McGill University
World Health Organization and pseudoscience: Foremost global health authority promotes homeopathy and ‘rhythmical embrocations’
In trying to ensure everyone has access to healthcare, the WHO promotes homeopathy, traditional Chinese medicine, and rhythmical embrocations ...
Dietary bogeyman? Is oxalate the root of dozens of food-related diseases — as alternative medicine advocates claim?
You will hear oxalate demonized by Sally K. Norton, who has just published a book about her theory. It’s called Toxic ...
Vagal hype: What’s behind the ‘natural health’ community’s focus on healing effects of ‘resetting’ vagus nerve?
The vagus nerve is a darling of the all-natural healing crowd. Its complex arborescence makes it the ideal nerve on ...
Are 9000 ‘forever chemicals’ used in stain-resistant fabrics, cosmetics and cookware harmful — as activists claim? Evidence is ambiguous
One of the questions I’ve been asked recently with increasing frequency is how to avoid exposure to those “forever chemicals” ...
‘Contemporary evolution’: How pollution and human interventions are speeding up evolution
Wild populations must continuously adapt to environmental changes or risk extinction. For more than fifty years, scientists have described instances ...
Viewpoint: ‘Embracing pseudoscience’ — Who is Joe Rogan, and why are so many people tuning in for his disinformation?
“A lot of times, we’re drinking or we’re high, you know, and I say stupid shit.” Coming from a teenager, ...
Viewpoint: ‘Breakthrough’ malaria vaccine garners mixed reviews
The announcement by the WHO that a vaccine against malaria, more than thirty years in the making, could finally be ...
‘They squint, they stammer, they shuffle and shamble, they flounder like seals out of water’: Demonized for being different, left-handers are DNA puzzles
Being left-handed can be devilishly hard. In 1937, an educational psychologist whose work was later discredited wrote of many left-handers ...
Stop hair greying with a pill? Repigmentation is not about to happen with this overhyped supplement
Why put up with grey hair when we could pop a new pill to “replenish [our] body with the vitamins, ...
‘Natural selection in real time’: Which species are most likely to adapt to climate change?
Climate change is exacerbating problems like habitat loss and temperatures swings that have already pushed many animal species to the ...
‘Greenwashing’: Does plant-based marketing mislead consumers about sustainability?
"Greenwashing” is the term used to describe the promotion of a product based on misleading claims of superiority to other ...
Anti-vaxxers don’t want safer vaccines, they want no vaccines
“I try to look and see where the evidence takes me.” Does this statement sound reasonable? If I told you ...
Why your morning cup of coffee sends you running to the bathroom
Coffee makes you poop. That's a fact, right? It must be, since you can buy t-shirts or mugs with that ...
Glyphosate to blame for COVID-19? Here’s how we know Bayer’s weedkiller didn’t cause the pandemic
An MIT computer scientist with no expertise in agriculture, chemistry, toxicology, or the biological sciences. And yet for some reason, ...
Alkaline diet fraud: Dieters trying to alter their pH to lose weight are following a ‘completely nonsensical concept’
The premise of the "alkaline diet" is to alter the pH levels of your blood in order to facilitate weight ...
Video: Prof Joe Schwarcz on why bugs may be coming to our dinner plates
Pretty soon there will be 9 billion people coming to dinner. That population boom is going to require an increase ...
Debunking marijuana myths: Monsanto has not created ‘GMO super weed’
Despite what some chronic users may claim, the cannabis plant is not mystical. Like any living species, its cells house ...
Roundup on trial: Everything you need to know about the glyphosate herbicide controversy
[A] California jury awarded two hundred and eighty nine million dollars .... to a former groundskeeper for a California school ...
Viewpoint: Pesticide soaked strawberries? Why you shouldn’t pay attention to Environmental Working Group’s ‘fear-mongering’
It’s springtime which means it is time for the Environmental Working Group (EWG) to send the media into a frenzy ...
Glyphosate traces found in wine: Should we be concerned?
Scarcely a day goes by without some scary story about glyphosate, the world’s most widely used herbicide. ... Because of ...
Viewpoint: Dissecting the Food Babe’s anti-‘natural flavors’ pseudoscience
Our good friend the Food Babe has published an interesting piece of pseudoscience writing entitled ‘Are Natural Flavors Really That ...
