Even Without the Clean Power Plan, There’s No Coming Back for Coal.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency moved on Tuesday to formally replace Obama-era federal regulations on greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants, ignoring evidence that the new...
View ArticleAncestry Tests Pose a Threat to Our Social Fabric
Companies that offer personal genetic testing customarily seem to report back to those sending along a sample of their spit that they are a mix of different “ethnicities.” This is more than simply...
View ArticleMass Shootings and Mental Illness: How Can the Media Avoid Fanning the Flames...
With each ghastly mass shooting, journalists scramble to piece together what happened, and speculation runs high as to whether the gunman had mental illness. But critics say the media coverage...
View ArticleTo Boost Patient Participation, Clinical Trials Come Home
Fewer than 5 percent of Americans participate in clinical trials, and they often don’t stay. With many potential enrollees located far away from research sites or unable to take time off work for...
View ArticleFor Bordeaux’s Winemakers, Rising Temperatures Bring a Reckoning
The transition away from what's worked for centuries will take time, and just what traits Bordeaux winemakers might exploit from heirloom varieties is far from clear. But in regions like Bordeaux,...
View ArticleOn a Sinking Island, Climate Science Takes a Back Seat to the Bible
The residents of tiny, waterlogged Tangier Island, off the coast of Virginia, believe in God. Climate science, not so much. “Chesapeake Requiem,” Earl Swift’s new book about Tangier’s plight, is...
View ArticleEp. 30: Wildfires, Snake Rescues, and the Devastating Effects of Air Pollution
David Corcoran talks with Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Larry C. Price about the impacts of air pollution, and a harrowing series with Undark and the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. Also,...
View ArticleAfter Slowing of Data Speeds During Wildfire Battle, a Heightened Fervor for...
Legislators in California who are pushing for the return of net neutrality received a wave of support last week after reports that Verizon slowed down wireless data speeds for firefighters in Santa...
View ArticleHow A Gene Variant May Influence Chronic Pain After Trauma
Although most individuals recover from a traumatic incident, a substantial proportion will develop chronic problems, including post-traumatic stress, depression and chronic pain — even when there is no...
View ArticleFast-Tracking Drug Approvals at the FDA
FDA watchdogs say the approval of the female libido drug flibanserin is just one of many examples of an agency that seems more dedicated to serving the pharmaceutical industry than consumers. In many...
View ArticleBangladesh’s Air Pollution Problem Grows, Brick by Brick
Worldwide, ambient particulate matter ranks as the sixth leading risk factor for premature death. Those risks are particularly acute in Dhaka, where fine particle pollution — much of it arising from...
View ArticleAs the Threat of Lyme Disease Rises, Why Hasn’t Research Funding Followed Suit?
Annual cases of Lyme disease and other tick-borne illnesses in the U.S. have skyrocketed to more than 300,000. Americans now spend up to $1.3 billion a year battling Lyme disease alone. Yet, the...
View ArticleAdvice From a Geographer: Put Away the Map
In “Beyond the Map,” Alastair Bonnett urges us to question whether maps are really up to the task of representing our world as it is. He shows us places of strange geographic splinterings and mutations...
View ArticleAfter Brazil’s National Museum Fire, an Insurmountable Loss to History — and...
One night was all it took to ravage millions of specimens — and countless years’ of scientific research — as a massive fire broke out just after closing time at Brazil’s National Museum in Rio de...
View ArticleMore and More, New Drugs Clear the FDA With ‘Accelerated Approval’
Some agency watchdogs fear that the drive to get drugs on pharmacy shelves faster, and with weaker scientific evidence, is already taking a toll — not just on consumers who are taking drugs that should...
View ArticleVertical Farming Isn’t the Solution to Our Food Crisis
Vertical farming has become synonymous with urban farming. But it’s important to recognize that the increased productivity of indoor vertical farming comes at the cost of higher energy usage due to the...
View ArticleShould ‘Race’ Be Taught in High School Biology?
Today, most American biology textbooks and curricula don’t discuss race at all — nor do they grapple with the biology of sexual orientation or gender, for that matter. To some, these omissions seem...
View ArticlePet Genetic Testing Companies Are Making Promises They Can’t Keep
Opinion | What most pet genetic testing companies fail to make clear to their customers is that genetic testing is riddled with uncertainty. Not all pets that test “clear” for a disease are truly safe...
View ArticleAn Evangelist for Climate Science: Five Questions for Katharine Hayhoe
An evangelical Christian, atmospheric scientist Katharine Hayhoe travels the country speaking to community groups, many of them faith-based, about the perils of human-caused global warming. "When you...
View ArticleOn Contested Ground, SKA Looks to the Heavens
By delving into the darkest reaches of the universe, the Square Kilometer Array aims to solve some of the biggest questions in astrophysics. But its arrival on a South African landscape with a history...
View Article