On May 29, the Vogtle 3 nuclear reactor was brought to 100% power for the first time. It's getting closer to adding another 1100 MW to the grid, with its sister plant, Vogtle 4, not far behind. This is significant because the Vogtle reactors are the first new nuclear power plants built in the U.S. since the 1979 Three Mile Island meltdown.

Chatbots – trainable software applications capable of conducting intelligent, informed conversations with users – have tremendous potential for vast societal benefits but also tremendous mischief. We are at the earliest stage of the learning curve.

Pfizer has just completed phase 3 trials of a new antibiotic that's active against highly resistant Gram-negative infections. It's a real superbug fighter. But what took so long?

When a guy is standing at a urinal in a public men’s room how do subsequent urinators choose where to stand? This vital matter is the subject of an academic paper which I will try (but fail) to explain. Who cares? We both know this is thinly-disguised juvenile (and hopefully offensive) humor. In honor of June 21st - National Urine Day!

The chemistry of global warming (GW) driven by heat-trapping air pollutants is measured and reported. Various mathematical models have been used to project future global scenarios. Since natural sources of greenhouse agents are largely beyond our control, here we focus on anthropogenic sources mainly involving combustion – typically byproducts, rather than end products. I use statistical methods to estimate the situation in 2050.

A recent prospective study of post-surgical patients confirms what many other studies have already shown: prescribing opioids to control pain carries a very low risk of addiction or misuse.

Remember herd immunity, the early aspirational goal of our COVID strategy? It has arrived, at least according to some recent findings of the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports (MMWR).

With COVID-19’s “public health emergency” barely behind us, lawyers and policymakers are taking advantage of public sensitivity and planning for the next plague. How good their solutions are remains to be seen, but novel suggestions, and attention to new technology and historical practices, are few and far between.

Both political parties use misinformation
Feynman’s learning technique
Anxious carnivore?
Car Dealers “one of the most important secular forces in American conservatism”?

Chemistry is hard enough to understand. But this already-convoluted field of science can be even worse because of some stuff that defies logic. Here are five examples.