Even with DNA Detection, Asian Carp Continue to Evade Scientists
Asian carp breed quickly and eat voraciously. When startled, one species can even catapult out of the water. To monitor the fishes’ shifting territory, scientists collect water samples and then search...
View ArticleEven in the Age of Trump, Facts Matter
After three years of the Trump administration doing its best to roll back environmental protection after environmental protection, the scholarly evidence in support of strong environmental policy is...
View ArticleBook Review: Inside Silicon Valley’s Quest to Prolong Life
Is there an upper limit on life? In “Immortality, Inc.: Renegade Science, Silicon Valley Billions, and the Quest to Live Forever,” science journalist Chip Walter chronicles the often extravagant...
View ArticleCancelations and Rising Confusion: This Week’s Coronavirus News
As the novel coronavirus spread across the U.S. this week, officials scrambled, markets plunged, and universities shuttered. Meanwhile, U.S. President Donald J. Trump’s error-filled attempts to instill...
View ArticleIn Germany, a Heated Debate Over Homeopathy
When homeopathy was first developed, it offered an alternative to the harmful medical practices of its day, and even now, the medicines are popular in Germany and across Europe. But with no active...
View ArticleMulling the Allure and Peril of State Power Amid Covid-19
China and Italy have invoked broad powers to control millions of people in an effort to slow the spread of Covid-19. Whether such measures could — or even should — be used in the U.S. is a matter of...
View ArticleUnder Pressure, Bayer Halts Baby Aspirin False Advertising
Though Bayer has long suggested that taking baby aspirin could lower a person’s risk of heart attack, recent studies have found that’s not the case. The American Heart Association has now told the...
View ArticleA Popular Anti-Clotting Device May Do More Harm than Good
A paucity of robust medical evidence showing how well IVC filters actually work — and whether they even lower the risk of death — has led some doctors to advocate against them. Despite this, use...
View ArticleDon’t Just Debunk Covid-19 Myths. Learn From Them.
Instead of viewing rumors and myths about the current coronavirus outbreak as misperceptions that can be suppressed with accurate information, we should treat them as important opportunities to...
View ArticleFor the Rich, Covid-19 Protections. For Health Workers, a Shrug.
While testing and protections for Covid-19 become the most in-demand “luxury” goods among the famous and wealthy, frontline responders like policemen, paramedics, family doctors, and medical staff...
View ArticleBook Review: An “Impossible” Voyage on Foot Across Antarctica
In “The Impossible First: From Fire to Ice — Crossing Antarctica Alone,” Colin O’Brady recounts his harrowing 932-mile solo crossing across the continent’s frozen wastes, aided by modern technology and...
View ArticleFacing New Projections, Officials Scramble to Slow Covid-19
U.S. lawmakers were spurred to action this week amid new projections about the potential effects of the novel coronavirus’s spread. In the first statewide lockdown in living memory, California...
View ArticleLike Previous Pandemics, Covid-19 Will Shape the Fates of Nations
The eighteenth century ascent of the British Empire offers a lesson for today’s Covid-19 crisis: The ways that nations respond to pandemics, like the one caused by the new coronavirus, will largely...
View ArticleAmid Hydroxychloroquine Hopes, Lupus Patients Face Shortages
After a small study suggested that it might be useful in combatting the novel coronavirus, demand for the once obscure drug is skyrocketing, with pharmacists reporting depleted stocks and many patients...
View ArticlePaying the Price of Science Denialism … Again
The Trump administration’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic has been shaped by the same corporate-backed science denialism that has long been deployed by the tobacco, fossil fuel, chemical, and mining...
View ArticleThe Fight to Curb a Health Scourge in India: Noise Pollution
In a rapidly growing and urbanizing world, more people are exposed to more noise, and multiple reports by the World Health Organization, most recently in 2018, indicate that rising decibel levels are...
View ArticlePandemic Dilemmas: When to Self-Isolate From a Newborn Baby?
Health authorities in the U.S. issued guidelines this month recommending that new mothers with a known or suspected case of Covid-19 self-isolate from their newborn children — ideally in a different...
View ArticleWith Outbreaks Come Misinformation. Covid-19 Is No Exception.
As social media users slog through post after post about the ongoing outbreak of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, to historians and public health researchers, the spread of Covid-19 misinformation is not...
View ArticleIn the American South, Covid-19 Could Find Fertile Ground
With high rates of pre-existing illness, low access to health care options, and even a lingering belief in some quarters that the coronavirus pandemic is being overblown, the American South seems...
View ArticleOn This Maine Island, Residents Experiment With Renewable Energy
Isolated from Maine’s mainland, Isle au Haut gets its electricity via a risky cable that’s due to fail. To boost the island’s sustainability, a local power company has turned to a more modern and...
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