In 1975 psychiatrist Robert Stoller of the University of California, Los Angeles, wrote something bizarre in his textbook on sex and gender. He asserted that people who were assumed to be boys when they were born but whose gender identity or expression did not match that assumption “often have pretty faces, with fine hair, lovely […]
They don’t call it the diabolical ironclad beetle for nothing: Phloeodes diabolicus, a rugged insect native to western North America, has an almost supernatural ability to resist compression and blunt hits. Now, 3D scans have revealed that layered structures in its interlocking wing cases make the beetle twice as hardy as some of its relatives — […]
President Trump loves “beautiful” factories but is worried about “fumes” from wind turbines. Joe Biden wouldn’t ban fracking but wants to “transition” away from it. Yesterday’s presidential debate saw one of the most substantive exchanges on climate policy in the history of general election matchups, largely because it’s an issue that rarely gets such valuable […]
A high mountain in China turns into a safe haven for the declining insects A beekeeper checks beehives on the cliff in Shennongjia National Nature Reserve in central China’s province of Hubei on April 27, 2015. Credit: Jie Zhao Getty Images Advertisement Bees do not usually buzz around wooden hives 4,000 feet above sea level, […]
Aged cheeses like camembert or taleggio produce a powerful stench: the funk of cabbage, mushrooms, sulfur, even smelly feet. “And those aromas are chemicals that are being kicked off, being emitted by the cheese, and that’s through the microbes that are living in the rind, as they slowly decompose the cheese.” Benjamin Wolfe is a microbiologist […]
A psychotic Black woman admitted to a psychiatric emergency room is discharged “to the streets,” despite being pregnant and disorganized. Several white health care providers, noting her history of methamphetamine use, joke “she’s always like this” and claim she is “at baseline,” suggesting she is inherently inferior and unworthy of treatment. They make no effort […]
On August 4, 1972, the sun unleashed an incandescent whip of energy from its surface and flung it toward the planets. It was accompanied by a seething cloud of plasma called a coronal mass ejection, which traversed the nearly 150 million kilometers between sun and Earth in just more than half a day—still the fastest-known […]
Most major American cities that have signed on to the climate fight with pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions are failing to meet their goals or haven’t even started to track local progress, according to a survey by the Brookings Institution. The report, “Pledges and Progress,” looked for climate policy and actions in the nation’s […]
Artificial intelligence could soon help screen for Alzheimer’s disease by analyzing writing. A team from IBM and Pfizer says it has trained AI models to spot early signs of the notoriously stealthy illness by looking at linguistic patterns in word usage. Other researchers have already trained various models to look for signs of cognitive impairments, […]
On the same day that President Donald Trump announced his COVID-19 diagnosis, Twitter reminded users of its policy that “tweets that wish or hope for death, serious bodily harm or fatal disease against *anyone* are not allowed and will need to be removed.” The social media platform soon filled with posts accusing it of hypocrisy: […]