Millions of stars surround us, but every year our skies brighten from the lights we use to keep the dark at bay. As skyglow – the term for that brightening – increases, the number of stars we can see with our eyes is reduced. Let’s talk about light pollution.
Other Science News
Television has popularized surgical attire; how else to tell the surgeons from the internists? Does the color of scrubs – traditionally green in most institutions – affect relationships with patients? A new study suggests the answer is ...
Roughly 2.4 billion people use “polluting fuels … to meet their daily cooking needs.” That includes 83% of the population living in sub-Saharan Africa. A study in Nature Sustainability suggests that for these low-income populations cooking with gas is a big step forward. Is this the invisible hand of Big Gas, some form of economic imperialism, or the best fit for the circumstances?
A belated Valentine’s day thought
Work vs. labor
Mass killings are not all the same; consider the Lost Boys
The obesity epidemic enters its second century
Rise and shine – very early edition
Segmented sleep?
Deaths of despair, loneliness, and community
When I was young, my dad used to tell me, “The more you know, the more you are capable of knowing.” I think it was his way of encouraging me to read. And it worked. But what does that have to do with science?
Lessons from the immune system
The silent Award Season is upon us
How music touches us
For Thom, saving coffee from warming, global warming
"Peer review" of scientific articles before publication is often considered the "gold standard" of reliability, but its luster has become tarnished by greed – the desire of the research community to tap into research funds, the pressure on scientists to publish or perish, and publishers of scientific journals seeking to maximize profits.
Most of us would say “good” after little deliberation, as would virtually all of the media, but no purveyor of motor fuels would agree, and number crunchers would say, “it depends.”
Let’s put an end to doomscrolling for our own sake
Abandon ship!
Pizza boxes
Another lesson from trees
It probably won’t shock you that there’s a general perception that radiation is unusually dangerous. Even the slightest exposure can cause cancer, congenital disabilities, constipation, skin burns, bad breath, and death (well…most of these, anyhow)… so the public is scared of radiation. So it’s hardly surprising that the discovery of tritium (a radioactive form of hydrogen) in groundwater near the Brookhaven National Laboratory kindled months of media coverage
“Eating one bass is equivalent to drinking PFOS-tainted water for a month.” Those are the words of Scott Faber, senior VP for government affairs at the Environmental Working Group. That is the message of a study by the EWG, carefully crafted to instill fear and drive regulatory science. It requires a carefully crafted response – here is mine.