Dec 27, 2024 · W riters whose subject is the natural world, and the overwhelming changes that humans have inflicted upon it, grapple regularly with a maddening dilemma: how to convey that all hope is not lost, while presenting facts that can bear down on hope like an avalanche.. Hope is often fundamental to action, essential for rousing readers out of complacency; despair, meanwhile, can be an unhelpful ...

Dec 12, 2024 · I n recent months, I’ve taken a growing interest in reading the accounts of health care workers from conflict zones, areas of the world caught in a crossfire of warring factions, where men, women, and children bear the collateral damage wrought by bombs and bullets. Health care workers’ harrowing stories are some of the most unvarnished ones we have to hear, and as a physician myself, I ...

Nov 1, 2024 · L ike many surgeons, Marty Makary used to routinely treat appendicitis by removing the patient’s appendix, a procedure performed nearly 300,000 times a year in the U.S. That changed about a decade ago after he read a research study that found antibiotics may be an effective alternative. Despite subsequent research confirming that appendectomies can often be avoided, Makary estimates only ...

Jan 2, 2025 · At the same time, the pandemic has also prompted what some experts describe as a global boom in the construction of such facilities. As countries struggled to respond to the pandemic, many decided that they need more laboratories in …

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Dec 3, 2024 · Indeed, skeptics sometimes associate geoengineering with supervillain behavior, like a famous episode of The Simpsons in which the robber baron Mr. Burns blocks the sun. They warn that outdoor experiments could set humanity down a slippery slope, allowing powerful billionaires or individual countries to unleash hazardous technologies without input or agreement from the public more broadly, all ...

Dec 23, 2024 · W elcome to Entanglements. In this episode, hosts Brooke Borel and Anna Rothschild ask: Is fluoride toxic at low levels? The history of the mineral is scattered with alleged health claims — and conspiracy theories. But a growing body of research on fluoride’s effect on developing brains has raised new questions and heated debates.

Feb 12, 2024 · eDNA serves as a surveillance tool, offering researchers a means of detecting the seemingly undetectable. By sampling eDNA, or mixtures of genetic material — that is, fragments of DNA, the blueprint of life — in water, soil, ice cores, cotton swabs, or practically any environment imaginable, even thin air, it is now possible to search for a specific organism or assemble a snapshot of all ...

4 days ago · A s a teenager growing up in Nigeria, Helen Onyeaka was obsessed with microorganisms. The tiny lifeforms, which include bacteria and yeast, can be grown quickly and in huge quantities. Onyeaka wondered if that abundance could be harnessed to feed people in conflict zones where children were suffering from malnutrition, their distended stomachs a clear sign of protein deficiency.

Jan 24, 2025 · If we do find that a city killer is barreling toward us, there are only three possible outcomes: the asteroid hits the planet, impacts a densely populated area, and millions of people perish; the asteroid impacts a remote spot in the desert or the middle of the ocean, and nobody dies; or, the intruder is detected well in advance of its destined impact day, and we somehow manage to deflect it ...