Did they die from an asteroid or climate?
Fill it up or charge it, please
The untimely and unwarranted death of bees
Woke science
Contrary to a poorly researched Wall Street Journal commentary, the new COVID vaccines have been tested appropriately and, like their predecessors, will likely prevent serious illness, death, and undue stress on the U.S. healthcare system.
“Last month, California lawmakers passed a bill that would decriminalize the personal possession of small amounts of a few plant-based psychedelics. This raised hopes that this could be the first of many reforms to unlock the therapeutic potential of psychedelics. Unfortunately, Governor Newsom vetoed the bill, citing reasons that can only be characterized as specious.”
Why are some people fully protected by vaccination, or infection-acquired immunity to COVID, when others are not? Does the fault lie with the vaccines? Do some individuals mount a more robust immune response? A new study provides an answer that lies in between those choices and gives me a chance to write about the power and limitations of metaphors.
Today, there is simply too much known in far too many diverse fields for any person to hold it all in their brain. This means that, no matter how smart one might be, there are times when we have to push the “I believe” button and simply accept the statements of others. The problem is that these others are too often wrong, the topic is too often very important, and the statements made are too wildly disparate. We feel we must choose, yet we don’t know how.
You all complain about drug commercials, and with good reason. They are equal parts cloying and annoying. Let's make fun of them, OK?
Another article in the ongoing war over the protective value of masks. The latest report, with senior author Vinay Prasad, effectively builds and demolishes a straw man of the authors’ creation, then does some out-of-season cherry-picking. In the end, the “study” sheds more shade than light.
To handshake or not to handshake, that is the question. As COVID-19 has moved from a pandemic to an endemic disease, should we greet each other with a shake of hands, fist bump, or just eye contact and walk quickly away? Handshaking has devolved into a cultural debate rather than the scientific issue of disease transmission. Is handshaking, a form of surface transmission, something to fear?
"[A] censorious report on National Public Radio, citing a poll, accuses Republican voters of being content to 'do nothing' about climate change. In fact, neither party proposes to do anything about climate change. Democrats propose to spend a lot more money doing nothing.” – Holman Jenkins, Wall Street Journal
It's 1980 and Queen released a huge, timeless hit, "Another One Bites the Dust." Imagine if someone wrote a parody about today's "fake" opioid crisis and put it to music. Wouldn't that be entertaining? Imagine no longer. Here it is.
