A local Spokane Valley man is suing Conagra Foods, alleging that the butter flavoring added to his microwave popcorn gave him so-called popcorn workers lung. According to his lawyer, quoted in the video, the man ate "five to seven bags of microwave popcorn a day, not knowing that there was something harmful in it." Up until a few years ago, ( Read more... )

I just read a reprint of a 2007 Slate article on why there's no dispelling the myth that vaccines cause autism. Ultimately, what the science says does not matter to the bulk of the anti-vaxers. So what are we, as scientists and people who look to science for answers to do? The article offers no suggestions, but I think at some point we just have ( Read more... )

1. The pictures of Amy Mainzer online don't do her justice.
2. Male ants, bees, moths and butterflies do not have fathers and cannot have sons. However, they do have grandfathers and they can have grandsons. Seriously.

Check this out:


( Read more... )

I wish I could see this:


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“Do you guys ever think I'm just bullshitting you?”
-yesterday, in organic chemistry, after plowing through some crazy stuff on the last day of lecture, followed by nervous laughter from the class.

“Hell is in the eye of the beholder.”
-earlier in the quarter, in microbiology, after lecturing on "extremophiles" that live at above-boiling ( Read more... )

Blaine woman trying to get anti-evolution initiative on state ballot

I'm utterly speechless. Right here in my own back yard! Initiative 1040 is being proposed by 25 year old Kim Struiksma and

…would prohibit "state use of public money or lands for anything that denies or attempts to refute the existence of a supreme ruler of the universe, ( Read more... )

"Biologist" is the 4th best career in the US!

I just watched an amazing videp, Apes that write, start fires and play Pac-Man, about bonobos. I laughed out loud, gasped, covered my mouth. It depicts bonobos using symbolic language, roasting s'mores and goes beyond all the usual sex stuff you hear about bonobos. I was truly awe struck.

And then I read this comment:

I think we should just ( Read more... )