The Clean Air Act requires U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to set National Ambient Air Quality Standards for pollutants that are considered harmful to the public and environment. In order to do this, the EPA has a long history of including the advice of independent groups of scientists. However, in October of 2018, Trump’s EPA administrator, Andrew Wheeler, appointed a […]

As Joe Biden famously said, “Don’t tell me what you value. Show me your budget, and I’ll tell you what you value.” In the era of Donald Trump, it might be more apropos to say, “Don’t tell me what you don’t give a damn about. Show me your budget and I’ll tell you what you don’t give a damn about.” […]

After eight years of an anti-science Bush administration, science got a bit of a boost with the election of Barack Obama. Political cartoonist Tom Toles from The Washington Post commemorated the event with this spot-on comic: However, Republicans continued to push their anti-science ways, working to thwart the Obama administration’s efforts to combat climate change at every turn. Again, Tom […]

Sometimes we need to take a break from politics to marvel at how badass science is. And, given the current situation, there’s no time like NOW! Plus I’m a scientist so I just can’t help myself. Last week, scientists from the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley presented a paper at the 254th National Meeting & Exposition of the American […]

ScienceDebate.org, a coalition of fifty-six leading U.S. nonpartisan organizations, including the American Chemical Society of which I am a member, recently sent a comprehensive questionnaire to the four major presidential candidates. Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson declined to participate. The answers given by the other three candidates give us a very good look at their vision for our country, particularly […]

Last week I wrote about Congressman Lamar Smith (R-TX) and his attacks on federal scientists, trying to intimidate and bully them because he didn’t believe the science they were sciencing. Smith had demanded to be given copies of all emails sent by a group of climate scientists working for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) relating to recent research […]

Idiocracy wasn’t a movie. It was a documentary. In June of this year, scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) published research in the peer-reviewed journal Science. Their research was based on improved and more accurate land and sea temperature data that showed that the warming of the earth continues apace. This flies in the face of claims […]

Watch over my shoulder as I participate in the 2014 TEDMED conference Sept. 10-12. If you’re interested in what’s next in health and medicine, come along with me on my adventure to TEDMED 2014. TEDMED describes itself as “a global community dedicated to unlocking imagination in service of health and medicine. Our goal is to seed the innovations of today, […]