By Sybille Hildebrandt ( ScienceNordic) Antioxidants, dietary supplements, vitamin pills – many people take them every day in the hope that they are good for their health. But a new Danish study of all relevant trials carried out around the world shows that taking antioxidants in the form of vitamin A, E and beta-carotene is a risky [...]

By Walter Brash (Moronia) The history of energy exploration, mining, and delivery is best understood in a range from benevolent exploitation to worker and public oppression. A company comes into an area, leases land in rural and agricultural areas for mineral rights, increases employment, usually in a depressed economy, strips the land of its resources, [...]

By Walter Brasch (Moronia)– The natural gas industry defends hydraulic fracturing, better known as fracking, as safe and efficient. Thomas J. Pyle, president of the Institute for Energy Research, a pro-industry non-profit organization, claims fracking has been “a widely deployed as safe extraction technique,” dating back to 1949. What he doesn’t say is that until [...]

(Medical Express) Findings from a first-of-its-kind study by Indiana University researchers confirm anecdotal evidence that exercise — absent sex or fantasies — can lead to female orgasm. Sex researcher Debby Herbenick. Credit: Indiana University While the findings are new, reports of this phenomenon, sometimes called “coregasm” because of its association with exercises for core abdominal [...]

By Yudhijit Bhattacharjee (NY Times) Speaking two languages rather than just one has obvious practical benefits in an increasingly globalized world. But in recent years, scientists have begun to show that the advantages of bilingualism are even more fundamental than being able to converse with a wider range of people. Being bilingual, it turns out, [...]

By David Hill (Singularity Hub) Academic research is behind bars and an online boycott by 8,209 researchers and counting is seeking to set it free…well, more free than it has been. The boycott targets Elsevier, the publisher of popular journals like Cell and The Lancet, for its aggressive business practices, but opposition was electrified by Elsevier’s backing of a Congressional [...]

By David Edwards (RawStory) Republican Georgia state Rep. Terry England says that his experience with cows, pigs and chickens has proven to him that women should be forced to have their babies after 20 weeks of pregnancy. In a debate over Georgia House Bill 954, which would ban abortions after 20 weeks even if the baby [...]

By Arran Frood (Nature) The powerful hallucinogen LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) has potential as a treatment for alcoholism, according to a retrospective analysis of studies published in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The study1, by neuroscientist Teri Krebs and clinical psychologist Pål-Ørjan Johansen of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, is the [...]

By David G. Savage (Los Angeles Times) Mary Brown, a 56-year-old Florida woman who owned a small auto repair shop but had no health insurance, became the lead plaintiff challenging President Obama’s healthcare law because she was passionate about the issue. Brown “doesn’t have insurance. She doesn’t want to pay for it. And she doesn’t want the [...]

By Marni Jameson (Orlando Sentinel) Epcot’s new Habit Heroes attraction, which tackles childhood obesity, has landed in big fat trouble. Shortly after its unofficial opening last month, the interactive exhibit was blasted by critics for stigmatizing fat kids. Now, Disney has closed the Innoventions exhibit for “retooling.” The official opening date of March 5 has been postponed [...]