Month: March 2022

  • Our amazing sense of touch, explained by a Nobel laureate

    Before 2010, scientists knew very little about how the sensation of touch begins its journey into a person’s consciousness. They knew that nerve endings help carry the message from different […]

  • Why the WHO approval of the first malaria vaccine is a big deal

    Every year, malaria kills more than 400,000 people, most of them children. There has been significant progress against the disease in the past few decades — death rates have fallen […]

  • The myth of the climate moderate

    After months of discussion and debate, Democrats are at an impasse on a raft of infrastructure legislation that could make or break President Joe Biden’s effort to fight climate change. […]

  • How you’ll know when Covid-19 has gone from “pandemic” to “endemic”

    You’ve probably heard it by now: Covid-19 is not going away. The broad consensus among experts is that it’s not realistic to think we’re going to totally eradicate this virus. […]

  • How biological detective work can reveal who engineered a virus

    SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, has made our future vulnerability to biological pathogens — and what we can learn to help prevent the next pandemic — a salient concern. […]

  • Playdates are ruining all the fun

    It’s become a time-honored tradition in certain segments of American society: two families cross-reference their respective calendars to find a spot free of school or soccer or other obligations. On […]

  • Is it okay to harvest pig kidneys to save human lives?

    “David is a great transplant surgeon. Five of his patients need new parts — one needs a heart, the others need, respectively, liver, stomach, spleen, and spinal cord — but […]

  • Biden’s Plan B for the climate crisis, explained

    After a major setback on a historic package of climate legislation, President Joe Biden and Democrats in Congress are scrambling to find other ways to slash US emissions. As they […]

  • What the oil industry still won’t tell us

    Four executives from Big Oil — “the richest, most powerful industry in human history,” according to environmentalist Bill McKibben — testified before Congress on Thursday at a hearing meant to […]

  • Are “net-zero” climate targets just hot air?

    Corporations and countries around the world are promising to eliminate their contributions to climate change. But many of their targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions are prefaced by a slippery […]