As the United States grapples with the national reckoning over race prompted by the killing of George Floyd, it has become increasingly clear that even a pandemic does not strike equally. Nationwide, Black people have been 3.7 times as likely as white people to die of COVID-19, taking age into account; in some states, Black […]
We spend a substantial part of our days visually scanning an area for something we want—our keys or ketchup, for example. For scientists the way we do so “provides a window into how our minds sift through the information that arrives at our eyes,” says Jason Fischer, a cognitive neuroscientist at Johns Hopkins University. Past […]
EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler announced the final rollback of Obama-era methane rules during a trip yesterday to Pittsburgh. The move marked the culmination of a 3 ½-year struggle by the Trump administration to undo emissions rules established at the end of President Obama’s second term. That removal came despite their being supported by a significant […]
With 2020 more than halfway over, it is clear that this year will rank among the hottest in recorded history and possibly break the all-time record set in 2016. If 2020 does top the list, it will do so without the major El Niño event that boosted global temperatures four years ago—and thus will provide […]
In the U,.S., “…community outbreaks of the coronavirus this summer have centered on restaurants and bars, often the largest settings to infect Americans,” writes Jennifer Steinhauer at The New York Times (8/12/20). Data show that about a quarter of Louisiana’s coronavirus cases since March, other than those in nursing homes, prisons, and the like, trace […]
The memories that we humans encode and store in the neuronal networks of our brains are fundamental to our existence as individuals and as collective societies—for the recalling of those memories, especially during times of stress, can help us to anticipate and shape the future for our own well-being. But we are not the only […]
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Recently, scientists discovered bacteria that had been buried beneath the ocean floor for more than a hundred million years and was still alive. What would change if we could live for even just a million years? Two thoughts immediately come to mind. First, tenure in academia would have to be capped. Universities would have to […]
As the world continues to battle the coronavirus, it is also fighting a different sort of epidemic: misinformation. This “infodemic” is just as harmful as COVID-19 itself, leading people to downplay the severity of the disease and ignore public health advice in favor of unproved treatments or “cures.” A recent survey by the John S. […]
A handful of stencils and three pens sound like materials for a child’s art project. But researchers have now used these tools to draw functional heart monitors directly on human skin. Wearable sensor technology, which helps doctors check a variety of health indicators, has in recent years advanced from bulky devices to flexible patches that […]