Other Science News

The recent Alzheimers Association’s International Conference might explain an uptick in mainstream media reports about the disease. And they have a common thread: the reports are based on clinical abstracts rather than the actual papers or datasets. So do these media reports serve to clarify – or confuse?
John McCain’s office released a statement from the Mayo Clinic Hospital in Phoenix, providing details of his Glioblastoma brain tumor. It was disclosed that the 80-year old senior Senator from Arizona was recovering from a surgical excision of a blood clot performed on July 14 that was discovered during a routine annual physical. 
In 2015, you were roughly 16 times more likely to get food poisoning from Chipotle than you were to be attacked by a shark. We can't remove all the sharks from the ocean, but we can remove pathogens from our food. Chipotle should have focused on that, instead of GMOs.
Two major league teams recently raised sun-protection awareness with their fans, many of whom often sit for hours exposed to the strong summer sun. The Philadelphia Phillies and Atlanta Braves are spreading the word (and the sunblock), having installed free sunscreen dispensers at the ballpark, all part of MLB's Play Sun Smart campaign. 
New legislation might be the key to bringing opposing political parties together in this Pacific Northwest state. The state penalizes drivers — which bicycle commuters cheered. But now officials have created a special tax on cyclists, too, and that has united the left and right in mutual outrage.
It's not really news anymore that Europe is in the middle of a significant measles outbreak. New reports say that there have been 35 measles related deaths in the last year (measles kills about 1 in every 1000 people that contract it) which brings the outbreak in Europe squarely into crisis mode. 
From afar I once watched – and was captivated, actually, by its oddity – as a deer stood before a planting of big, bright identical flowers and began eating. He would bite into one, chew for a moment – and spit it out. Then he began eating the next, and spit that out. And then again, and again, repeatedly engaging in the same task as if each chomp was his first attempt. I was unable to intercede, but for some reason the occurrence stuck with me, stoking intrigue about a deer's thought process, and about animal cognitive ability in general.  
A statement released by Habitat for Humanity stated that the former U.S. president "was dehydrated working in the hot sun and ha[d] been taken offsite for observation." With that we ask, "Who is at risk of heat-related illnesses?"
Tucker Carlson had Robert Kennedy Jr. on his show, giving him five minutes of almost-uninterrupted time to spew his misinformation on vaccines. We hope the Fox News cable host got what he wanted (presuming in the form of ratings). And that it was worth a few more children getting sick with measles and dying of whooping cough.
Corporations aren’t all evil, and universities are not all saints. Most products are coming from industry work. Meanwhile, plenty of junk science comes from universities – and sometimes even from Boston's most prestigious academic institution.
In 2010, the profit for Elsevier, one of the world' leading publishers of technical, medical and scientific information, was 36 percent of its revenue – which exceeded Google's, Apple's and Amazon's. How did Elsevier do it? The company made use of a simple business model developed by Robert Maxwell.          
To stay in business, media outlets need viewers. So they give readers what they want, which apparently consists largely of pointless political bickering, epic acts of stupidity and naked people.