Philippe Matthews Show Guru Advice, Author Reviews, Tech Reviews, Entertainment News

False positives and exaggerated results in peer-reviewed scientific studies have reached epidemic proportions in recent years.

Alaska has the nation's highest rate of chlamydia and second-highest rate of gonorrhea as the sexually transmitted diseases spread in rural areas, according to the Alaska Division of Public Health.

In the hybrid model, a nonprofit and a for-profit are linked. In some cases, one is a subsidiary of the other; in others, the two entities are bound by long-term contracts in which one entity fulfills a basic need for the other and vice versa.

SimpleGeo has placed 20 million locations for "places" in the public domain to drive developers of location-based service apps. The thing is that data, combined with location-tracking smartphones, could spark unsavory uses too. In a direct challenge to Foursquare's effort to become the "Rosetta stone" for location-data on identifiable geo-located "places," SimpleGeo is trying to spark a revolution in location-based app writing by making the data for 20 million places available on its servers under the Creative Commons Zero license--essentially placing the data for free into the public domain.

Every now and then the public rises up to make an industry clean up its environmental act. As a result, car companies now offer hybrids, electrics and alternative-fuel cars

An inside look at X Prize's all-star brainstorming session. The X Prize Foundation has grabbed A-list investors and CNN headlines for their industry-creating multi-million dollar innovation competitions, from commercial space travel to oil-spill cleanup .

While NPR fights a defunding battle, the network unleashes a new weapon: A proprietary advertising network that will allow geo-targeted sponsoring of live streams. While NPR is facing funding battles in Congress (that as of press time they may have won ), the public radio network has been quietly laying the groundwork for a nationwide online advertising network that could massively increase underwriting dollars at member stations. The move is part of a much larger and audacious plan on NPR's part: The idea that local public radio affiliates can be transformed into news portals on par with local newspapers

While annual revenue for public relations firms flat-lined from 2008 through this year, IBISWorld foresees a nearly 6 percent annual growth for the industry over the next five years. And while employment in the field has actually dropped in recent years, it's staged for a 3 percent increase every year through 2016. Gary McCormick, chair of the board of directors of the Public Relations Society of America, says the industry's recent stagnancy was due to other companies that use PR firms or independent contractors cutting back on advertising, marketing, and PR expenses.

When plans to build North Dakota's largest transmission line in three decades were unveiled, it seemed as though the political, legal and economic stars were in alignment. Minnesota's legislators wanted more renewable power, North Dakota farmers looked forward to the extra income, and environmental groups championed the line for carrying "green power" and cutting reliance on coal. A 345-kilowatt, 270-mile-long transmission line in North Dakota has been in the planning stages since 2009.

A Collection of one-of-a-kind costume jewelry pieces created by the late Los Angeles designer Tony Duquette will be made available to the public for the first time this spring. On April 18 in Los Angeles, Bonhams & Butterfields will conduct Talismans of Power (www.bonhams.com), an auction of more than 100 ...

The Scientific American supplement from December 4th, 1886 featured a drawn reproduction of a photograph taken of Amanab, the “Greek Giant.” Amanab was born in 1868 near Kerassond in Trebizonde--a successor state of the Byzantine Empire located on the Southern shore of the Black Sea. At the time of the article, he was 18 years old and measured 7 feet 9 inches in height, had a head circumference of 26

Law-enforcement officials are trained to fight crime in the physical world. Still, the need to transition them from guns and patrol cars to keyboards and mouses is pressing

Gym reimbursements and lavish company parties may be going the way of the dinosaur, but paid time for volunteering is one employee perk not yet in danger of extinction. Take UnitedHealthcare, whose company attorneys recently donated 600 hours of pro bono legal service. Or Target, whose workers spend 450,000 hours annually on projects such as overhauling school libraries

It's not just BP that's trying to brush their mistakes from the oil spill under the rug. Soon after publishing a piece on BP's greenwashing of its first post-Deepwater Horizon CSR report, Fast Company received a tip from a reader about the Coast Guard's recently released Incident Specific Preparedness Review ( PDF )--a mammoth report from a group of NGOs, members of the oil industry, and government officials that details just how badly the Coast Guard screwed up the Gulf disaster (and, incidentally, unlike other reports of its nature, wasn't publicized, although it is readily available on the Coast Guard's website if you dig around for it)

Remember the swine flu?