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Let's not dance around the issue: Hurricane Harvey was a direct consequence of global warming, which in turn is a direct consequence of human activities. It's ironic that Texas (and Houston in particular) has an economy that is dominated by on oil and fossil fuels. Burning these fuels is what got us in this mess. It's also ironic that Texas Senator Ted Cruz, who is now at the front of the line asking for a federal government rescue package, is a scientifically illiterate climate change denier. Maybe with cooler temperatures, we'd have had a hurricane anyway–but it would have been...

"How to Lower Your Child's IQ," "Why Spanking Does Not Work," and other videos.

DETROIT (WWJ) – Would you like to lose weight, have more energy, better health? Then stop eating cheese. That’s according to Dr. Neal Barnard, who’s down on dairy. Barnard says while Americans seem to have a love affair with cheese, it’s more of an unhealthy addiction. He makes his case in his book “The Cheese Trap.” “I think it’s addicting; and I don’t use the addicting word lightly,” he told WWJ’s Dr. Deanna Lites. “There are actually opiate chemicals in it that attach to the very same brain receptors as other opiates, and I’m going to argue that it’s probably...

Scientists have responded furiously to claims about climate change made in a live BBC radio interview. Experts told BBC News that the assertions made by former Chancellor Nigel Lawson on Radio 4's Today programme were simply untrue. Lord Lawson had claimed that global temperatures had "slightly declined" over the past 10 years. However, scientists working in the field said the records showed the complete opposite to be the case. BBC Radio 4's Today programme defended its decision to interview Lord Lawson on Thursday morning in a segment on climate change. The BBC argued that it had a duty to inform...

WASHINGTON — The average temperature in the United States has risen rapidly and drastically since 1980, and recent decades have been the warmest of the past 1,500 years, according to a sweeping federal climate change report awaiting approval by the Trump administration. The draft report by scientists from 13 federal agencies, which has not yet been made public, concludes that Americans are feeling the effects of climate change right now. It directly contradicts claims by President Trump and members of his cabinet who say that the human contribution to climate change is uncertain, and that the ability to predict the...

Prepare to be “nudged” by Obama's new “behavioral science” squads — for your own good, of course. Under the guise of better “serving” the American people through government, Obama signed an executive order this week calling for federal agencies and departments to deploy emerging “behavioral science” techniques against the public.Among other goals, the expansion of federal mind manipulation is supposed to help more Americans access government welfare programs, take their “recommended” vaccines, supply more information about themselves to the federal government, and accelerate the transition toward what Obama called “a low-carbon economy.” The controversial decree, signed on September 15, explicitly...

When it comes to sheer friendliness, few humans can match the average dog. But people with Williams syndrome may come close, their unusual genetics granting them a puppyish zeal for social interaction. Now, scientists have found that extreme friendliness in both species may share common genetic roots. A friendly condition Williams syndrome, also known as Williams-Beuren syndrome, occurs when people are missing of a chunk of DNA containing about 27 genes. The syndrome affects about one in 10,000 people, and it is associated with a suite of mental and physical traits, including bubbly, extroverted personalities, a broad forehead, full cheeks,...

One of the hallmarks of the “Ugly American” is the habit of thinking foreigners will understand what you’re saying if you just shout it louder and louder. The Ugly Environmentalist does something similar. He exaggerates the challenge of global warming by using ever more hysterical rhetoric, thinking that if the last doomsday prediction didn’t work, this one will. For instance, Stephen Hawking, the famous astrophysicist, recently said that the consequences of Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris climate accord were monumental: “Trump’s action could push the Earth over the brink, to become like Venus, with a temperature of 250 degrees...

Junk science endangers lives. Forensic junk science in the hands of overzealous prosecutors, ignorant police detectives and reckless experts threatens liberty. There is a crisis in America's government-run crime labs -- and it's not just the result of a few rogue operators. The problem is long-festering and systemic. In April, Massachusetts state crime lab chemist Annie Dookhan made national headlines after investigations and lawsuits over her misconduct prompted the state's Supreme Judicial Court to order the largest dismissal of criminal convictions in U.S. history. Prosecutors were forced to dismiss a stunning 21,000-plus drug cases after Dookhan admitted to forging signatures,...

In the days, weeks, and months since Donald Trump's surprising victory, there's been endless speculation and debate about what cost Hillary Clinton the presidential election. In May, Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight wrote that the October 28 Comey Letter very likely cost Clinton the presidency. There's also evidence that sexism, both conscious and unconscious, helped tear down one of the most qualified candidates in history. And all of this is to say nothing of potential Russian interference. Well, here's a new one: Members of the astrological community believe that the exact time of Clinton's birth on October 26, 1947, may be...

Sorry, everybody. We’re just not that special. In more than five decades of scanning the heavens, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) has found no sign of alien life. Yet now two American astronomers, in the scientific equivalent of a back-of-the-envelope calculation, are estimating that over the course of its history the universe has seen at least half a trillion technologically advanced species. Remember, 420 billion intelligent civilizations is the “pessimistic” estimate. But sadly—or happily, depending on your view of aliens—it doesn’t make us any less alone.

The global obesity epidemic continues, and a new report shows that about two billion people worldwide are overweight or obese. That's about 30% of the world's population. The new study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that about a third of the global population—including adults and children—exceed a healthy weight. About 10% of people in the world are obese, according to the findings. Studies have linked overweight and obesity to a higher risk for health complications like type 2 diabetes, heart disease, depression, respiratory problems, major cancers and more.

Zeeya Merali is a freelance science writer and author of A Big Bang in a Little Room: The Quest to Create New Universes. Her work has appeared in Nature, Scientific American, Discover, Science, New Scientist, and on the BBC. She has also published two textbooks with National Geographic and has worked on NOVA's television series The Fabric of the Cosmos. She has a PhD in theoretical cosmology and lives in London. Artwork illustrating the concept of an alternate ‘bubble’ universe in which our universe (left) is not the only one. Some scientists think that bubble universes may pop into existence...

BRUSSELS, May 28 (UPI) -- Since 1889 to 2004, IQ declined 14.1 points among those from Western nations, researchers in Europe say.

Camila Castello, 34, and Akahi Ricardo, 36, are what is known as “Breatharians” - they eat just three times a week, and only ever a piece of fruit or some vegetable broth at a time. “Humans can easily be without food, as long as they are the connected to the energy that exists in all things and through breathing,” The couple met in 2005 and first discovered Breatharianism in 2008. They eventually transitioned from vegetarians, to raw vegans, to fruitarians and finally to Breatharians.

Early Options, an abortion facility in New York, has a fancy website featuring happy couples embracing. The facility advertises something it calls the “Soft Touch” method of abortion, which is a suction aspiration abortion using a hand-held syringe. In this type of abortion, a tube attached to a syringe is inserted into the woman’s uterus, and the abortionist manually creates the suction by pumping the syringe. This pulls apart the preborn child, forcing her, often in pieces, from the woman’s body. The abortion facility calls this type of abortion “noninvasive” and “natural.” There is, of course, nothing natural about inserting...

‘Binary and absolute differences’ are ‘exploitative’ A feminist academic affiliated with the University of Arizona has invented a new theory of “intersectional quantum physics,” and told the world about it in a journal published by Duke University Press. Whitney Stark argues in support of “combining intersectionality and quantum physics” to better understand “marginalized people” and to create “safer spaces” for them, in the latest issue of The Minnesota Review. Because traditional quantum physics theory has influenced humanity’s understanding of the world, it has also helped lend credence to the ongoing regime of racism, sexism and classism that hurts minorities, Stark...

A former member of the Obama administration claims Washington, D.C., often uses “misleading” news releases about climate data to influence public opinion. Former Energy Department Undersecretary Steven Koonin told The Wall Street Journal Monday that bureaucrats within former President Barack Obama’s administration spun scientific data to manipulate public opinion. “What you saw coming out of the press releases about climate data, climate analysis, was, I’d say, misleading, sometimes just wrong,” Koonin said, referring to elements within the Obama administration he said were responsible for manipulating climate data. He pointed to a National Climate Assessment in 2014 showing hurricane activity has...

Documents Confirm that Obama IRS Improperly Targeted Conservatives JW Exposes Dangerous Criminals Protected by Texas Sanctuary City Policy Climategate Obstruction Challenged in Court U.S. Rep. Jason Chaffetz Addresses Government Oversight Challenges at JW Documents Confirm that Obama IRS Improperly Targeted Conservatives We continue to undercover the details of the Obama IRS’ arbitrary and capricious behavior toward those presumed to be “enemies” of President Obama. This week we released 695 pages of new documents containing admissions by IRS officials that the agency used “inappropriate political labels” to screen the tax-exempt applications of conservative organizations. Other records reveal that the IRS...

Wildlife conservation groups are collaborating with a federal government agency to halt construction of the southern border wall by fudging science to claim that unimpeded trans-border corridors are essential to an “endangered species” with 99% of its population in Mexico. Under the plan, large areas of Arizona and New Mexico would be prohibited from erecting a border wall so that jaguars—which don’t even occupy the area—can roam back and forth between the two countries. More than ¾ million acres in Arizona and New Mexico would be designated as critical habitat for jaguars under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA), which...