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Why do fitness device makers claim you need to take 10,000 steps every day? Do you also really need to drink eight glasses of water daily? The scientific basis for popular health claims is often thin. A piece in the New York Times, for example, notes that the idea of 10,000 steps was based more […]

The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. The site of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in northern Ukraine has been surrounded for more than three decades by a 1,000-square-mile (2,600-square-kilometer) exclusion zone that keeps people out. On April 26, 1986, Chernobyl’s reactor number four melted […]

Credit: NASA Advertisement MEXICO Small freshwater fish called sulfur mollies synchronously splash their tails to create waves, and scientists have now demonstrated that this strategy can deter hungry birds. Researchers triggered the wave-making process using slingshots and found that birds waited twice as long between attacks. CHILE An investigation of sedimentary rock cores revealed that […]

As Ukrainian researchers have feared for their lives and careers after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, mathematicians have been grappling over what to do about a prominent mathematical conference that was set to be held in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in July. The International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) is “the largest and most significant conference on pure and […]

The coronavirus exposed and exacerbated the fragility and inequity of the global economic system. Many countries, including the U.S., proved unable to manufacture simple products such as face masks, let alone more complicated ones such as ventilators. Multiple supply chains broke. The resulting ordeal will almost surely lead to the creation of more onshore production […]

The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. Thankfully, most people who get COVID–19 don’t become seriously ill—especially those who are vaccinated. But a small fraction do get hospitalized, and a smaller fraction do die. If you are vaccinated and catch the coronavirus, what are your […]

Editor’s Note (2/24/22): Last week Texas Governor Greg Abbott ordered state agencies to investigate gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth as “child abuse.” This editorial from June 2021 is being republished to highlight the ways that anti-trans legislation is harmful and unscientific. On April 6, the Arkansas state legislature passed a law that would prohibit transgender youth from […]

“This is a case about Harvard’s decade-long failure to protect students from sexual abuse and career-ending retaliation.” That is the first sentence of a federal lawsuit filed on February 8 by three graduate students against Harvard University, accusing the university’s officials of enabling abusive behavior by John Comaroff, a professor in the anthropology department. The […]

US President Joe Biden has replaced his disgraced science adviser, Eric Lander, with two scientists who will split Lander’s duties “until permanent leadership is nominated and confirmed”, according to the White House. Alondra Nelson, deputy director for science and society at the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), which Lander led, will become acting director […]

The Biden administration is preparing to reinstate California’s authority to set auto emissions rules that are more stringent than federal standards, taking a major step toward cutting transportation-related climate pollution and continuing to chip away at former President Trump’s environmental rollbacks. The waiver, granted decades ago because of California’s severe pollution problems, gave the Golden […]