LOOKING FOR PEER REVIEWED SOURCES?

TRY THESE:

• Science Hub

• OMICS International Open Access Journals

LITERATURE REVIEW

• The Literature Review –  A Few Tips on Conducting It
• What is a Literature Review?

ANIMAL BEHAVIOR AND PHYSIOLOGY

• Mystery Solved:  How Bats Land Upside Down

Cell Biology

• Havoc in Biology’s Most Used Cell Line – Explains the uses and ethical questions associated with HeLa cells

origin of life

• Imagining Strange New  Life Forms May Reveal Our Own Origins – Concise article about how life began.

RESEARCH AND DATA

• How Science Helped to Swing the Canadian Election
• Vanishing Data:  Why We’re All Losers in Ottawa’s War on Data – Macleans
• Here are the Issues Canadians Care About Most in this Election – Macleans  74% of Canadians want Government-Funded Science Available to the Public
• The MISinformation Age Why do some people reject what science tells us about vaccines, climate change and the very nature and age of the Earth, even in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence?  According to one expert, “science is being trumped” by lack of understanding, views on economics or politics and religious belief.

DRugs

• Legalizing Pot Will be a Process of Trial and Error, US Expert Warns Trudeau
• Shops Cloud Truth About Pot, Expert Says
• Casual Marijuana Use Linked to Brain Abnormalities
• Harvard Scientists Studied the Brains of Pot Smokers, and the Results Don’t Look Good
• BRAIN CHANGES ARE ASSOCIATED WITH CASUAL MARIJUANA USE IN YOUNG ADULTS

EDUCATION

• Re-thinking the Value of Final Exams
• How Memory, Focus and Good Teaching Can Work Together to Help Kids Learn …” students cannot build more complex knowledge without information in their working memory.”
• Conquer yourself, conquer the world – Self-control over thought processes, emotions and behaviours, more than self-esteem, is a powerful predictor of success in living and working with others.  Having self control is a predictor for  better intimate relationships, trustworthiness, low likelihood for arrest, addiction and unplanned pregnancies.

GENERAL INTEREST

• A New Physics Theory of Life
• World of Meter

BRITISH COLUMBIA’S NATURAL TREASURES

• Spirit Bear Family – CBC – The Nature of Things

WATER

• BC Drought Monitoring
• Nestle BC Water Deal Too Cheap, Says NDP (CBC) Starting in 2016, corporations will be charged $2.25 for every one million litres of water they extract
• Outrage boils over as B.C. government plans to sell groundwater for $2.25 per million litres (Vancouver Province) See what other Canadian provinces charge for water “rental”.
• In a warmer world, researchers say climate change is intensifying California’s Water Crisis
• California Drought Crisis Could Come to BC, says UBC Professor

PSYCHOLOGY

• Declining Student Resilience:  A Serious Problem for Colleges
• Causes of Students’ Emotional Fragility:  5 Perspectives – Follow up to the above article.
• Inside Your Teenager’s Scary Brain
• Conquer yourself, conquer the world – Self-control over thought processes, emotions and behaviours, more than self-esteem, is a powerful predictor of success in living and working with others.  Having self control is a predictor for  better intimate relationships, trustworthiness, low likelihood for arrest, addiction and unplanned pregnancies.
• Scientist Says Starting Work Before 10 am is Torture – Not really an article, but interesting graphics.
• Fixed Mindset vs Growth Mindset

ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE

• CRISPR Snips Away Antibiotic Resistance
• Resistance to New Antibiotic Has Now Spread Across Globe
• Teixobactin And iChip Promise Hope Against Antibiotic Resistance
• Antibiotic Hunters – The Nature of Things – March 5, 2015
• Antibiotic Resistance is Becoming a Global Health Issue – CBC Radio – Listen
• Drug Resistance Report 2014 – Centers for Disease Control (CDC)
• The End of Antibiotics
• A Possible Alternative to Antibiotics
• Revolutionary New Antibiotic Alternative Could Save the World Superbug 
• Apocalypse
• Antibiotics:  US Discovery Labelled Game Changer for Medicine
• IBM:  Ninjas (Superbugs) vs Nanobots
• First New Antibiotic in 30 Years Discovered in Major Breakthrough
• The Science Behind Sauerkraut Fermentation – not really a science source, but good explanation of how to grow the correct bacteria and why.

good bacteria

• It Takes Guts – Which bacteria live in our digestive systems seems to be related to obesity and health.

EVOLUTION

• Journey of Mankind – Bradshaw Foundation
• A New Physics Theory of Life – New theory on the origin of life

SPACE EXPLORATION

• Lights Go Out on Philae, but Hibernating Probot Could Phone Home Again as Comet Nears Sun

EBOLA

• Sierra Leone Surgeon in US for Treatment

HUMAN RIGHTS

• Bloody Harvest – Revised Report of Organ Harvesting of Falun Gong Practitioners in China

SUSTAINABILITY

• Journey of Mankind – Human Migration – Bradshaw Foundation
• Human Population  Growth Video
• How to Get All Energy from Wind, Water, and Solar Power by 2030.  Scientific American / Stanford University
• Building Up Instead of Out:  The rise of the Vertical Farm

DATA COLLECTION

• Big Data, Small Data, Datification, Correlation vs Causation, Stock Market Trading, Health Information – CBC Radio.  You can download the audio file and listen on your iPod.

Human Physiology

• Teen Survives After Flying to Hawaii in Wheel Well 

biotechnology

• Too Early to Use Gene Editing in Human Embryos, Scientist Says
• Gene Editing of Sperm and Eggs Clinically irresponsible, Scientists Say
• CRISPR Gene Editing Tool has Scientists Thrilled but Nervous
• 23 and Me is Terrifying, but Not for the Reasons the FDA Thinks – Scientific American
• 3 Parent Fertility Treatments Planned in Britain.  Father’s DNA + Mother’s DNA (Genomic) + Donor Mother’s DNA (Mitochondrial)
• Latest in Biotechnology (Scientific American)
• HIV Gene Therapy Breakthrough
• Are Genetically Modified Foods Evil?  Scientific American
• Cloning Humans – Stem cell controversy
• BBC Documentary – Cloning Humans
• Gene Therapy – TEDx Talk Gene therapy for genetic disorders like adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD) seen in the movie Lorenzo’s Oil
• The Boys From Brazil – What if Hitler was secretly cloned?

health

• The Obesity Paradox – Looks like a little extra weight may actually be good for you
• Fecal Transplants to fight difficult bacterial infections – Yup.  You read right.
• Too Much Sitting:  The Population-Health Science of Sedentary Behaviour  Apparently, sitting is the “new smoking”

Genetically Modified Foods

• Timeline
• Silence of the Labs – CBC – video

Environment

• Alex Steffen:  The Route to a Sustainable Future – TED Talk
• David Keith:  A Critical Look at Geoengineering Against Climate Change – TED Talk
• No One Trusts Geoengineering, but Soon It’s not Going to be a Choice
• Geoengineering:  The Bad Idea We Need to Stop Climate Change
• The Planet Remade – Through Geoengineering – CBC Quirks and Quarks – Post 2015 Climate Conference
• Human Population Growth Video
• Bill Nye Explains the Link Between Climate Change and Terrorism in Paris
• Is Earth Just 2 Degrees Away From Disaster?
• Sea Level Could Rise at Least Six Meters – Scientific American
• David Suzuki’s Last Stand – Blue Dot Tour and the movement to make make the right to live in a clean and healthy environment a fundamental human right entrenched in our constitution.  An Environmental Bill of Rights  See the video:  BlueDot
• World of Meters
• Adapting to a Warmer World – CBC – It’s going to happen.  We might be able to slow it down and adapt to it.
• Climate Inaction Catasptrophe – BBC
• Electric cars are here
• Tesla Charging Stations in North America and Europe Map (scroll down)
• Troubled Waters:  Nuclear Radiation Found in BC May Pose Health Concerns
• Acidic Ocean Deadly for Vancouver Island Scallop Industry
• The Sixth Extinction – Interview with the author on CBC’s Quirks and Quarks.  Suggests that we are in the midst of the sixth mass extinction and that this one is not natural, but man-made.
• Lake Erie Algae Bloom Threatens its Survival – Discusses how phosphorus run-offs of agricultural fertilizers are causing massive algae blooms that are poisoning the lake water making it undrinkable.
• Extreme Winter Weather Explained
• What is the Polar Vortex That is Freezing the US?
• Polar Vortex Freeze is Back for Central, Atlantic Canada
• Measuring Progress by GDP is s Mistake
• Burnaby Lake Study
• Deer Lake Water Quality Strategy

ALTERNATIVE ENERGY

• Designs Broaden Toilet’s Uses – Urine powered fuel cell to power cell phones and other ideas.
• Electric Cars – Here is a map of the charging stations for the Tesla.
• Wind Farms – David Suzuki
• How to Power the World Without Fossil Fuels – Scientific American
• World-O-Meters There are a lot of ideas here to get you thinking about how we we use our resources.  Thinking about it is the first step toward change.

OTHER GOOD STUFF

• The Nature of Things – A true Canadian treasure.  Interesting, insightful, current.  Watch it often.
• From the renowned, multi-disciplinary science journal PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) comes the Science Sessions. Each of these short podcasts features interviews with scientists (many of whom are members of the National Academy of Sciences) who have discovered a number of fascinating topics.

Here are a few of my favorite sources of science news:

BBC Earth

Scientific American

NYTimes Science

STAT

Science Magazine’s ScienceShots

Links we Love