Steven Novella
Why is the Mayo Clinic promoting pseudoscience — ‘energy healing’ Reiki?
The Mayo Clinic is a prestigious medical institution with a deserved international reputation. It also promotes rank pseudoscience ...
What drives Environmental Working Group to falsely claim that Quaker Oats cereals contain dangerous levels of pesticides? To ‘create another round of fearmongering about toxins in our food and shill for the organic food industry’
You know the rule about headlines – if there is a question in a headline the answer is almost always “no”. This ...
‘We could completely replace the human body with one that is ideal for space travel’ — Future space travel options come into focus
Perhaps the optimal way to most fully adapt humans to alien environments is to completely replace the human body with ...
Viewpoint: ‘Activists are tireless’ — 30 years of global genetically modified crop use has proven they are safe and sustainable, but GMOs remain under assault
Literally trillions of animals have been fed with GMO feed without any detectable negative health effect ...
Viewpoint: ‘Acupuncture pseudoscience’ — Washington Post propagates alternative medicine
Pseudoscience, how to exploit the vulnerabilities in evidence-based medicine, and how effective propaganda can be, even against professionals ...
Viewpoint: Braying false concerns of critics — 30 years along, still no evidence that GMOs pose any health or safety issues
The first GMO food was approved in 1994 (a GMO tomato that is no longer on the market), so we ...
How will we know if artificial intelligence gains true sentience?
On the SGU this week we interviewed Blake Lemoine, the ex-Google employee who believes that Google’s LaMDA may be sentient, ...
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 ...
Pseudoscience takes hold with athletes at the Olympics
In London in 2012 I noticed the almost ubiquitous multi-colored tape snaking in unusual patterns along the bodies of athletes ...
Viewpoint: This 11,000 page European Union report should end the debate over the ‘dangers’ posed by glyphosate weedkiller
Glyphosate is a weed killer widely used by the agricultural industry and also available for consumer use in products like ...
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 ...
Have we done enough to prevent a second wave of COVID-19 infections?
As we are seeing the beginning of the end of the first wave of COVID-19, the burning question is – ...
‘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 ...
Neurologist Steven Novella: Here’s what latest science says about glyphosate-cancer link
Glyphosate has been in the news recently because of the recent court case in which a jury awarded DeWayne Johnson ...
