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Acai breakfast bowls are available in nearly every trendy smoothie and juice bar. But if you haven’t indulged in this particular "superfood" fad yet, you haven’t missed out. Turns out acai bowls don’t actually provide a healthy start to the day after all. That's because they're nutritionally equivalent to three bowls of Froot Loops.

If you're a consumer of science news, or just a curious person looking for information on nutrition or medicine, you have to learn how to spot junk science. Especially from sources that are typically reliable. Here are a few guidelines that can help separate sound research from sneaky misinformation.

The giant supermarket chain is long on marketing but short on science; this is hardly news. However, its officials apparently can't fathom the irony of selling nitrate-free meat in addition to nitrate dietary supplements. But we do.

A long campaign season might make American politicians uniquely incentivized not to solve problems. It's easier to raise money and scare up enough votes to get elected by promising change, rather than actually delivering it. This harms public health.

Four sips from the firehose that is Internet content: Spicy and bitter are ways plants tried to dissuade you from eating them; CRISPR, in service of animal welfare, hits a snag; a podcast contrasts Nathan's Hot-Dog Eating Contest to chemotherapy, and good news science is alive and beautifully well.

Some parents are reluctant vaccinators. That's because of the sheer number of immunizations recommended for their infant in the first year of life. Anti-vaxxers have broadened that argument, suggesting and that there's no scientific basis for the schedules. Now, it's more complicated than their alarmist memes, but why let facts get in the way of a viral meme, right? Spoiler alert: the anti-vaxxers are wrong.

Instead of getting a flu shot, a Columbia University professor who believes in natural remedies chose a "tincture of elderberry." Her effort was rewarded with cyanide poisoning.

The use of self-reported behavior has been an Achilles heel of sorts, regarding the certainty of research outcomes. A new study shows not only that "self-reports" may be incorrect, but the degree of uncertainty introduced by them varies with the self-reporter's age, education and nationality.

A new study estimates that 25% of our healthcare spending is wasted. Physicians, the most easily squeezed, account for about a third. Market failures -- a term for opaque, high prices for pharmaceuticals and the high cost of administrative "complexity" -- account for the other two-thirds.

The mystery of vaping deaths widens. What is going on? Let's ask Steve. We go back a long way, so when a tricky chemistry problem comes up we like to fire off an email, to pick his warped brain. Often he is right on the mark.

In the wake of over 1,000 injuries and dozens of deaths due to vaping, the public is right to be concerned about the safety of e-cigarettes. Given that we have covered this issue in some depth, we wanted to provide a resource that answers as many questions as possible and provides links to our other articles.

Two recent observational studies found that remission from Type 2 diabetes is as easy -- or hard -- as losing a significant amount of weight.

When it comes to energy and climate policy, there's little rationality to be found. Those who believe that climate change is an existential threat often reject nuclear power in favor of wind and solar, despite those options being insufficient to power the planet. That said, to embrace nuclear energy, we also must have a realistic solution to the problem of waste.

The anti-nuclear crowd uses an assortment of scare tactics to turn public opinion against the use of nuclear power. One of them is highlighting the risk of a serious accident, that might occur when spent nuclear fuel is transported to a disposal site. Is there any validity to this? A visit to the National Museum of Nuclear Science & History in Albuquerque, NM tells us there is not. (It's actually very safe.)

The science of our health and nutrition has been a hot mess for some time, with multiple conflicting studies all claiming the scientific truth. The recent study on red meat's role in our health is different in several meaningful ways: in how it reports outcomes; how it communicates the certainty of the findings; its intellectual transparency; and to whom it is addressed. Let’s break it down.

In the conversation about Medicare for All, do you really know what Medicare provides? It may be surprising what a bargain it is, especially compared to private insurance.

The denial of prescription analgesic medication to chronic pain patients has caused unnecessary suffering. But it has also driven up the suicide rate, trapping those who cannot bear to live without the drugs that have kept them functioning for years. ACSH advisor Red Lawhern, Ph.D., discusses the tragedy of intolerable pain.

In the insane universe of dietary fads and fears, at any given time there's always a food that is "super" and another that is a "killer." With rare exceptions, both descriptions are wrong. One of the perennial "bad guys" is high fructose corn syrup. Nutritionist Angela Dowden explains why the reputation of HFCS is not deserved.

Scientists have discovered molecules that inhibit tumor growth by starving cancer cells of their favorite foods: the sugar glucose and the amino acid, glutamine.

Parents and children reading together - the idea may conjure up images of a child safely snuggled in bed sharing a quiet moment with Mom or Dad. But when the book is an e-reader, a new study suggests the scene is more reminiscent of two kids fighting over who gets the remote control.

The leaves are turning beautiful colors, the air is crisp and pumpkin spice lattes are back. Simply put, moving from September into October could perhaps be the best time of the year. But no matter how much fun we're having on the side, we never lose our focus on defending good science. Here's where we appeared in recent weeks.

Thanks to excess alcohol consumption, July 4th is the deadliest driving day of the year. If you find yourself inebriated at a DUI checkpoint blowing into a breathalyzer, you can thank Sir Ewart Ray Herbert Jones for the invention he published 75 years ago. Yep, you've been caught by organic chemistry, specifically, the Jones Oxidation.

Reforms to the U.S. drug pricing environment are required, but to improve patients’ health outcomes, reforms must be grounded in a comprehensive understanding of the current drug pricing system. Otherwise, policymakers will make things worse, not better. An important piece by ACSH advisor Dr. Robert Popovian and Wayne Winegarden, Ph.D.

Most of the extant COVID-19 analyses have been based on national or state-level data; a more granular county-level analysis would be overwhelmed by “noise” since most counties experienced only single-digit daily caseloads. Here we used an intermediate scale, 100 counties that each include a major city. This protocol avoids the noise engendered by small populations and provides enough diversity for meaningful cross-sectional analysis. 

A new report out of the European Union confirms what scientists have known for decades: the weed killer glyphosate poses minimal risk to human health and the environment.