I recently appeared on Celia Farber’s Radio Free Science talk show, regarding the corruption of Wikipedia: Boy I say “um” a lot. I’m losing my public speaking mojo. But in any case, I think we discuss some important issues regarding what is probably the world’s most widely-read and used reference resource.

Doctors are asking again: Researchers from around the world are gathering this week in San Jose, Calif., for the largest conference on psychedelic science held in the United States in four decades. They plan to discuss studies of psilocybin and other psychedelics for treating depression in cancer patients, obsessive-compulsive disorder, end-of-life anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and addiction to drugs...

Today, April 22 is Earth Day, a day designated to increase national and global awareness and appreciation of our planet’s natural environment. Earth Day Network: The first Earth Day on April 22, 1970, activated 20 million Americans from all walks of life and is widely credited with launching the modern environmental movement. The passage of the landmark Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act...

Tomorrow is Earth day. Did you notice? The New York Times didn’t mention the fact in today’s edition of the paper. Neither did the Wall Street Journal. Nor did the Los Angeles Times, though it did have a short piece about German environmentalists and nuclear power in their coutry. Come Earth Day itself, of course, some notice of the natural environment will be on view. Doubtless the Obama Administration...

Jeff Parker, Florida Today and the Fort Myers News-Press This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

Having immigrated to the United States in pursuit of the American Dream, I was intrigued by the title of the New York Times story “Many U.S. Immigrants’ Children Seek American Dream Abroad.” As the story’s introduction focused on a Mr. Samir N. Kapadia who had arrived in the United States from India as a young child, became a U.S. citizen and was apparently doing very well in his career, I became even...

I accept that multitasking is a myth (in actuality, we’re switch-tasking). But I’ve refused to accept that it’s bad for us. A tiny bit of vindication from Science Daily: Our obsession with multiple forms of media is not necessarily all bad news, according to a new study by Kelvin Lui and Alan Wong from The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Their work shows that those who frequently use different...

Even before the humiliating failure of North Korea’s Taepo Dong-2 missile launch, the regime there was already considering the possibility of failure and whom to blame it on. Well, not exactly. The paranoid leadership apparently entertained the possibility of the “U.S., Japan and the ‘group traitors’ running South Korea” intercepting the rocket, and promised an ‘Unimaginable and Miserable Punishment’...

While Friday’s spectacular missile launch failure was a humiliating embarrassment for North Korea and its leaders, it provided plenty of material for humorists, satirists and cartoonists everywhere to poke fun at North Korea and its missile program. The usually sedate Stars and Stripes provides us with “a look at some of the funnier reactions.” However, while we make fun of the failure, it is also a source...

With some context about Ann Romney’s early life as wife and mother…. Mitt legally sidestepped the Vietnam military draft by entering college and then by marrying and then by having children right away. Back then, for those who knew of these deferments and had family who would sometimes help with college, it was a path many took, and it was considered differently depending on who was looking…...

Sweeping the Internets, if you’ve yet to see it (or even if you have) it’s well worth watching (again). Caine’s Arcade, the story of a 9 year old boy in East LA who built an arcade out of cardboard in his dad’s auto parts shop… The icing on the cake, a scholarship fund the filmmaker set up for Caine’s college education. The video was posted Monday; it’s raised more than...

UPDATE: The watch area has been reduced but some East African countries have issued tsunami warnings. ==================================== Remember the massively destructive Indonesian tsunami in 2004? The same area has just had two major earthquakes (8.6, 8.2) and a tsunami watch has been issued. So far, no damage has been reported. BBC CNN

Many rulers and architects have left behind their imprint on the historic Indian city of Delhi over the centuries. While a Mughal king’s artisans built an impressive Shahjahanabad in Old Delhi, the English architect Edward Lutyen’s legacy is the sprawling ‘Imperial’ New Delhi at the height of British Raj. In 1952, the American architect Joseph Allen Stein arrived in the newly Independent India from...

Are the U.S., South Korea, Japan, China and Russia all wrong about Pyongyang’s launch of a satellite atop a rocket capable of delivering a nuclear weapon? According to this lengthy Stalinist commentary from North Korea’s state-run Rodong Sinmun, the U.S., Japan and the ‘group of traitors’ running south Korea had better reconsider plans to intercept the rocket, which is expected to be launched this...

The Driver in Chief tries a Chevy Volt on for size. Many automakers have been slow to embrace hybrids and for some who have the technology doesn’t seem to run a whole lot deeper than a badge with a green leaf on the trunk lid. A conspicuous exception has been Toyota, which introduced the fuel stingy Prius in the U.S. in 2001 and now offers hybrids throughout its Lexus lineup. There are many ways...

UPDATE II: Lockheed Martin commemorated the 4,500th F-16 Fighting Falcon delivery on 3 April 2012 with a ceremony in Fort Worth for employees, customers, former executives, and elected officials. 4500 F-16 delivery ceremony Photo: Courtesy Lockheed Martin’s “Code One Magazine” UPDATE I: A very nice video on the F-16 below. Original Post: I have written plenty about the sad demise of the Lockheed...

Other than providing the usual entertainment (Isn’t that nice?) and accusing President Obama essentially of treason (“Not only is [Obama] supporting our enemies and dissing our friends…”), Michael Reagan, in a piece at TMV, praises his father, Ronald Reagan, for his accomplishments in the national security arena during the Cold War — as he should. But while lauding his father’s achievements,...

Could it be that global concern over North Korea’s upcoming launch of a rocket capable of carrying a nuclear warhead is just a great big misunderstanding? According to this surprisingly conciliatory news item from the state-run Korean Central News Agency, North Korea’s Foreign Ministry insists that the launch, which it maintains is for peaceful purposes, was not part of the deal it signed with Washington...

Have the most extreme elements on the political landscape – once considered beyond the embrace of polite society – taken control of the Republican Party? According to columnist Jean-Sébastian Stehli of France’s Le Figaro, the conspiracy theorists who once shouted themselves hoarse about fluoridated water being a communist mind-control plot and government implantation of chips under citizens’...

Any astrologer worth her salt would tell you that there is not a lot of good that you can expect from a grand Supreme Court argument over the future of health care, held on a day when Mercury is retrograde, Saturn is retrograde, and Mars is retrograde.  And, since, like global warming, astrology is easily refuted, except by observation, allow me to make this observation on the madness of the zeitgeist. The...