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In the rush to legalize marijuana for recreational use, driven by changing opinion and the increasing need for tax revenues, should we consider weed’s carbon footprint?

COVID-19 frequently dominates the nightly news, and it’s always there in today’s daily life. Is the pandemic ebbing, or is it still menacing the careless? Charts, tables, and statistics dominate the discussion. Some emphasize counts, some quote short-term percentage changes like a 20% drop. Pictures and statistics tell stories, but with COVID-19, it depends on how you look at them.

“I wear the chain I forged in life,” replied [Morley’s] Ghost. “I made it link by link, and yard by yard.” Our immune system, like those chains, contains our immunologic memories. Ferrets can teach us, that like Morley’s chains, our immunologic memory is forged by experience. Sometimes, a current viral illness may, later on, protect us from a similar viral infection; but we may not be as protected as we hope.

Is aging just a matter of miscommunication? Should we have National Oceans, like the National Parks? Is a virus like COVID-19 alive, or is this just the zombie apocalypse? Would the Sierra Club allow genetic modification of a tree to save them?

A Medscape article entitled "Five-Day Course of Oral Antiviral Appears to Stop SARS-CoV-2 in Its Tracks" was recently published. Don't fall for the title. It's not that simple.

“Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty…” President Theodore Roosevelt
Although his inference was to the expected lack of success in life without these three qualities, the same can be said regarding weight loss programs - without an anticipated level of significant effort, pain, and difficulty will only lead to disastrous long-term results.

Victims of disinformation campaigns can use a five-pronged strategy to fight back and win.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to evolve in Year 2, so too does ACSH's need to cover it as comprehensively and accurately as possible. Further, we're gratified and appreciative to USA Today, which for the second time in three weeks published one of our Op-Ed columns, allowing another of ACSH's public-health messages to reach millions of Americans. This premier placement highlights the varied media exposure ACSH received during the month of February.

Usually, our strategy to handle unfair attacks is to ignore them. But occasionally, the assaults are so egregious that they deserve a full-throated rebuttal. This is one of those times.

ACSH friend, Dr. Joe Schwarcz, who is the director of McGill University's Office for Science and Society, makes one short video every week in his "The Right Chemistry" series. This week we learn about "leaded coffee." Fascinating and entertaining. Treat yourself.

There is no doubt that diabetes is a significant health problem. In an attempt to forestall the onset of this disease, physicians have identified biomarkers that were to identify those most at-risk and begin to institute preventative measures. But new evidence suggests that these biomarkers have little predictive value.

Does our need for speed influence what we see and hear in the media? Short answer yes. And for Science, with a capital S, that may be not such a good thing.

It's been a pretty ghastly 14 months thanks to COVID. But, let's look on the bright side. Here are four benefits that resulted from the pandemic. Maybe.

Foam insulation is an important material used in houses and buildings. A wide variety of components are used to make insulation in various forms; some are flammable, some require toxic chemicals. However, in Germany, two groups using chemistry we learned in high school have devised an effective, recoverable, insulating foam that won't burn. It’s a simple, elegant solution using, of all things, calcium carbonate, otherwise known as chalk.

CDC policymaking is coming up short, according to Henry Miller, M.D., and John J. Cohrssen. The agency continues to relegate policymaking to value judgments instead of hard data.

When combined, science and religion can be a powerful force for good. Let's use it to vanquish COVID.

There's a new vaccine in town and all the nut logs and screwballs are blabbering nonsense rumors all over the Internet. Here's one that is especially bad – that the Pfizer/Moderna COVID vaccines can give you COVID. No, they can't. It is physically impossible. Here's why.

Aging is a failure to communicate? Should we have national sea parks? COVID-19 is not an equal opportunity disease. If a virus is not truly "alive," is this the zombie apocalypse?

This week, Jay Barber, one of our readers wrote to us asking about an article he had seen in The Intercept regarding the EPA ignoring a possible cancer risk. Luckily we have two toxicologists among our Board of Scientific Advisors, one of who was able to offer a critique.

The mainstream media is repeating the unscientific claims of a dishonest book. A deeper dive into the author of the book would have revealed duplicity and enormous conflicts of interest.

No one will argue that we have a serious weight control and obesity issue in the United States and every industrialized country. For the most part, public policies to combat the problem have been failures. To understand the underlying problem, we must first begin with understanding our physiology.  

Race is a social construct; until we consider healthcare and research, where it is an increasingly outdated biomarker. Before treatment disparities get worse, we need to have a discussion. Let’s get started.

Modeling the COVID-19 pandemic has become a quasi cottage industry, both in creating the models (as well as their subsequent failed predictions and criticisms). A new model takes on the hardest of variables to accurately portray: behavior. Not of the virus, but of its human hosts.

Dr. Joe Schwarcz, the director of McGill University's Office for Science and Society, (somehow) churns out one video per week in his "The Right Chemistry" series. "Dr. Joe" manages to make all of them fascinating. This one is about polyurethane, a substance that should NOT be used in place of hair spray.

"If you dust off a turd, it's still a turd." Even by my (admittedly) low standards, this is rather crude. But, what does it mean? I take aim at Genexa, a company that advertises "real medicine, made clean." A clever marketing scheme, but I don't know what it even means.