On Fourth of July Weekend, Concerns for Covid-19 Spread
Cases of Covid-19 increased across much of the country this week, raising fears that the virus that causes it could spread further during gatherings over the Fourth of July weekend. The holiday arrives...
View ArticleBook Review: The Power and Pitfalls of Our Worlds Within Walls
In her timely new book “The Great Indoors,” Emily Anthes explores the vagaries of lives lived predominantly indoors, and the burgeoning research connecting indoor environments to behavior and health....
View ArticleAs Risks of Space Wars Grow, Policies to Curb Them Lag
Recent reports suggest the biggest players in space have advanced their military abilities, including anti-satellite weapons. Many of these technologies, if deployed, could ratchet up an arms race and...
View ArticleInternal Messages Show Houston Hospitals in Covid-19 Crisis
On April 17, Texas became one of the first states to relax social distancing mandates. Now, the number of patients hospitalized with Covid-19 in Houston has quadrupled since Memorial Day. Messages sent...
View ArticleBehind a Chemical Attack in Syria, a Lingering Battle Over Blame
Three years after the Syrian village of Khan Sheikhoun was devastated by a chemical weapons attack, MIT emeritus professor Ted Postol and others continue to dispute the findings of most other experts,...
View ArticleCovid-19 and Medicine’s Misguided Romance With Machines
At the center of the debate over ventilators’ effectiveness in treating Covid-19 is an enigmatic syndrome with a controversial past: acute respiratory distress syndrome. Its story serves as a...
View ArticleBook Review: Voices From a Slow-Moving Nuclear Calamity
In “The Hanford Plaintiffs,” Trisha T. Pritikin gives voice to the civilians who were caught in the path of fallout from the notorious Hanford nuclear plant in Washington state over several decades —...
View ArticleWHO Acknowledges Possibility of Airborne Covid-19 Transmission
President Donald J. Trump formally began the process of withdrawing the United States from the World Health Organization on Tuesday — part of a challenging week for the global public health body,...
View ArticleDespite a Skyward Mission, NASA Shaped the Study of Life on Earth
Before the space race, microbes were largely overlooked in the study of evolution. But NASA funding of outside-the-mainstream scientists like Lynn Margulis helped change that, opening the door to a...
View ArticleCDC Revises Covid-19 Risks During Pregnancy as Research Lags
How dangerous is the coronavirus for pregnant women and new mothers? Months after asserting they are not at higher risk for severe complications, the CDC released a study showing pregnant women have...
View ArticleIn India, Modern Development Puts Prehistoric Sites at Risk
India’s prehistoric heritage, which is key to the story of early human migration, is at risk of being wiped out by modern development. The slow, deliberate, decades-long pace of fieldwork in...
View ArticleAt Last, the Medical Profession Is Speaking Out for Black Lives
It’s discouraging that it took so long for leading medical institutions to speak out against racism and police brutality. But now that they have, their statements should be accompanied with concrete,...
View ArticleThe Deck Is Not Rigged: Poker and the Limits of AI
Creating an algorithm to win at poker isn’t just fun and games — the same code could be applied to military, business, government, and cybersecurity to aid in strategic decision making. But despite...
View ArticleWhite House Shift in Covid-19 Data Collection Spurs Confusion
On Wednesday, U.S. hospitals began sending daily Covid-19 data reports to a new database in Washington — a process that bypasses the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and that has prompted...
View ArticleA Bird Named for a Confederate General Sparks Calls for Change
McCown’s longspur, a sparrow-like prairie bird, has spurred a petition and social media campaign, renewed scrutiny of the American Ornithological Society’s naming procedures, and launched debates about...
View ArticleEvidence and Orthodontics: Does Your Child Really Need Braces?
Although some individual studies suggest that orthodontic treatment improves oral health, critics say that such studies are often fraught with bias and don’t control for variables like socioeconomic...
View ArticleCurious About Contract Tracing? Here’s How it Really Works.
Contact tracing is the public health practice of informing people when they’ve been exposed to a contagious disease. Part shoe-leather detective work, part social work, it’s an age-old infection...
View ArticleIn Social Insects, Researchers Find Hints for Controlling Disease
Over the past three decades, researchers have begun mapping the myriad ways that some insect colonies avoid succumbing to disease. Put together, they form a kind of parallel epidemiology that might...
View ArticleIn a Fight Over a Colombian Coal Mine, Covid-19 Raises the Stakes
The Indigenous Wayuu people of Colombia have long battled a large open-pit coal mine called Cerrejón, which critics say pollutes the air and depletes and sullies local water sources — charges the mine...
View ArticleIt’s Time to Get Serious About Research Fraud
Only a small fraction of research misconduct ever comes to light. Part of the problem is the ambiguity around how to define research misconduct. Plus, many research institutions, left to police...
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