Can New Technology Put a Dent in the Rape Kit Backlog?
Improvements in rape kit technology have arrived at a crucial time, as advocacy initiatives like Joyful Heart’s End The Backlog — which works to eliminate the U.S.’s backlog through research,...
View ArticleDespite Its “Healthy” New Image, McDonald’s Is a Health Care Burden
McDonald’s is a social, fiscal, health care burden in Ireland and presumably everywhere else it sells its delicious, convenient, cheap food that is high in sugar, salt, and fat. Our failure to mitigate...
View ArticleA Request to Streamline Federal Document Purges Has Researchers on Edge
While the DOI request has been in the works for two years and is standard procedure, information specialists and government-transparency advocates say there are good reasons for concern, including the...
View ArticleWhy Every Journalist Should ‘Do Time’ as a Public Information Officer
In a political world, there is often an inherent conflict between full openness and policy success. If we really want a world where evidence has a full seat at the policy-making table, then every...
View ArticleHow the Food Industry Manipulates Nutrition Science: Five Questions for...
In "Unsavory Truth: How Food Companies Skew the Science of What We Eat," the nutrition expert Marion Nestle explains how the meat, dairy and soda industries, among other major food producers,...
View ArticleEp. 33: Fecal Transplants, Encounters With Cadavers, and Ordinary People...
Host Kasha Patel explores the growing field of citizen science, which is gaining support from large players, including the U.S. government. Also this month: radio producer Kaitlyn Schwalje on teaching...
View ArticleWith Announcement of Gene-Edited Babies, Ethical Questions Abound
A Chinese researcher claimed this week to have created world’s first gene-edited babies — twin girls who he says were born earlier this month. The announcement, though unverified, sent shockwaves...
View ArticleIn California’s Fertile Valley, Industry and Agriculture Hang Heavy in the Air
Millions of beef and dairy cattle, millions of acres of dusty crops, and the truck traffic to support these mega-operations generate fine airborne particles that linger and swirl in what is, in effect,...
View ArticleThe Case for Treating Bigotry Like a Disease
If bigotry is both virulent and contagious, then we should treat it as a public health problem. This means that some of the approaches we take toward controlling the spread of disease may be applicable...
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 ArticleIn Chile, Bounded by Mountains and Smothered by Wood Smoke
The southern city of Coyhaique sees annual average PM2.5 concentrations of about 64 micrograms per cubic meter, well above global standards considered safe. At certain times of the year, levels can...
View ArticleConferences on Gaming and Sex Robots Cancelled After Protests Over Steve...
Both a gaming conference and its sister event on love and sex with robots, scheduled to take place this month in Montana, were cancelled following the announcement of alt-right figure Steve Bannon as a...
View ArticleWhat We Can (and Can’t) Learn From Replicating Scientific Experiments
Replication projects are portrayed in the popular media as scientific “proofs in the pudding” — as verdicts not only on the original study’s veracity but, often times, on the researchers’ professional...
View ArticleProbing the Many Riddles of Memory
For 140 years scientists have been studying the mysteries of memory: What are the different varieties? How reliable are recollections associated with traumatic experiences? Can we train our brains to...
View ArticleAt Poland Climate Meeting, Coal Takes Center Stage
Delegates arrived in Poland this week for the United Nations’ 24th annual conference on climate change. While the goal of the meeting is to develop rules to limit the increase in global temperature to...
View ArticleIndian Academics Confront the Threat of Nationalistic Pseudoscience
Fueled by a toxic mix of misinformation and brewing nationalism, claims that an ancient Indian civilization developed aeronautical technology centuries before the Wright Brothers or that ancient...
View ArticleA Reality Check on Designer Babies
Designer babies have been called the “future-we-should-not-want” for each new reproductive technology or intervention. But the babies never came and are nowhere close. Wondering about them was...
View ArticleTo Treat Babies for Drug Withdrawal, Help Their Mothers, Too
A growing movement recognizes the importance of mother-infant bonding for newborns with neonatal abstinence syndrome, but mothers often struggle with addiction, trauma, and stigma. A team in Santa Cruz...
View ArticleDon’t Worry About Deepfakes. Worry About Why People Fall for Them.
There will always be new ways of doctoring the truth. Instead of focusing on the latest technologies for fabricating fake media, we should be focusing on the psychological and sociological factors that...
View ArticleThe Final Adventure of a Pioneer Scientist
Josiah Gregg was an obsessive 19th-century math savant, navigator, medical doctor and botanist — and a terrible traveling companion, according to the members of a harrowing expedition he led into the...
View Article