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We are social creatures, taking our cues as we grow up from those surrounding us – it does take a village to raise a child. But our use of social cues, mimicking the behavior and thoughts of our “village,” does not end with adolescence; it follows us into adulthood. A new study looks at the influence of others on our behavior.

That phrase was a family motto of sorts. On the one hand, it expressed our drive to move forward; on the other, it spoke to our overconfidence in our opinions. Scientists have a term for those following the family motto, the Dunning-Kruger effect – when limited knowledge or competence is coupled with overestimating those qualities. A new study looks across a range of scientific ideas looking for those who are often wrong but never in doubt.

Reporters, fact-checkers, and academics routinely urge us to avoid "misinformation." The problem is, these trusted sources often spread the very nonsense they warn us about. I make the case over at BigThink.

If you're worried about Monkeypox, school shootings, car accidents, or any other possible threat to your health, stop this instant. The Environmental Working Group (EWG) has identified a greater risk for you to fret about—frozen pizza.

"Climate-anxious" college students are pushing to have low-risk pesticides banned from their campuses. Meanwhile, states that have legalized recreational marijuana use are concerned that their new policy may cause more car accidents. We examine the science behind both stories on episode 14 of the Science Dispatch podcast.

What is being called "Paxlovid rebound" is not uncommon. In fact, President Biden experienced just this after a course of the drug. What should be done? Drs. Henry Miller and Josh Bloom discuss just this.

The real value of coffee
The public square must be not only civil but open to grace
The hidden life of avocados
The Sound of Movies

Regulatory capture refers to a type of “corruption,” in which a member of a regulatory body goes on to join those they once regulated. It's best thought of as having the fox guard the hen house. Last week, the FDA’s “top” tobacco scientist left for ... Philip Morris International (PMI), the makers of, among other brands, Marlboro cigarettes.

This week we found that we had lost a member of the ACSH family to ocular melanoma, the wife of our past President Hank Campbell. Our thoughts and prayers go out to Hank and his family. We thought we would take a moment to review some information about this exceedingly rare disease.

What's worse? Getting health advice from an alternative medicine website advertising in a golf magazine or Dr. Oz? At ACSH these questions are par for the course.

We hear a lot about the tons of plastic that pollute our oceans, but the solution to this troubling problem gets much less airtime. Let's take a closer look at the answer. Hint: it isn't paper straws.

How are politicians similar to bacteria? ACSH advisor Dr. Henry Miller explains.

PFAS, the “forever chemicals,” provides a perfect example of how faulty risk assessment can lead to real-world consequences that destroy people’s lives. This happens when federal agencies do not consider relative risk in their analyses and are blinded to the real-world implications of their actions.

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) is once again warning consumers that their food may be tainted by "forever chemicals." Let's take a look at all the important details the activist group left out.

Cato Institute's Dr. Jeff Singer (also a member of the ACSH Scientific Advisory Board) is none too pleased with both the CDC and FDA and the way they've handled monkeypox. It seems lessons from COVID-19 have gone unlearned.

Joan Mitchell returns to the stage.
Is robotic automation making us safer?
Should we end aging?
The regulatory capture of the USDA

Anti-vaping activists have put themselves in an awkward position. They want to demonize e-cigarettes because, they allege, nicotine poses a risk to teenagers. But they also want teenagers to use nicotine gums and patches to quit smoking. What sense does that make? None.

Sri Lanka's ban on imported synthetic fertilizers and pesticides devastated the country's farm sector, causing mass food shortages that helped drive the president out of office—and out of the country. ACSH director of bio-sciences Cameron English appeared on the Lars Larson show to explain the situation in more detail.

This is some potentially exciting news coming from China: a Covid drug called Azvudine (originally an HIV drug) that appears to be quite effective in reducing symptoms from the infection. However, there are two problems: 1) The information comes from Chinese newspapers, not journals; 2) the science doesn't add up.

You can file this under “those who don't know history are destined to repeat it,” according to George Santayana. At least that was part of my takeaway on a Smithsonian article on coal, which, in the early 1800s was a new-fangled fuel. Understanding the slow acceptance of this fuel source may provide some context as today’s alternative sources come online.

Is widespread use of artificial sweeteners polluting the environment? If so, what do we do about it? Join us on the latest episode of the Science Dispatch podcast as we take a critical look at the evidence.

Suffering from "climate anxiety," some of America's entitled college students are working to get low-risk pesticides banned from their campuses, in a bid to slow global warming. They all need therapy and a basic science lesson.

Pain is one of our senses – like vision, hearing, or taste. It aids our survival by identifying noxious and harmful stimuli. But unlike the other sensations, it's ethically challenging for us to study pain. Instead, we rely on animal studies. Pain’s underlying physiology is understood, but not our experience of pain, unlike other sensations that we can readily share, like listening to music or watching a sunset. That difference makes it difficult to treat.

Last week, many in the community of pain patients and their physicians did a victory lap over the decision by the Supreme Court in the case of two pain specialists, Xiulu Ruan, MD, and Shakeel Kahn, MD. Their separate cases were joined, and the opinion of the “Supremes” was misinterpreted in some quarters. They were not found innocent; the Court found that the instructions to the jury were in error and remanded the case back for adjudication. I have been following the case for a long time now, and it continues to gnaw at me in a contrarian way.

Climate change has now largely supplanted COVID as the main source of hand-wringing and angst in the popular press. Carbon is directly involved in climate change through carbon dioxide (CO2) and airborne elemental carbon particles (EC). COVID-19 has an indirect impact as well. Here I add some details to the fray to insert some clarity and reason.