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Vermont's GM labeling law is one of those decisions that seems to make sense — at least, that is — until you examine the science. Then the concept dissolves, and you're left with an anti-scientific, burdensome mess. Fewer products, companies refusing to sell stuff in your state, and higher prices. Nice job, Vermont!

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Do our genes influence whether or not we get a Staph infection? It looks like they do. A new study shows that, if your sibling had a Staph infection, you are twice as likely to get one yourself - suggesting that our genes, in addition to other factors, determine how susceptible we are to certain infections.

There's a syringe shortage taking place in West Africa that's halted its much-needed yellow fever vaccination program. One big area of concern is the Democratic Republic of Congo, and its huge city of Kinshasa with a population of 12 million -- that's 3.5 million more citizens than New York City. At best, this is expected to become an epidemic, and at worst a global health crisis.

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In recent years pasta gained a bad reputation: it will make you fat. Obviously you could insert any food and get the same result, if you eat enough of it. So how does it happen that certain foods get called out and stick in the minds of the public?

Credit: DOI 10.1080/0952813X.2015.1132273

A new study says it has found a major flaw in the "Turing Test," the leading method to determine artificial intelligence.

The Breakthrough Dialogue is a gathering of ecomodernists, who represent everything that modern environmentalism should be: Optimistic, pro-technology, and pro-humanitarian. The upbeat mood of the meeting stands in stark contrast to both mainstream environmentalism, with its apocalyptic and misanthropic worldview, and the American public, who seems to believe that the world is bad and getting worse.

The Orlando nightclub attack on June 12 was among the deadliest in American history, and it was the 133rd mass shooting to take place in the United States this year alone.

Image: Ozbolat Lab / Penn State

Engineers have demonstrated that strands of cow cartilage can substitute for ink in a 3-D bioprinting process, which opens a door to creating cartilage patches for worn-out joints.

1. Greenpeace Executives As Characters From "The Godfather" - "The Godfather" is the seminal American movie about an Italian mafia family. It is said that MAFIA is an acronym for Morte Alle Francia Italia Anela, basically 'the death of France is the song of Italy' - but Greenpeace loves France, it's science and the bulk of humanity that don't cave into their demands they want to kill off.

A controversial recent hypothesis is that the use of non-nutritive sweeteners can lead to obesity because they "uncouple" the sense of sweetness from calorie intake. But a recent study failed to replicate the work on which that theory rests. So once again, calories count!

It has become increasingly tricky for Medicare recipients to find doctors who will accept them as patient. The paperwork is crazy, and the reimbursement is also crazy, but in the other direction. Something's gotta break. How will this play out?

For those of us who partake, drinking alcohol is often seen as a balancing act, weighing the pleasures against the pains. Government regulation is often seen the same way, balancing an individual's pleasure and freedom versus the cost of crime and harm to health. But this approach can often lead to bad alcohol policies that fail to strike the right balance.

How does one get busy college students to make healthy food choices? Is it enough to provide nutrition label information, and where should such information be placed? A new study provides some clues, but from a health awareness standpoint the results are somewhat disappointing.

NRDC ceaselessly drones on about minute quantities of "endocrine disrupting chemicals" in our bodies. But THC from marijuana affects all sorts of hormonal systems, and you get plenty of it from smoking a joint. Not a word from the group on that. Are they stonewalling?

Joe Biden has good intentions, and it's easy to sympathize with the Vice President's personal pain and frustration. However, threatening and pointing fingers at the scientific community is often counterproductive. If Dick Cheney had similarly threatened to pull funding from scientists, how would the public and media have reacted?

Dr. Alex Berezow joined ACSH as Senior Fellow of Biomedical Science in May 2016.

Obesity is known to raise a woman's risk of developing breast cancer, and in some cases that cancer can recur even after successful treatment. An investigation will examine whether weight loss in obese women can decrease the rate of such recurrences.

Although many in the scientific and medical community were nervous when Andrew Wakefield's movie was released, we can all relax now. His slogan -- “The film that they don’t want you to see” -- seems to have backfired because ... virtually no one went to see it. Only 19,570 tickets sold and flimsy flick grossed just over $150,000 -- chump change in Hollywood.

Golden Rice, a vitamin-fortified product, is clearly needed by millions of poor children, which shows that environmental groups opposed to it such as Greenpeace are in a war on developing nations. They are involved in what Nobel Laureate Sir Richard Roberts calls a "crime against humanity."

If you get goose bumps every time you hear the sound of nails on a chalkboard, you aren't alone. But scientists say it's not the high-pitch tone that makes us cringe, as previously thought.

Now that Jason Day, the world's No. 1 golfer, will skip the Rio Olympics due to concerns over the Zika virus, given the overall exodus of golfers it seems like it's now an appropriate to ask this simple question: Why are pro golfers the predominant group of athletes bailing from the Games? One who withdrew gives us some insight.

So you don't want to smoke marijuana, nor eat it in calorie-laden junk food. Would you prefer a cannabis beverage? These just might be coming down the pike soon, if certain entrepreneurs have their way.

Five percent of children have food allergies. And, although they can be managed in schools over the academic year, what about when those kids go to camp? It's an important consideration as well, because a simple mixup of lunches can produce dangerous health consequences.

If mosquitoes are about to become the big threat for Zika transmission in the U.S., the obvious solution to prevent this from occurring is to kill these ecologically-useless bugs using pesticides. Yet environmentalists have already begun invoking "Agent Orange" and claiming if we kill these pests, we're going to get prostate cancer -- because that is the kind of scary thing they do to raise money.