Evolution deniers (I know there is a spectrum, but generally speaking) are terrible scientists and logicians. The obvious reason is because they are committing the primary mortal sin of pseudoscience – working backwards from a desired conclusion rather than following evidence and logic wherever it leads. They therefore clasp onto arguments that are fatally flawed because they feel they can use them to support their position. One could literally write a book using bad creationist arguments to demonstrate every type of poor reasoning and pseudoscience (I should know). A classic example is an arg ..read more

Good rule of thumb – assume it’s a scam. Anyone who contacts you, or any unusual encounter, assume it’s a scam and you will probably be right. Recently I was called on my cell phone by someone claiming to be from Venmo. They asked me to confirm if I had just made two fund transfers from my Venmo account, both in the several hundred dollar range. I had not. OK, they said, these were suspicious withdrawals and if I did not make them then someone has hacked my account. They then transferred me to someone from the bank that my Venmo account is linked to. I instantly knew this was a scam for severa ..read more

Battery technology has been advancing nicely over the last few decades, with a fairly predictable incremental increase in energy density, charging time, stability, and lifecycle. We now have lithium-ion batteries with a specific energy of 296 Wh/kg – these are in use in existing Teslas. This translates to BE vehicles with ranges from 250-350 miles per charge, depending on the vehicle. That is more than enough range for most users. Incremental advances continue, and every year we should expect newer Li-ion batteries with slightly better specs, which add up quickly over time. But still, range an ..read more

Is this sonar image taken at 16,000 feet below the surface about 100 miles from Howland island, that of a downed Lockheed Model 10-E Electra plane? Tony Romeo hopes it is. He spent $9 million to purchase an underwater drone, the Hugan 6000, then hired a crew and scoured 5,200 square miles in a 100 day search hoping to find exactly that. He was looking, of course, for the lost plane of Amelia Earhart. Has he found it? Let’s explore how we answer that question. First some quick background – most people know Amelia Earhart was a famous (and much beloved) early female pilot, the first female to cr ..read more

Elon Musk has announced that his company, Neuralink, has implanted their first wireless computer chip into a human. The chip, which they plan on calling Telepathy (not sure how I feel about that) connects with 64 thin hair-like electrodes, is battery powered and can be recharged remotely. This is exciting news, but of course needs to be put into context. First, let’s get the Musk thing out of the way. Because this is Elon Musk the achievement gets more attention than it probably deserves, but also more criticism. It gets wrapped up in the Musk debate – is he a genuine innovator, or just an exp ..read more

This is not exactly a “best of” because I don’t know how that applies to science news, but here are what I consider to be the most impactful science news stories of 2023 (or at least the ones that caught by biased attention). This was a big year for medical breakthroughs. We are seeing technologies that have been in the works for decades come to fruition with specific applications. The FDA recently approved a CRISPR treatment for sickle cell anemia. The UK already approved this treatment for sickle cell and beta thalassemia. This is the first CRISPR-based treatment approval. The technology its ..read more

Not a crow. One of the core tenets of scientific skepticism is what I call neuropsychological humility – the recognition that while the human brain is a powerful information processing machine, it also has many frailties. One of those frailties is perception – we do not perceive the world in a neutral or objective way. Our perception of the world is constructed from multiple sensory streams processed together and filtered through internal systems that include our memories, expectations, biases, assumptions and (critically) attention. In many ways, we see what we know, what we are looking for ..read more

It’s Halloween, so there are a lot of fluff pieces about ghosts and similar phenomena circulating in the media. There are some good skeptical pieces as well, which is always nice to see. For this piece I did not want to frame the headline as a question, which I think is gratuitous, especially when my regular readers know what answer I am going to give. The best current scientific evidence has a solid answer to this question – ghosts are not a real scientific phenomenon. For most scientists the story pretty much ends there. Spending any more serious time on the issue is a waste, even an academi ..read more

There are 33 billion chickens in the world, mostly domestic species raised for egg-laying or meat. They are a high efficiency source of high quality protein. It’s the kind of thing we need to do if we want to feed 8 billion people. Similarly we have planted 4.62 billion acres of cropland. About 75% of the food we consume comes from 12 plant species, and 5 animal species. But there is an unavoidable problem with growing so much biological material – we are not the only things that want to eat them. This is an – if you build it they will come – scenario. We are creating a food source for other o ..read more

From time to time the Earth gets hit by a wave of energetic particles from the sun – solar flares or even coronal mass ejections (CMEs). In 1859 a large CME hit Earth (known as the Carrington Event), shorting out telegraphs, brightening the sky, and causing aurora deep into equatorial latitudes. If such an event were to occur today experts are not exactly sure what would happen, but it could take out satellites and short out parts of electrical grids. Interestingly, we have a historical record of how often such events have occurred in the past, mostly from tree rings. A recent study extends th ..read more