Category Archives: Science

In 1980, after long consultation with some of America’s most senior nutrition scientists, the US government issued its first Dietary Guidelines.

The most prominent recommendation of both governments was to cut back on saturated fats and cholesterol

Look at a graph of postwar obesity rates and it becomes clear that something changed after 1980. In the US, the line rises very gradually until, in the early 1980s, it takes off like an aeroplane.

At best, we can conclude that the official guidelines did not achieve their objective; at worst, they led to a decades-long health catastrophe.

The sugar conspiracy

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft is at Pluto — nasa.gov

New Horizons’ almost 10-year, three-billion-mile journey to closest approach at Pluto took about one minute less than predicted when the craft was launched in January 2006. The spacecraft threaded the needle through a 36-by-57 mile (60 by 90 kilometers) window in space — the equivalent of a commercial airliner arriving no more off target than the width of a tennis ball.

NASA’s Three-Billion-Mile Journey to Pluto Reaches Historic Encounter