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If you're a regular, longtime reader of our daily Dispatch newsletter, you may recall that about three years ago, in response to California's severe, on-going drought we urged the public and policy makers alike to embrace genetically modified farming for many reasons, including that some GM crops grow well despite drought conditions. We were strong supporters of the science then, as we are today.

The first member of the cephalosporin class of antibiotics was discovered in the 1940s, in a sewage pipe in Sardinia. Now a group has isolated some novel compounds from lichens gathered in northern Quebec. Three of these have modest antibacterial activity. Can chemists make them more potent? 

1. A student at Emerson College has gone John Birch Society, alleging he just sort of knows fluoridated water must be bad for us because he read it somewhere on the Internet and thinks being contrarian to accepted science and medicine is journalism. Well, it is. Shoddy journalism, anyway, and the world is already deep in that.

One of the latest fads—turmeric—was supposed to cure everything from Alzheimer's to baldness. But it doesn't do anything. Why? It's all about how herbs, spices, supplements... are tested. A review in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry makes this very clear. 

Food and nutrition companies always capitalize on whatever fad diets are currently in fashion to shamelessly promote their products. Science is usually of secondary concern. Now, Nestlé wants in on the action, promoting an alleged nutritional drink, claiming that it's low in FODMAPs. Huh? What are those?

New research shows that when it comes to packaged foods and beverages sold in Canada, two of every three items contain added sugar of some kind. That jarring news comes from a report by Public Health Ontario and the University of Waterloo, a joint venture that included studying labels of more than 40,000 supermarket products. 

In 1976, Barry Kidston, a chemistry grad student, would find out the hard way that you had better be careful with your reaction conditions when making psychoactive drugs. He got a little sloppy, and instead of making a pure derivative of Demerol, got an impurity in the batch, which gave him Parkinson's with one injection. Six years later, a group of six "frozen addicts" suffered the same fate. Crazy brain chemistry.

Sex is considered an essential component of life and wellness. Touch, intimacy and the resultant pleasurable physiologic responses bestow a number of benefits. So is sex-on-prescription insurance coverage in our future?  

Ellie is the "first ever digital UV sterilizing pod." Do you still need to wash and sterilize baby bottles? Yes, of course – drinking milk from unwashed containers would make anyone sick. But does everything that newborns place in their mouths need to undergo UV irradiation? Absolutely not. 

The Massachusetts' legislature recently passed a bill titled, "An Act establishing a board of registration in naturopathy," that will give the naturopaths legitimacy. Regarding the health of the people of the Bay State, it's one of the worst moves that officials there could have made. 

Anyone who searches long enough can find that pretty much everything has been linked to cancer. Bacon. Cell phones. Wi-Fi. Even looking at our video correspondent, Ana Dolaskie. At some point the insanity has to stop. Unfortunately, we have yet to reach that point. 

Although surgical masks protect those wearing them, pathogens collect in the mask's filter. The mask then becomes another vehicle for spreading an infectious disease. But not any more, because now there's a very clever solution to this longstanding problem, using table salt. 

If one can get past its superficial reputation, there's value in understanding why photographing oneself has become a global phenomenon, and what in human nature drives billions of people to do it. In fact, researchers have identified three behavioral types of selfie shooters. We know you do it, too, so which one are you?

How are your New Year's resolutions going? Ana Dolaskie's are getting on swimmingly....

Terms like "autosomal recessive" and "dominant" are frequently tossed around, and you've probably heard them. But what does any of that really mean regarding the traits that children inherit from their parents? 

Who knew that if you looked hard enough, you'd find a supposed sinister side to even the most popular super food? We were surprised to hear fans of Quinoa are now afraid of chemicals in the grain called Saponins. 
 
 
 
 

UV light is dangerous to humans. That's part of the reason why there's widespread interest in discovering light sources that can kill unwanted organisms – while leaving humans unscathed.

Anorexia nervosa prompts physical changes in the brain, and researchers report that even after "successful" treatment it does not revert back to its healthy state. Specifically, the organ continues to have an "elevated reward system" as compared to normal brains.

During his address to Congress this week President Trump shone a spotlight on Megan Crowley, a 20-year-old Notre Dame sophomore with Pompe Disease, which is caused by mutations in the GAA gene.

The former administration's policies sent smoking cessation back to the 1990s, telling smokers to quit or die. We can do a whole lot better than that. Let's start by having the new administration wipe out a lot of suspect decisions made by the last one.

No matter the evidence, some people always will refuse to accept it. Some of those people are university professors, like Joel Moskowitz, who is on a crusade to prove that California is secretly hiding data that shows cell phones are giving people cancer.

Are bees facing extinction as many environmental advocacy groups and some scientists claim. And are neonicotinoid pesticides the key reason behind their health problems, as many activists, and some news reports suggest?

The 'Open Science Prize' is a collaboration between three of the biggest sources of science funding around. The intent is to inspire novel ways of making science accessible to aid in public health. The winner - an online tool that will change the course of how viral outbreaks are tracked - was announced this week. 

More defense spending is great, but if we really want to protect Americans, let's get vaccines where they need to be.

The Maryland State Children’s Environmental Health and Protection Advisory Council wants WiFi restricted in state schools because of cancer concerns. Just two problems with that: (1) Officials have no idea what they're talking about, and (2) officials have no idea what they're talking about.