Creating Criminals: The Misguided Crackdown on HIV/AIDS
The time was the mid-1980s, and the HIV/AIDS epidemic was sweeping through major cities like a scythe, with no end or cure in sight. An HIV diagnosis was considered a death sentence. As Trevor Hoppe...
View ArticleFor Scott Pruitt’s EPA, a Flood of FOIA Requests
Topping our weekly news roundup: In response to heightened secrecy under the administration of President Donald J. Trump, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is facing a flood of lawsuits seeking...
View ArticleFive Questions for Artemis Westenberg
“A civilization that is stagnant, that doesn’t expand, will implode,” says the president of the advocacy group Explore Mars. “… Humans have gone to the coldest parts and the hottest parts of the...
View ArticleThe High Seas Are Being Exploited. Exploration Must Keep Pace.
The seas are under threat from all sides: a toxic cocktail of industrialization and global ocean mixing brings contaminants from factories to global waters, and acute threats like seafloor mining wield...
View ArticleTicks Creep Into Canada, Bringing Lyme Disease (and Confusion) With Them
Many Canadian patients have been driven to seek help beyond the country's borders, or even from alternative medicine practitioners with questionable expertise — but in some cases, a more sympathetic...
View ArticleMedia Coverage of Mass Shootings: Is it Part of the Problem?
For the past 50 years, media coverage of U.S. mass shootings has emphasized incidents linked to ideological extremism and those perpetrated by young people and people of Middle Eastern descent. But...
View ArticleFive Questions for Rosalyn LaPier on Native Americans in Science
Rosalyn LaPier is a rarity — one of only 700 Native Americans with a doctoral degree in the STEM fields who are full-time faculty members at U.S. colleges and universities. Now she is part of the...
View ArticleAs Allegations of Sexual Harassment in the Sciences Continue, New Rules Aim...
Topping our weekly news roundup: Physicist Lawrence Krauss was placed on leave at ASU this week in response to allegations of sexual harassment. The news comes just one day after the National Science...
View ArticleWith the Rise of Informal Breastmilk Sharing, Questions of Safety Linger
Many public health organizations and government agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and Health Canada, discourage the practice, citing concerns...
View ArticleBrian Wansink: Data Masseur, Media Villain, Emblem of a Thornier Problem
For years, Wansink's click-bait findings received sensational media attention. Now, as journalists expose discrepancies in his data, it's hard to view this story as a sterling example of the...
View ArticleAs Alaskan Waters Warm, Market Squid Extend Their Reach Northward
As rising temperatures drive out or kill off native species, the new climate also appears to be making waters surrounding Petersburg, Alaska, more hospitable for incoming species like market squid....
View ArticleRecalling Stephen Hawking’s Simple Goal: ‘Complete Understanding of the...
Hawking dazzled fellow physicists, inspired science writers, and evangelized empiricism to the masses, making appearances on "Star Trek: The Next Generation," "The Big Bang Theory," and even "The...
View ArticleDecoding Parkinson’s: Scientists Aim to Put All the Clues on One Map
“It's like a Russian doll,” one scientist says of Parkinson’s disease. “Within each molecule, there are so many functions.” Now a collaborative and freely accessible project is trying to unpack the...
View ArticleThe Truth About Media Violence
The points Trump and members of Congress raised in the wake of the Parkland shooting aren’t unfounded, but the research on the subject is complex. Scientists who study the effect of media violence have...
View ArticleWhen Rome Fell, the Chief Culprits Were Climate and Disease. Sound Familiar?
Sure, the empire had internal problems — vicious leaders, political coups, rapacious elites, trouble maintaining far-flung borders. But in “The Fate of Rome,” the historian Kyle Harper has assembled...
View ArticleStaff Changes in the Trump Administration Don’t Bode Well for Science
Topping our weekly news roundup: President Trump continued the shuffle within his administration this week. And his pick of Mike Pompeo to replace Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State may signal the end...
View ArticleIn California, Helping the Homeless to Make Their Medical Preferences Clear
Homeless Americans are often just one bad turn from a rendezvous with an emergency room. The UCLA team says they should be carrying advance care directives that lay out how they want to be treated,...
View ArticleTo Reform Criminal Justice, Design a Racist Algorithm?
Affirmative action has a long history in areas like college admissions, loan decisions, and hiring practices. Some experts are now arguing that long-standing racist practices in the criminal justice...
View ArticleNow That a Pedestrian Has Been Killed, Should We Hit the Brakes on...
Questions prompted by the rapid rise of automated vehicle technology in recent years have suddenly become a lot more real. For now, two things are clear: The safety of self-driving cars still needs...
View ArticleAmerica’s Misguided War on Childhood Lead Exposures
The revision seems sensible, given that no exposure to lead, however trivial, can be considered entirely safe. Still, critics say the move will sweep hundreds of thousands of additional children into...
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