‘Citation Diversity Statement': A Renowned Chemist Sounds Off On Her Boycott of a Premier Scientific Journal

Nature Reviews Psychology, an imprint of the prestigious Nature publishing group, announced in October that it was "explicitly encouraging" authors to include a "citation diversity statement" in their articles. The statement would affirm that they had made an effort to cite from "a diverse group of researchers" and acknowledge "citation imbalances" based on race and gender.

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Charity Run Amok

"The members of the Casey family have from the beginning intended that the principal purpose of the Annie E. Casey Foundation would be to support needy children in foster homes," Jim Casey wrote around 1947. Casey, who founded UPS, was worried about impoverished children, particularly orphans. He set up his foundation in 1948, and as of 2023, the endowment was valued at $3.4 billion.

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Time for RFK Jr. to expose the dark truth about the pill



No drug is as sacrosanct in today’s sexually “liberated” culture as oral contraceptives. But the proliferation of the birth control pill since the 1960s has fostered a number of grave consequences for our society: hook-up culture, delayed marriage, and the destruction of the nuclear family.

None of this would surprise Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood. In the early 20th century, she promoted contraception as the mechanism for female emancipation. “Birth control is the first important step a woman must take toward the goal of her freedom,” she wrote. “It is the first step she must take to be man’s equal. It is the first step they must both take toward human emancipation.”

Though the perceived benefits of birth control pills are loudly and publicly celebrated, their costs need to be fully exposed.

Feminist author Betty Friedan agreed, asserting that the pill gave women “the legal and constitutional right to decide whether or not or when to bear children” and established the basis for true equality with men.

Because oral contraception has been touted as a cornerstone of women’s equality and freedom, its health repercussions are rarely called into question. Even Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who regularly wades into controversy by calling for investigations into seed oils and food dyes, remains relatively silent on oral contraceptives.

This is to the detriment of women across the country. As Dr. Sarah Hill demonstrates in “This Is Your Brain on Birth Control: How the Pill Changes Everything,” birth control has had numerous repercussions on women, relationships, and society. She shows that women at the peak of their cycle feel sexier, more outgoing, and more confident with the natural increase in estrogen. And men find them more attractive at that time, too.

More than mere ‘birth control’

As Hill points out, birth control pills do more than just prevent pregnancy: They affect a woman’s hormones more generally — hormones that affect everything from her brain to her fingertips and her overall emotional, mental, and physical health. Many of the women Hill interviewed described feeling emotionally blunted, or as if they were moving through life in a fog, while on the pill.

A woman’s menstrual cycle is often known as the fifth vital sign, and a disruption signals a concern to be addressed, not to be masked.

Birth control is, in fact, “medicated menopause.” While it can be a difficult reality for many to face, studies show that women who no longer menstruate are not as attractive to men, which is why trying to find a mate in the latter years of life can be challenging. The drive to partner up and reproduce is diminished, making marriage less of a necessity and mere companionship more of the goal.

Studies comparing women who use contraception with those who do not reveal that the pill lowers libido, can lead to mood swings or depression, disrupts natural cycles, can cause infertility after discontinuation, interferes with the endocrine system, and can lead to bloating and a gain of nearly five pounds on average. Other studies have found that estrogen-containing pills raise the risk of venous thromboembolism and, to a smaller extent, strokes and heart attacks.

America lags behind

European countries have conducted many tests that demonstrate such effects. A nationwide Danish cohort study of over one million women found higher rates of first antidepressant use and first depression diagnosis among users of contraceptives than nonusers. Another large Danish study found that women who were currently or recently on hormonal contraception were more likely to attempt suicide or die by suicide than women who had never used it.

A Finnish study and a Swedish one produced similar results. A British database shows that the first couple of years of being on the pill brought an increased risk of depression and that women who began using the pill in their teens sometimes had a lasting higher risk.

Few, if any, comprehensive American studies have been conducted, even though about 15% of American women between 15 and 49 use oral contraceptives.

Environmental havoc

Potential problems are not limited to those who ingest the hormones. Synthetic estrogen, an endocrine-disrupting compound used in oral contraceptives, makes its way from America’s toilets to the water supply. Wastewater treatments can reduce, but never fully remove, such psychoactive drugs from drinking water.

U.S. regulators and scientists treat these as “contaminants of emerging concern.” The Environmental Protection Agency and the United States Geological Survey publish methods for measuring the prevalence of such hormones in wastewater and waters used for our drinking supply.

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Male fish begin growing female genitals, and fish populations collapse in water containing the synthetic estrogen from birth control, according to some studies. As RFK Jr. has mentioned, boys are “swimming through a soup of toxic chemicals today, and many of those are endocrine disruptors.”

Though some studies show that typical concentrations of synthetic estrogen in drinking water pose negligible risks to women, perhaps the cumulative exposure to endocrine disruptors affects the sexual development of young males.

Long overdue accountability

RFK Jr. promised to “follow the law regarding access to birth control” during his confirmation process. That could include commissioning the National Institutes of Health to conduct “gold standard science” on oral contraception, as he has sworn to do for other food additives and pharmaceuticals, studies that many European countries have already done.

While calling for restrictions on birth control pills would likely cause a frenzy among many, informed consent is a paramount health priority. Though the perceived benefits of birth control pills are loudly and publicly celebrated (women, you too can have sex like a man!), their costs need to be fully exposed if we are going to restore human health and flourishing among both sexes.

Editor’s note: This article was published originally at the American Mind.

Study shows massive decline in peanut allergies after previous experts proven wrong



Health experts suggested in years past that mothers with familial predispositions to developing allergies should avoid peanut consumption during pregnancy and breastfeeding and that parents should avoid giving their children peanut products and other common allergens before the age of 3.

According to a National Institutes of Health-backed study published on Monday in the American Academy of Pediatrics' medical journal, Pediatrics, the strategy of avoidance appears to have been the wrong approach.

Background

After observing the prevalence of peanut allergy among children in Western countries double over the course of a decade, an international team of researchers evaluated studies of peanut consumption and avoidance to figure out which was the better approach.

'There are less kids with food allergy today than there would have been if we hadn’t implemented this public health effort.'

The researchers, whose work was partly funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, conducted a randomized trial of peanut consumption in infants at risk for peanut allergy and found that "early introduction of peanuts significantly decreased the frequency of the development of peanut allergy among children at high risk for this allergy and modulated immune responses to peanuts."

Following the 2015 publication of the trial results in the New England Journal of Medicine, numerous health organizations issued consensus-based interim guidance recommending early allergen introduction.

Years later, the NIAID, leaning on the trial data in the 2015 study, released guidelines recommending early introduction for all infants facing low risk of developing a peanut allergy and for high-risk infants where appropriate.

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Photo by Amy Brothers/ The Denver Post

Exposure therapy

The new study in Pediatrics indicates that the exposure strategy was worthwhile and has resulted in a 27.2% reduction in the cumulative incidence of peanut allergy among children in the post-guidelines cohort versus the pre-guidelines cohort, and a reduction of over 40% when comparing the pre-guidelines cohort with the cohort situated after the 2017 release of the updated NIAID guidelines.

After analyzing health records from nearly 50 pediatric practices altogether tracking over 120,000 kids, the researchers behind the new study found that overall food allergy rates in kids under 3 dropped from 1.46% between 2012 and 2015 to 0.93% between 2017 and 2020.

The researchers noted further that a Canadian study found that the implementation of early peanut introduction guidelines "was associated with a significant decrease in new-onset anaphylaxis in children aged 2 years or younger."

"I can actually come to you today and say there are less kids with food allergy today than there would have been if we hadn’t implemented this public health effort," Dr. David Hill, an allergist at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and author of the study, told the Associated Press.

While about 60,000 kids have reportedly dodged food allergies since 2015, including 40,000 children who would have otherwise developed peanut allergies, 8% of children remain affected by food allergies. One reason the number remains high may be that only a minority of pediatricians — roughly 29% — indicated they followed the expanded guidance released in 2017.

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Comet or alien? NASA-led group ramping efforts to track mysterious city-size object in our solar system



An asteroid warning network has announced it will investigate a comet that allegedly has potential alien origins.

The comet, known as 3I/ATLAS, allegedly has peculiar traits that have not been seen in nature before. This theory is disputed, though.

'Never seen in comets before.'

A NASA coordinated group called the International Asteroid Warning Network has added 3I/ATLAS to its list of observation campaigns for November, stating that it will monitor the comet for two months, ending in late January.

Concurrently, a Harvard astrophysicist told the New York Post that the comet, in addition to being the size of Manhattan, has several unusual characteristics that defy common knowledge about the objects.

Avi Loeb told the Post the comet has what is referred to as an "anti-tail," which is a jet of particles that points toward the sun instead of away from it. It's also emitting a plume — gas and dust that erupts from the surface — that contains four grams of nickel per second. Allegedly existing without iron, Loeb said this was unheard of.

Loeb also claimed the object also has non-gravitational acceleration that will bring it close to Jupiter, Venus, and Mars, which is suspicious enough for him to claim that the comet could actually be an alien probe.

The comet also allegedly contains a toxic gas that is not seen naturally occurring on Earth.

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Photo by MADS CLAUS RASMUSSEN/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP via Getty Images

The nickel compound nickel tetracarbonyl is apparently present in the comet. According to ScienceDirect, this gas is formed from the reaction of carbon monoxide with metallic nickel and is the primary cause of acute nickel toxicity. The gas is used in the process of obtaining "very pure nickel" but can cause "severe health effects" in humans.

Loeb said the process is only imaginable because it's used in industry and was "never seen in comets before."

At the same time, the Post cited a study that suggests that the compound could form naturally in a carbon monoxide-rich environment.

"The [nickel] emission is more centrally concentrated in the nucleus of the comet and favors hypotheses involving easily dissociated species such as metal carbonyls or metal-polycyclic-aromatic-hydrocarbon molecules," the study reads.

Loeb also said the object did not have a cometary tail, which "we usually see ... and in this case there was no evidence for such a tail."

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Photo by Basri Marzuki/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Despite Loeb's alien warnings and the IAWN's plan for a lengthy observation period, the group states on its campaign page that the comet "poses no threat."

It does, however, present a "great opportunity for the IAWN community to perform an observing exercise due to its prolonged observability from Earth and high interest to the scientific community."

The group plans on holding a workshop on techniques to correctly measure the comet's astrometry, "a transformation without a change to a figure's shape or size, such as rotation or reflection."

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The Left Accuses The Right Of Hate To Avoid Debate And Silence Opposition

Conservatives' views on marriage, transgenderism, abortion, race, and more are based on reason, science, economics, and the Bible — not hate.

Libs gobble Tylenol, foreign officials complain after Trump highlights autism link



President Donald Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. caused an uproar among medical establishmentarians and thin-skinned liberals on Monday by formally identifying acetaminophen as one of the alleged drivers behind the rise in American autism.

Acetaminophen, often sold under the brand Tylenol in the United States but known overseas as paracetamol, is the most common over-the-counter pain and fever medication used during pregnancy. Sales of the drug this year have an estimated value of $10.9 billion.

Kennedy indicated that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will notify physicians that acetaminophen use by pregnant women may be associated with a "very increased risk" of neurological conditions like autism and ADHD in children.

The Department of Health and Human Services will also launch a nationwide public information campaign to alert parents and families to the possible risks of taking Tylenol during pregnancy.

— (@)

"The Trump administration does not believe popping more pills is always the answer for better health," said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. "There is mounting evidence finding a connection between acetaminophen use during pregnancy and autism — and that’s why the administration is courageously issuing this new health guidance."

Foreign health officials rushed to defend the drug, suggesting that it is safe and effective.

Alison Cave, chief safety officer of the United Kingdom's Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, said in a statement, "There is no evidence that taking paracetamol during pregnancy causes autism in children."

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Photo Illustration by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

"Paracetamol remains the recommended pain relief option for pregnant women when used as directed," added Cave.

The MHRA stressed further that patients should continue taking their pain medicines.

Steffen Thirstrup, the chief medical officer of the European Medicines Agency, also chimed in, stating that acetaminophen is an important option for treating pain or fever in pregnant women and that his agency's "advice is based on a rigorous assessment of the available scientific data, and we have found no evidence that taking paracetamol during pregnancy causes autism in children."

'Exposure of susceptible babies and children to acetaminophen (paracetamol) induces many, if not most, cases of autism spectrum disorder.'

Tarik Jasarevic, a spokesman for the World Health Organization, told reporters on Tuesday that while some studies have suggested an association between prenatal exposure to the drug and autism, "evidence remains inconsistent."

"If the link between acetaminophen and autism were strong, it would likely have been consistently observed across multiple studies," added Jasarevic.

James Cusack, the autistic chief executive of Autistica, a London-based autism research charity, told Nature, "There is no definitive evidence to suggest that paracetamol use in mothers is a cause of autism, and when you see any associations, they are very, very small."

Meanwhile, numerous liberals and other critics of the administration proved memers prophetic by downing fistfuls of acetaminophen as a form of protest.

While some of the pill-popping videos appear to have been recorded in jest, others are accompanied with humorless critiques of the administration's efforts to identify and tackle the root causes of autism.

Ahead of Trump's announcement on Monday, a spokesperson for Kenvue, the maker of Tylenol whose stock price took a nose dive on Monday, told Blaze News, "We believe independent, sound science clearly shows that taking acetaminophen does not cause autism. We strongly disagree with any suggestion otherwise and are deeply concerned with the health risk this poses for expecting mothers."

When pressed about what the "sound science clearly shows," Dr. William Parker, CEO of WPLab and visiting scholar at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, told Blaze News:

The science tells us several things. Among the most important are: (a) Exposure of susceptible babies and children to acetaminophen (paracetamol) induces many, if not most, cases of autism spectrum disorder. b) Specific, invalid assumptions made when analyzing epidemiologic data have impeded recognition of the role of acetaminophen in the induction of autism.

Dr. Parker also cited his 2023 scientific review published in the Swiss peer-reviewed journal Children that concluded that "the very early postpartum period poses the greatest risk for acetaminophen-induced ASD, and that nearly ubiquitous use of acetaminophen during early development could conceivably be responsible for the induction in the vast majority, perhaps 90% or more, of all cases of ASD."

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Photo by Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images

Dr. Yuelong Ji, an assistant professor at Peking University, told Blaze News, "Officials should indeed advise caution regarding the unnecessary use of acetaminophen during pregnancy."

Ji was among the researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health who collected umbilical cord blood from 996 births and measured the amount of acetaminophen and two of its byproducts in each sample.

According to the resultant National Institutes of Health-funded 2019 study published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, "Cord biomarkers of fetal exposure to acetaminophen were associated with significantly increased risk of childhood ADHD and ASD in a dose-response fashion."

"These results highlight the need for careful consideration of its use during this critical period of brain development," Ji told Blaze News. "The potential mechanisms by which acetaminophen may affect the developing brain should be thoroughly investigated. Until this mechanism is better understood, it is prudent for health officials to adopt a cautious approach when advising pregnant individuals on acetaminophen use."

The White House's fact sheet concerning the president's Tylenol-autism claims and the FDA's relabeling of acetaminophen cites Parker's and Ji's studies as well as a recent NIH-supported systematic review that found positive associations of prenatal acetaminophen use with ADHD, ASD, or NDDs in offspring across dozens of high-quality studies.

It also cites the 2021 international consensus statement that recommends pregnant women "minimize exposure" to acetaminophen "by using the lowest effective dose for the shortest possible time."

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Science's God-denying narrative just got crushed again



Scientists have made a discovery that should shake the foundations of modern biology.

When organisms die, some of their cells might not simply shut off like light bulbs. Instead, they reorganize, build new structures, solve problems, and make decisions. These researchers call it a “third state” of existence.

Once you accept that life itself shows signs of intention, you must also acknowledge that there is an Intender.

But to anyone steeped in Christian thought, it sounds less like a new scientific category and more like an old truth, a glimpse of the life that refuses to be reduced to chemicals and chance.

Mind in matter

Consider the strange case of xenobots, tiny clusters of frog cells lifted from their natural role and placed in a lab dish. They were expected to wither.

Instead, they began to move, formed patterns, and worked together in ways that showed clear intention.

Dr. William Miller calls this consciousness. Not the kind of awareness you and I possess, but the raw ability to adapt, to choose, to pursue a purpose. When placed outside their usual role, cells don’t behave like blind molecules colliding at random. They behave like agents. They cooperate. They solve problems. They move toward goals.

That fact alone shatters one of materialism’s deepest dogmas.

The evolution lie

For more than a century, the reigning narrative has been that consciousness is a late arrival on the evolutionary stage. It's nothing more than an accidental byproduct of brain complexity, born only after countless mutations stumbled into neurons, then into networks, then into awareness.

The atheist worldview depends on this sequence. It argues that life has no inherent meaning because what we call “mind” is simply chemistry scaled up. In this view, free will is an illusion generated by firing synapses.

But these cells expose the lie of that story.

If consciousness exists at the cellular level, then it doesn’t wait for brains. It doesn’t emerge as a lucky accident after billions of years of trial and error. It’s present from the beginning, written into life at its smallest scale.

That flips the entire evolutionary tale on its head. Instead of matter groping toward mind, we see mind animating matter. Instead of dead particles producing life, we see life infused with purpose at the very first step.

The intender revealed

What if mind, not matter, is primary? This is a profoundly important question, one that doesn’t just challenge the materialist narrative but annihilates it. Once you accept that life itself shows signs of intention, you must also acknowledge that there is an Intender.

The real shock is that these cells don’t compete; they collaborate. They don’t claw for survival but sacrifice for a greater whole. Every one of the 30 trillion cells in your body could, in theory, serve itself — yet they don’t. They choose unity. Skin cells shield. Heart cells pump. Brain cells think. All of them working in harmony with no central command.

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Random mutation cannot account for this. Natural selection doesn’t explain why self-interest gives way to selflessness billions of times a day inside your body. Something is directing the orchestra.

And consider the scale of the information problem. DNA contains more information than our minds could possibly fathom. Cellular machinery reads, copies, and executes these instructions with astonishing speed and near-perfect accuracy, millions of times every second. Our best computers look painfully clumsy beside such precision.

Materialists insist that this miracle of information arranged itself over billions of years. But information doesn’t just organize itself. A letter always points back to an author, a painting to a painter, and a symphony to a composer.

God's living code

The xenobot research confirms this reality. It's what some scientists call “biological agency.” And where does this awareness come from? Scientists can describe what it does, but not where it begins. They can measure its effects, but not locate its source.

Christianity, on the other hand, has always given the only coherent answer: Consciousness originates in God, the eternal, self-existent Being who imprinted His image on creation, a God who designed life not as machinery but as community.

The Bible says humans are made in God’s image, reflecting His consciousness, His creativity, His moral compass. What Miller and others are now uncovering is that this reflection stretches deeper than we imagined. Every cell of your body participates in it. Right now, as you read these words, trillions of cells are making choices, collaborating without rest, preserving your existence.

Some might view this as a fortunate accident, another curious quirk in the endless lottery of evolution.

But randomness doesn’t yield purpose. Blind collisions don’t generate systems that adapt, collaborate, and surrender for one another with unfailing order. What we see isn’t chaos but choreography, not accident but authorship.

I see it as divine purpose. The God signal has been there all along, humming beneath the fabric of life. And now even the microscopes are beginning to see it: design in the details, direction in the data, destiny in the DNA.

‘I Was A Dope’: Father Of ‘Evidence-Based Medicine’ Endorsed Trans Treatment For Minors Without Reading What He Signed

'Have to jump off a bridge'

'Sex recession': Study suggests Americans have lost their mojo



Movies and television programs reportedly have significantly more sexual content, nudity, and immodesty now than those shown just a few decades ago. The so-called "adult entertainment" industry has, meanwhile, exploded, with one projection suggesting that it will grow from an estimated global market size of $58.8 billion in 2023 to $74.7 billion by 2030.

While depictions of sex are ubiquitous in the media, a new study suggests that the real thing is disappearing from the lives of everyday Americans.

The delay and avoidance of marriage appear to be another major factor.

Citing General Social Survey data, the Institute for Family Studies recently indicated that "Americans are having a record-low amount of sex."

Whereas in 1990, 55% of adults ages 18 to 64 reportedly were having sex at least once a week, that number reportedly dropped to less than 50% by the turn of the century. As of last year, the percentage of adults ages 18-64 having sex weekly had fallen all the way down to 37%.

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When it comes to individuals ages 18-29 who reported not having sex in the last year, the number held steady at around 15% of respondents until 2010. However, between 2010 and 2024, that number skyrocketed to 24% in the General Social Survey.

There appear to be numerous factors at play, including shifting social norms; libido-killing prescription drugs; the pandemic; decreasing alcohol consumption; the interpersonal impact of social media, gaming, and the smartphone; and pornography. The delay and avoidance of marriage appear to be another major factor.

Dr. Brad Wilcox, professor of sociology at the University of Virginia and director of the National Marriage Project, and Lyman Stone, director of the Pronatalism Initiative at the IFS, noted in a 2019 article in the Atlantic that married people have sex more often but that the share of adults who are married was falling to record lows.

Whereas 46% of married men and women ages 18-64 reported having weekly sex, only 34% of their unmarried peers reported the same, said the new IFS study. However, married couples are also facing a so-called "sex recession," as 59% of married adults ages 18-64 reportedly had sex once a week in the period between 1996 and 2008.

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The new IFS study noted that younger generations are having less sex than their predecessors did in part because of a "decline in steady partnering, especially in marriage, and a decline in sexual frequency within couples."

This "sex recession" has some obvious implications besides youngsters' joylessness.

Data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in July revealed that U.S. fertility rates dropped to an all-time low in last year, with 1.599 children being born per woman. For comparison, the latest reported fertility rates in Australia, England and Wales, Canada, and China are 1.5, 1.44, 1.26, and 1.01, respectively.

The fertility rate necessary for a population to maintain stability and replenish itself without requiring replacement by foreign nationals is 2.1.

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