Neurologica
Sustainable meat? Debate over the benefits (or drawbacks) of cell-based beef and chicken more nuanced than critics and supporters acknowledge
In 2016 I was pretty optimistic about lab grown meat, and now I am still optimistic but more tempered. I think ...
‘Science-based farming optimized for reduced environmental impact’: What’s behind the hydroponic farming boom — and attempts to deny its sustainability advantages?
Hydroponic farming allows for vertical farming, because it is not dependent on the soil. This allows for greater plant yield ...
Misinformation trifecta: How disinformation spreaders weaponize science
Recently it has become more apparent to me that often there is a common strategy to weaponizing misinformation. It’s likely ...
It may sound fantastical, but some forms of brain cancer may be treatable with magnets
I look at any therapeutic claims about magnets with a huge does of skepticism. Generally I assume it is a ...
How dogs and humans developed our symbiotic relationship
Dogs show an incredible ability to understand their human companions, even without extensive training. The question is – how much ...
Organic farming has a sustainability problem — and now the EU is in a dilemma of their own making
European Union (EU) agricultural scientists are in a bit of a pickle. I’m not sure to what extent it is ...
How does CRISPR’s ‘on-off switch’ work? How will it revolutionize genetic research and the development of therapies?
[R]esearchers have published perhaps the greatest advance since 2013 – a way to use CRISPR as an on-off switch for ...
Cavendish banana could ‘disappear’ in the 2020s. Can CRISPR gene editing save it from a deadly fungus?
[T]hat the Cavendish banana will disappear sometime in the 2020’s is extremely likely. It is being threatened by a fungus ...
A video claiming to show dangerous COVID vaccine side-effects has gone viral – but scientists are skeptical
[W]e are now living in a post-social media world. Information, even medical or scientific information, may get to the public ...
Why the COVID death rate is dropping even as case numbers soar
One recent study looking at the case fatality rate in the New York region from March to August found that the ...
Viewpoint: GMOs don’t boost crop yields? Yes, they do. Here’s the evidence
[A]doption of GMOs does, in fact, increase ultimate crop yield. The myth that they don’t is mostly due to the ...
‘Spectacularly unimpressive’: Neural network AI asked to judge human personalities through photos
[If] personality traits have a significant genetic contribution (which seems clear) then we can ask – to what extent do ...
How do you ‘boost’ your body’s immune function in the fight against the coronavirus? Answer: You can’t
The short answer to the question – how do you boost your immune system – is that you can’t. The ...
Are we getting closer to understanding how our brains make memories?
How do memories work? That has been a burning question for over a century, since Richard Semon introduced the term ...
Neurologist Steven Novella: Greenpeace opposition to Golden Rice approval will be ‘enduring stain’ on activist group’s reputation
[T]he Philippines have just approved Golden Rice as safe for human and animal consumption .... The Philippines is the first ...
Viewpoint: YouTube, Facebook and Google should do more to stop spread of dangerous cancer quackery
Many outlets are covering the story of Mari Lopez, a YouTuber who claimed, along with her niece, Liz Johnson, that ...
Replacing the polygraph: Brain imaging could give us a reliable lie detector
It’s fairly common knowledge at this point that the polygraph test for detecting who is lying is not reliable enough ...
With lab-grown meat coming to our plates, will we be eating animals in 50 years?
Climate change has altered the debate over the ethics of meat consumption, adding a new dimension that certainly changes the ...
Experts must counter ‘simplistic’ anti-GMO narrative with facts, says neurologist Steven Novella
The Pew Research Center has recently published a large survey regarding American’s attitudes toward food, including genetic modification .... There ...
Is ‘interstellar visitor’ an alien probe? ‘We should be appropriately skeptical’
One year ago, in October 2017, astronomers detected the first confirmed interstellar visitor to our solar system – an asteroid dubbed Oumuamua ...
Viewpoint: Divide between GMO and organic is ‘arbitrary nonsense’
The organic food lobby has been successfully demonizing safe and effective biotechnology for the last two decades. Part of their ...
With limited arable land available around the world, is organic farming sustainable?
This question comes up frequently in discussions of farming practices – how much arable land is there on the Earth, ...
How probable is it that we’re alone in the universe?
Earlier this year I wrote about two ways of looking at the probability of there being advanced alien civilizations – the ...
Viewpoint: For consumers concerned about food safety, proposed USDA GMO label is a dismal failure
The USDA just ended their public comment period on their proposed execution of the terrible Federal GMO labeling law passed in 2016. The ...
Viewpoint: ‘Indigenous ways of knowing’ and the rejection of science
Science and the enlightenment are under assault from many directions, and in many incarnations, but they all tend to boil ...
Science disproves Seralini GMO rat tumor study—but his findings were always an outlier
Gilles-Éric Séralini is a French researcher who came to fame from publishing a study in 2012 claiming that herbicide-tolerant GMO corn, with ...
Viewpoint: Mandatory GMO labeling counterproductive and based on pseudoscience
More and more, scientific literacy is a critical virtue we should demand of our politicians. Yet questions about important scientific ...
Viewpoint: While wildlife habitat loss is a real problem, organic farming is not the solution
A recent article in the Independent is, in my opinion, a good example of how ideology can overwhelm evidence and ...
