For the first time, an international research team has provided direct evidence of the rate at which individual trees in the Amazonian basin ‘inhale’ carbon from the atmosphere during a severe drought. The researchers measured the growth and photosynthesis rates of trees at 13 rainforest plots across Brazil, Peru and Bolivia, comparing plots that were affected by the strong drought …
Confronting Industrialism
Some of the most important questions confronting us are: what should we do about this culture’s industrial wastes, from greenhouse gases to pesticides to ocean microplastics? Can the capitalists clean up the messes they create? Or is the whole industrial system beyond reform? The answers become clear with a little context. Let’s start the discussion of context with two riddles …
Flu vaccine paradox spreading globally as more vaccinated people catch the flu
The conventional medical system is literally grasping at straws trying to maintain the illusion that vaccines work, with new reports now admitting that flu vaccines are an utter failure while still pushing people to get them. The latest nonsensical narrative, at least from the Canadian government, attributes all the inconsistencies between what authorities have long claimed about the alleged efficacy …
Raise Your Hand if You Take Medical Advice From a Playboy Bunny
This accusation is everywhere, isn’t it? Respectable doctors say it on live TV, trying to sound like they have sympathy for those of us who just weren’t smart enough to avoid being duped by a pretty young thing with big boobs. Journalists never fail to mention it in stories about whatever the current vaccine-preventable epidemic is. It’s talked about on …
What Scares the New Atheists?
In 1929, the Thinker’s Library, a series established by the Rationalist Press Association to advance secular thinking and counter the influence of religion in Britain, published an English translation of the German biologist Ernst Haeckel’s 1899 book The Riddle of the Universe. Celebrated as “the German Darwin”, Haeckel was one of the most influential public intellectuals of the late nineteenth and …
Spy Agencies Used ‘Giant Vacuum Cleaner’ To Collect Data Across Pacific
New documents from the cache of files leaked by Edward Snowden show that New Zealand’s intelligence agency has been collecting in bulk the cell phone, email, and internet files of people across the Pacific Island nations and handing that data over to the U.S. National Security Agency in an operation one angered lawmaker now describes as a “giant vaccum cleaner …
Fight cavities and gingivitis naturally with homemade DIY Oral health
Forget buying toothpaste, reading all of those ingredients, wondering if you can recycle the toothpaste tube or not. Make your own toothpaste, mouthwash, and more. There’s nothing you can get in the store that will do as well as these recipes. But remember, there’s nothing you can do for your gums and teeth that will heal them and keep them …
Adults only really catch flu about twice a decade, suggests study
Adults over the age of 30 only catch flu about twice a decade, a new study suggests. Flu-like illness can be caused by many pathogens, making it difficult to assess how often people are infected by influenza. Researchers analysed blood samples from volunteers in Southern China, looking at antibody levels against nine different influenza strains that circulated from 1968 to …
Men tend to be more narcissistic than women, large study says
With three decades of data from more than 475,000 participants, a new study on narcissism from the University at Buffalo School of Management reveals that men, on average, are more narcissistic than women. Forthcoming in the journal Psychological Bulletin, the study compiled 31 years of narcissism research and found that men consistently scored higher in narcissism across multiple generations and regardless of age. …
OTC medications and supplements are most common causes of drug-induced liver failure
Drug-induced acute liver failure is uncommon, and over-the-counter medications and dietary and herbal supplements — not prescription drugs — are its most common causes, according to new research from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. The findings are published in the current issue of Gastroenterology. One of the most feared complications of drugs and medications is acute …










