Basically, gravity is the attractive force between all objects of mass in the universe.  You are drawn by gravity to the Earth, but the Earth is also drawn by gravity (of equal force) to you.  It is a relationship of mutual attraction.

Gravity is more than just a handy thing to have around if you want to stick to the Earth.  Without it, or with it greatly reduced, we wouldn’t have an atmosphere (gravity holds it to the planet), or liquid water (it would boil away).  Escape velocity could be achieved on a trampoline, which is rather horrifying when you stop to think about it.

When we think of the study of gravity through history, modern man tends to think of Sir Isaac Newton sitting in a garden watching apples fall from the trees.  Cute, but… no.  In the first place, gravity was being written about scientifically since Aristotle in the 4th century BC, at least.  It was defined as an attractive force between objects of mass by Indian astronomer Brahmagupta in 628 AD.  What Sir Isaac Newton did (in 1687 AD) was define the concept of gravity to unify the existing concepts of celestial and terrestrial attraction.  Sir Isaac Newton didn’t know how gravity worked (we had to wait for Einstein to figure that one out), but he did put forward a simple, elegant, unified theory of gravity that stood unmatched for nearly 230 years.

Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation Image: Dennis Nilsson

As in all things scientific, the more you know about gravity; the more you realize you don’t know.  Science is still running up against the unexpected and inexplicable in gravity.  If you get to feeling frisky, you can read about some of these “who knows” moments in modern science:

The Fly-By Anomaly – In sling-shot maneuvers, spacecraft got more of a boost than they “should” have.

Accelerating Expansion – Here’s a biggie:  The expansion of space seems to be speeding-up instead of slowing-down.

The Pioneer Anomaly – The Pioneer spacecraft are slowing down.  They aren’t supposed to be.

The Dark Flow – Galaxy clusters are apparently being pulled toward something big.  Too big to have been formed since the Big Bang.  Something we haven’t seen yet.

We all understand the force of gravity at a fundamental level.  You have been aware of it since childhood, when you conducted scientific experiments to study the effect of gravity on your peas at the dinner table.  While our understanding of gravity has become somewhat more sophisticated, you’ll be happy to know that peas still react the same way when dropped from the height of a table.

Except, of course, fresh frozen peas bounce higher than canned peas.

In the United States, we need a religious bill of rights about as much as we need a white people’s bill of rights, or a men’s bill of rights. That is, not at all: when 90+ percent of the country claims to be religious, you pretty much run the joint anyway. Worse, we hardly need something like this for public schools. There already are pretty clear laws about how religion can and cannot be treated in the schools.

Still, that hasn’t stopped people in Colorado from proposing just such a bill for public schools in the state legislature, a bill which may be presented to the Judiciary Committee as early as Monday, today. Note that this bill represents an act and not a law. Nothing in it is legally enforceable, as far as I can tell. Good thing, too.

The bill is ridiculous in a lot of ways, but two things stand out: one is that it simply isn’t needed — most of the rights it seems so concerned over are already guaranteed and under no threat at all — and the other is that it oversteps the bounds maintained by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.

Below are some choice bits of the bill, with what I think is my more reality-based opinion on them. The bill itself IS IN ALL CAPS, so you can read it as if the person is shouting at you if you’d like. I won’t bother debunking the basis claimed for the need for such a bill — they claim religion is under attack in this country, which is patently ridiculous. Instead, here is an example of a bit that is unneeded:

THE RELIGIOUS BILL OF RIGHTS FOR PUBLIC SCHOOL STUDENTS AND THEIR PARENTS OR GUARDIANS SHALL INCLUDE, BUT NEED NOT BE LIMITED TO, A DECLARATION THAT A PUBLIC SCHOOL STUDENT HAS AN INALIENABLE RIGHT TO:

(I) EXPRESS HIS OR HER RELIGIOUS BELIEFS ON A PUBLIC SCHOOL CAMPUS OR AT A SCHOOL-SPONSORED EVENT TO THE SAME EXTENT AS HE OR SHE MAY EXPRESS A PERSONAL SECULAR VIEWPOINT;

There are many such statements in the bill, and I’m cool with them, since all of them fall under a student’s Constitutionally guaranteed freedom of speech. Stating this is like stating they should be allowed to breathe or have their heart beat. By putting that up front and center, the bill crafters make it seem like this freedom is in jeopardy. It isn’t.

However, if a teacher or other school official were to do this, that would be a different matter entirely. As we’ll see below.

[Students also have the inalienable right to] WEAR RELIGIOUS GARB ON A PUBLIC SCHOOL CAMPUS, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO CLOTHING WITH A RELIGIOUS MESSAGE;

Now this one’s interesting! I wonder how the folks sponsoring this bill would feel if a kid wore a "Satan rules my soul!" shirt to class. Or a turban.

Anyway, here’s where it gets sticky:

[A student may] EXPRESS HIS OR HER RELIGIOUS BELIEFS OR SELECT RELIGIOUS MATERIALS WHEN RESPONDING TO A SCHOOL ASSIGNMENT IF HIS OR HER RESPONSE REASONABLY MEETS THE EDUCATIONAL PURPOSE OF THE ASSIGNMENT;

Yeah, that word "reasonably" opens a can of worms. What happens when a creationist kid doesn’t want to say anything about evolution or the Big Bang? If I were a science teacher and a student said the Universe is 6000 years old, I would mark that answer as wrong (why? Because it is). That will lead to some fun with the parents, no doubt. Now again, the student already has the ability to do this. But this somewhat amplifies the situation, and will lead to students thinking they have a right to not be marked down for wrong answers if they are religiously-based. Think I’m overly extrapolating this? Think again.

But the biggest grievance I have with this ridiculous declaration is this one:

[A teacher shall] NOT BE REQUIRED TO TEACH A TOPIC THAT VIOLATES HIS OR HER RELIGIOUS BELIEFS AND NOT BE DISCIPLINED FOR REFUSING TO TEACH THE TOPIC;

To be blunt, this is unacceptable. If you are a biology teacher and refuse to teach evolution, then you should be disciplined at the very least. If you still refuse to teach it, then you can either be given a different class to teach, or face termination. Teachers are obligated by their job duties to teach standards-based curricula, and if they refuse, they are in dereliction of their duty as teachers.

Teachers have certain religious rights, of course, but don’t have the right to not teach a kid something that is true because of their own religion. There are religions that teach that women are inferior, that blacks are inferior. Will a history teacher refuse to teach about the women’s rights movement, or the civil rights movement, because of their own beliefs? Some religions — I won’t name names here — believe that sexual education is eeevil. If you’re a health teacher and refuse to teach about reproductive health, then in my opinion you should face the consequences of your decision.

This is where I think declarations of rights like this are dangerous. It’s a slippery slope, and a steep one. And the most pernicious part of all this is it’s clear that the motivation behind this bill is not in the name of religious freedom and tolerance, it’s in the name of freedom and tolerance for one specific religion. As I point out above, I don’t think a radical Muslim would be treated the same way under this declaration as a Christian would. While that may be outside the scope of the bill, it’s important to keep in mind.

In the end, this bill doesn’t have the weight of law, but by simply proposing it — and enacting it, which will take time and materials — it’s a waste of taxpayer money, especially when the vast majority of what it’s stating is already within the existing legislation. If the religious groups are so worried about this sort of thing, then they should pay for this effort on their own time, and give out flyers in church. Doing this through the legislative branch — and, in fact, the whole bill itself — is a bad idea.

If this bill gets out of the Judiciary Committee it will be presented to the Senate for debate and eventually a vote. I’ve already contacted my local Senator about this. If you live in Colorado, I urge you to do likewise.

Remember:

Tip o’ the wall o’ separation to the Boulder Atheists

(If you haven’t yet heard the first episode of the new Point of Inquiry, you can listen here, and I also strongly encourage you to subscribe via iTunes from the same page.)

There were many aspects of my interview with Paul Offit that I found very informative, even surprising, and I thought I would highlight some of them here on the blog this week. Perhaps the first was Dr. Offit’s response to my second question–when I asked him, around minute 6, about all the hate mail he receives (including some death threats). I was expecting dire tales of the extremism that had been directed at my guest; but instead, Offit opened up about the incredibly positive response his book has received:

When I wrote the book, I assumed it would merely galvanize those who didn’t agree with my point of view, and who would angrily write to me, hatefully–but that wasn’t true. I think what surprised me with this book, after I wrote it, is that I have received hundreds of emails, probably about 800 emails, from parents of children with autism, including severe autism, that have said, “Thank you, I never thought it was vaccines, Jenny McCarthy presumes to represent me, but she doesn’t.” This book is going to be coming out in paperback in April, and in the introduction, the revised introduction as a preface to the new paperback edition, I basically apologize to parents; I feel like, whenever I heard a parent of a child with autism I would sort of cringe at some level, thinking they would be anti-vaccine. That’s not true. I think frankly, most of them don’t feel that way at all.

Offit went on to talk about the “silent majority out there of parents that don’t buy into this vaccine-autism debate, and frankly are angry about it.” To me, it’s just another sign that the worm is turning on vaccine-autism claims. The movement may even be courting some serious backlash at this point.

In any case, that’s the first of many insights from the Offit interview, and I’ll be blogging more of them this week. Once again, you can listen to the podcast and subscribe here. And don’t forget to buy Paul Offit’s book, Autism’s False Prophets, if you don’t already own it: Just follow the link below:

Recently at 80beats we’ve covered some of troubles China has had with toxins leaking into its waterways from petroleum spills and the environmental degradation caused by mining for rare Earth metals. But in a study this week in Science, Zhang Fusuo raises another concern: The country’s soil is on the path to being dangerously acidic.

Zhang’s team looked at the government’s research data for soil over 30 years, and also compared a survey of China’s soil conducted in the 2000s to one from the 1980s. For nearly all soil types found in China, soil pH has dropped 0.13 to 0.80 units since the early 1980s [ScienceNOW]. When soil lowers in pH and therefore becomes more acidic, it becomes more of a haven for pests and nematodes and less of one for plants—most plants prefer the neutral range between a pH of 6 and 8. If the trend continues, Zhang argues that China could have trouble producing enough food for its population.

Zhang points his finger at the overuse of fertilizer; the amount used in China has increased more than 50 percent since the early 1980s, a rapid ramp-up that he says is driving the change. “The average pH in all of China has decreased by 0.5 unit in the last 20 years. Left to nature, a single unit change needs hundreds of years or even over 1,000 years, but we have got this change now due to fertilizer overuse,” Zhang said [Reuters]. Acid rain can also contribute to acidity, but Zhang says the evidence points to fertilizer as the primary culprit. ScienceNOW cites a few dissenting scientists who say that Zhang’s team’s data needs to be more site-specific, and not just taken from samples strewn across the country, to be truly vital. But they agree with him that fertilizer use in China can and should be cut sharply.

According to Zhang, farmers overused fertilizer in a somewhat haphazard fashion over the years, hoping to increase their yields. But what they got instead, he says, was air pollution and soil dwindling in productivity because of its pH drop. The acidification has already lessened crop production by 30-50% in some areas, Zhang says. If the trend continues, some regions could eventually see the soil pH drop to as low as 3. “No crop can grow at this level of acidification,” he warns [Nature News].

Related Content:
80beats: 40,000-Gallon Diesel Spill Reaches China’s Yellow River
80beats: 1/3 of China’s Yellow River Not Even Fit for Industrial Use
80beats: Dams May Degrade One of China’s Remaining Healthy Rivers
80beats: Isn’t it Ironic: Green Tech Relies on Dirty Mining in China
Discoblog: A Year After the Olympics, Beijing’s Air Quality Back at Square One

Image: flickr / kevincure

It was just announced on their Twitter feed, so that’s pretty official.

The subject is vaccination, and I’ll be appearing with Dr. Nancy Snyderman, NBC’s chief medical editor.

My segment is around 8:40 am ET.

For those who want to check out my last Morning Joe appearance, meanwhile, you can watch it here.

It’s BMJ week on NCBI ROFL! Each day this week we will feature a fun article from a British Medical Journal holiday issue. Enjoy!

Ice cream evoked headaches (ICE-H) study: randomised trial of accelerated versus cautious ice cream eating regimen

“Cold stimulus headache, also known as ice cream headache, is a common problem and is reported to occur in about a third of a randomly selected population. It was further suggested that the ice cream headache could be induced only in hot weather… we compared the effect of two ice cream eating regimens on the incidence of ice cream induced headaches in a prospective randomised manner. The study was carried out during the winter to test whether this phenomenon was restricted to hot weather only…Participants who received green dot questionnaires were given 100 ml of ice cream and were told to eat it in >30 seconds. They were further instructed to have about half their ice cream left after 30 seconds and then to continue at their own pace. Participants who received red dot questionnaires were given 100 ml of ice cream but were instructed to eat it in <5 seconds. The temperature of the ice cream was not formally regulated throughout the study… Twenty (27%) of 73 students in the accelerated eating group reported ice cream headache compared with 9 (13%) of 72 students in the cautious eating group.”

Read the full article here.

Image: flickr/HurleyFamily

Related content:
Discoblog: NCBI ROFL: A moment on your lips, forever in your intestine.
Discoblog: NCBI ROFL: Competitive speed eating: truth and consequences.
Discoblog: NCBI ROFL: eat me.

Feeling like Valentine’s Day is a little too cutesy for an intellectual heavyweight such as yourself? Nonsense; the heart may have its reasons, but reason can certainly figure them out, given sufficient grant funding and some diligent graduate students. Jennifer Ouellette points to a talk by Mary Roach that is safe for TED but arguably not safe for work, and shares some brain scans to prove that love is really blind.

If all that biology is a bit too squishy, Sarah Kavassalis does the math. Here you will find the right functions to use to draw hearts — my favorite is the fourth heart curve from Wolfram|Alpha, shown at right — and how to construct topologically nontrivial versions out of construction paper and scissors. Who says mathematicians aren’t practical? Nor are they above venturing into the realm of the literary.

Roses are red.
Violets are approximately blue.
A paracompact manifold with a Lorentzian metric,
can be a spacetime, if it has dimension greater than or equal to two.

Shakespeare, maybe not. But the course of true science never did run smooth.

A final cosmic Valentine’s Day wish from the wonderful Sixty Symbols site: a video valentine.

Check out the other videos at the Sixty Symbols site, too. The woman introducing the video is my friend astronomer Amanda Bauer, aka Astropixie, and you should read her blog as well. She’s pretty cool.

Charlie writes, “I am a scientist at the University of Minnesota. In 1999, as an undergrad on a plant science internship, a friend and I were sitting on our dorm roof, wondering what the best nerdy science tattoo would be. The double helix down the leg or back was suggested, but we concluded that a chloroplast was a better fit for our scientific interests. As the photon-collecting organelle in plants, it’s the source of energy for nearly all plant life and a fascinating biochemical machine. At that point in our careers, we found something that would represent our fascination with plants, no matter what field we chose to pursue. He is in botanical education (and didn’t go through with the tattoo), I’m in horticulture.”

Click here to go to the full Science Tattoo Emporium.

Same shape, different moon…

An interplanetary dedication of love for all you starry-eyed geeks:

This is an image from Cassini. It’s a closeup of a crater on Rhea, a moon of Saturn about half the size of our own natural satellite. I love how the small crater and ridge inside the bigger crater make it look like the heart is winking!

In the full size image you can see what looks like a ridge to the left of the heart, but in fact that’s the edge of a vast crater on the surface of Rhea. You can see it better in this image of the whole moon, where I’ve marked the location of the heart:

I don’t know exactly what’s going on with this heart; is it a crater that expanded when the walls collapsed around it, so it’s no longer round? Or is it a sink hole, where the whole thing is a collapse feature? I love pictures like this, showing us the diversity and cool-factor of other worlds in our solar system.

And, of course: Happy Valentine’s Day.

Related posts:
Have a cosmic Valentine’s Day
Scientific Valentines
The beating heart of W5
Have an astronomical Valentine’s Day

Hmmm, not all VDs are happy: this strip from xkcd is a little bit of a downer, but I have a hard time disagreeing with his message. Hover your mouse over the strip to see what he means.

This particular strip reminds me of Robert Sheckley’s "The Language of Love". I have to say, I’m rather fond of his writing.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here’s a fun tour of the ISS.

Hat tip to Don M!  Thanks Don.

Source

I would do anything for my Valentine. Even give her the Moon. Or at least a part of it.

Nothing says love like a cardioid-shaped lunar impact remnant 120 meters across surrounded by an ejecta blanket.

Double aurorae on Saturn. Click for larger. Credit: NASA, ESA and Jonathan Nichols (University of Leicester)

In keeping with the mini-aurora theme, check out this Hubble view of Saturn (taken in 2009), you can see both of the planet’s aurorae. The aurorae is created by the interaction of Saturn’s magnetic field and the solar wind.

Below is the press release from The European Homepage for the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope:

An enormous and grand ringed planet, Saturn is certainly one of the most intriguing bodies orbiting the Sun. This unique Hubble image from early 2009 features Saturn with the rings edge-on and both poles in view, offering a stunning double view of its fluttering aurorae. Created by the interaction of the solar wind with the planet’s magnetic field, Saturn’s aurorae are analogous to the more familiar northern and southern light on Earth. At the time when Hubble snapped this picture, Saturn was approaching its equinox so both poles were equally illuminated by the Sun’s rays.

At first glance the light show of Saturn’s aurorae appears symmetric at the two poles. However, analysing the new data in greater detail, astronomers have discovered some subtle differences between the northern and southern aurorae, which reveal important information about Saturn’s magnetic field. The northern auroral oval is slightly smaller and more intense than the southern one, implying that Saturn’s magnetic field is not equally distributed across the planet; it is slightly uneven and stronger in the north than the south.

Swoopy from Skepticality interviewed me about NASA, and the whole shebang is now live (you can also just grab the MP3).

I talked about Obama’s plan for NASA, the JREF, Pluto, Mars, my tattoo (sorry, folks, no news there), and doted on Swoopy maybe just a little because she is made of awesome and win and unicorns. She and co-host Derek run the Skeptic and Podcasting tracks at Dragon*Con, because that’s just how cool they are.

Skepticality is the original skeptical podcast, and still one of the best. You really should subscribe to it if you don’t already. And if you do, you are already smart and good-looking and likely to be President one day.

The comment thread on a previous post [entitled "The New War on Science--Now It's Guerilla Style"] unfortunately got way out of hand. Due to the nature and volume of these comments, we have presently unpublished the post while we decide on any other action. Meanwhile, we refer you to our comments policy.

– Chris and Sheril

In honor of Valentine’s Day, we bring you the story of how hearts really can break. Doctors do occasionally diagnose someone with “broken heat syndrome,” but the patients aren’t necessarily the lovelorn dump-ees of the world.

The heart problem, which is more technically known as stress-induced cardiomyopathy, can be brought on by all kinds of emotional and physical stresses. Externally, someone with broken heart syndrome may appear to be having a heart attack, but the physical mechanism is actually quite different.

ABC News reports:

While a heart attack is usually caused by blocked arteries, medical experts believe broken heart syndrome is caused by a surge in adrenaline and other hormones. When patients experience an adrenaline rush in the aftermath of a stressful situation, the heart muscle may be overwhelmed and become temporarily weakened.

This causes the heart’s main pumping chamber, the left ventricle, to stop contracting normally. Doctors estimate that 1 to 2 percent of patients diagnosed with heart attacks are in fact suffering from broken heart syndrome.

In keeping with its name, the disorder has been known to bring down people shocked by the death of a spouse, as in the case of a woman who keeled over on the hospital floor minutes after her husband was pronounced dead. For reasons that aren’t yet understood, broken heart syndrome is usually seen in post-menopausal women. But not all cases are related to the loss of a loved one–other reported triggers have included a bad case of stage fright, a migraine headache, and a surprise party.

Happily, doctors report that nearly 95 percent of broken heart patients make a complete recovery within two months, and the syndrome rarely recurs. So at least one old saying is true: Time does heal a broken heart.

Related Content:
80beats: Monogomous Rodents Lose Their Mojo When Their Mates Are Gone
Discoblog: Love Potion Number 10: Oxytocin Spray Said to Increase Attraction
DISCOVER: Emotions and the Brain: Love
DISCOVER: Adventures in the Petri Dish of Love, on how scientists find romance

Image: iStockphoto

Asian carp—the giant invasive fish that have been moving up the Mississippi River for the better part of a decade–are getting close to the Great Lakes, and in fact some may have already crossed the barrier. For the lakes’ protectors, this is a near-doomsday scenario: Many fear that the ravenous carp could destroy the ecosystem by gobbling up the food that native fish depend on. This week the White House proposed a plan that would devote nearly $80 million to stopping the fish’s advance, but it’s not pleasing many people around the issue.

On one side, many environmentalists, as well as people who rely on Great Lakes fishing for their livelihood, have called on the federal government to shut down locks that connect the river to Lake Michigan. Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm says, “The economic damage from these carp coming into the Great Lakes system would be irreparable…. They should shut the locks down until they get these other measures in place, and permanently have a solution to separating these two water systems” [Detroit News]. Granholm and other governors from the region met recently to try to craft another solution after the Supreme Court ruled that Illinois didn’t have to close the locks to stop the carp if it didn’t choose to.

Naturally there’s one group that would be mightily upset at closing the shipping locks: shipping companies. Illinois Rep. Judy Biggert said efforts to close locks and restrict barge and boat traffic in Chicago waterways would damage the local economy and have far-reaching national implications [Detroit Free Press]. The administration’s compromise plan would call for occasional closures of the locks, and though it would only conduct a long-range study of full closure, shipping representatives have still balked at that.

The federal plan is full of bizarre-sounding alternatives to closing the locks, too. Among them: barriers using sound, strobe lights and bubble curtains to repel carp and biological controls to prevent them from reproducing. They’re promising measures – but still on the drawing board [AP]. The plan would also bolster the system of electrical defenses in the water, intended to emit shocks that either scare the carp away or knock them unconscious. But since Asian carp DNA has now been found upstream of those barriers, it seems that at least some fish are slipping through.

The White House is set to brief the public on its plan this afternoon. But while they’re trying to play peacemaker in a money fight between states, they shouldn’t expect a rosy reception from anyone.

Related Content:
80beats: Ravenous, Leaping Asian Carp Poised to Invade Great Lakes
80beats: Robo-Fish Are Ready to Take to the Seas
80beats: Are Fish Farms the Answer to World Hunger or a Blight on the Oceans?
DISCOVER: Humans vs Animals: Our Fiercest Battles With Invasive Species (photo gallery)
DISCOVER: The Truth About Invasive Species

Image: U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

Hey, remember Kevin Trudeau, the guy convicted of fraud, the larcenous liar who mercilessly (literally) plugs away on informercials to sell his books like Natural Cures "They" Don’t Want You to Know About, books that tell people to turn away from real medicine so they can die of cancer if they follow his quackery?

Yeah, that sweetheart.

Well, he’s at it again. He just doesn’t think that his reputation can get any lower, despite being able to comfortably limbo underneath a mosquito’s belly with room to spare. Trudeau recently urged his minions to send protesting emails and text messages to federal judge Robert Gettleman — the hero who raised a fine against Trudeau from $5 million to $37 million, to better match the money Trudeau defrauded out of people for his books. Gettleman is currently working on potentially revising his order after an appellate court found his ruling too broad.

I can’t imagine Trudeau’s actions will help his case any.

And, oddly enough, Gettleman doesn’t think so either. Especially since some of the notes were threatening. Seriously folks, how stupid must you be to send threatening emails to a frakking federal judge?

Well, they are loyal to Trudeau, so I guess that answers that.

Anyway, Gettleman had Trudeau hauled into court yesterday, where he slapped the fraudulent huckster with a contempt of court charge:

Gettleman ordered Trudeau to turn over his passport, pay $50,000 bond and warned he could face future prison time.

Gettleman, on his own authority, can sentence Trudeau to up to six months in prison. In addition, the judge referred the matter and the emails to the U.S. Marshals Service, which investigates threats to judiciary.

It would certainly be interesting indeed if Trudeau were thrown in jail for the rest of his life, with the added rule that he is not allowed to sell any wares whatsoever in books, magazines, on TV, radio, or any and all future media. If you think that’s too harsh, then maybe you need to familiarize yourself with Trudeau’s past antics. Some purveyors of alt-med quackery may be honest in their beliefs, but if you read Trudeau’s history you may find yourself being just a wee bit skeptical of his pure motivations.

I love seeing justice being served in cases like this. I really hope judge Gettleman throws the book at Trudeau… and that’s something Trudeau really doesn’t want you to know.

Tip o’ the coral calcium to BABLoggeee Chris Babarskas.

You can listen here, and I also strongly encourage you to subscribe via iTunes from the same page.

The show introduction starts like this:

Recently, there was another nail in the coffin for vaccine skeptics. The British medical journal The Lancet took the dramatic step of retracting a 1998 paper that lies at the root of modern vaccine denialism. Authored by a doctor named Andrew Wakefield and his colleagues, it was heavily touted as having uncovered a new cause of autism—the measles, mumps, rubella vaccine, or, the MMR vaccine.

Not so fast. Twelve years later, there are more problems with the paper than you can count—and yet somehow, it managed to spawn a movement.

In this conversation with host Chris Mooney, Dr. Paul Offit discusses the state of the vaccine skeptic movement in light of this latest news. In particular, Offit explores why the tides may be turning on the movement—as well as the grave public health consequences of ongoing vaccine avoidance.

Again, listen and subscribe here. And don’t forget to buy Paul Offit’s book Autism’s False Prophets if you don’t already own it…