they may have expended a great deal of effort to do so.

Is it too early to try and summarize what we have learned about the pandemic? Pompeii's lessons on recovering from disaster. Rules to live by?

Ever heard of the Hotze Health & Wellness Center in Houston? If not, you're better off. Its founder, Dr. Steven Hotze, has plenty to say about COVID, almost all of it completely wrong.

Science should always be open to new approaches and ideas. Perhaps this seems self-evident, but although this may sound good in theory, many scientists view new approaches challenging their long-held beliefs with skepticism or downright hostility. Rather than rationally examining ideas that cause discomfort, ideas are off-handedly dismissed, and the people advancing them are attacked. This is the scientific version of “cancel culture.”

What is it about science that has allowed our knowledge to advance so rapidly? And why wasn’t science invented long before that pivotal figure, Issac Newton? These are some of the questions that Michael Strevens, a professor of the philosophy of science, attempts to answer in a book called The Knowledge Machine. 

Farewell articles are tough to write, which is one reason why I try not to write them very often.

Most of the COVID-19 analyses and media report “milestones,” or instead use averaging to “smooth out” daily random variation. Data on single days lack a temporal context. But here we consider two topics of particular interest: systematic variations such as weekend effects; and COVID-19 infections that might have resulted from family gatherings on national holidays.

Can nudging consumers to make more nutritious grocery choices work? Can discounts and coupons alter our choices? A new study looks at personalized grocery shopping, with an eye towards nutrition and a gentle push motivated by savings.