Featured in Weekly Newsletter
Viewpoint: Anti-chemical film polemic “Into the Weeds” is wrong on the facts but a tort lawyer’s dream. Did lawyers and the organic industry fund it?
The organic food industry lobby was in full swing in Brussels with their StopGlyphosateWeek. A collective of NGOs ran an ...
Germany is the major obstacle to the adoption of gene editing and other crop biotechnology innovations in the EU. When might that change?
Since 2000, the EU has adopted a very hostile stance towards GMO crops, and it’s carried over into its opposition ...
GLP podcast and video: Ice cream cuts obesity risk? Anti-vaccine study retracted; If you’re afraid of chemicals, quit drinking alcohol
Could ice cream reduce your risk of diabetes and obesity? A surprising amount of evidence supports that hypothesis. How do ...
Viewpoint: Without glyphosate, critical wetlands and wildlife could be strangled by invasive plants
Almost two years ago, I wrote an article hoping “we are finally at a place when a few influential scientists with ...
Viewpoint: Joseph Ladapo, Florida’s conspiracy-promoting, vaccine-rejecting surgeon general, is a public menace
He has blood on his hands. Even as the worst of the health crisis ignited by the SARS-CoV-2 virus fades, ...
Envisioning what doesn’t exist: How humans and other mammals evolved the capacity for memory
Imagination makes us human – this unique ability to envision what doesn’t exist has a long evolutionary history ...
Viewpoint: Rollout of agricultural gene editing in England is not yet a sure thing. This is what could derail it.
Last month, the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill completed its passage through both Houses of Parliament and received Royal Assent ...
Does IVF increase the risk of breast or ovarian cancer by as much as 65%, as some studies claim?
Statistics related to medical risks and care often unnecessarily frighten people, and lousy journalism doesn't help ...
Anti-biotech activists claim biotech crops promote “unsustainable” monoculture? Let’s separate facts from ideology
Biotech critics frequently claim that conventional agriculture and GMOs promote monoculture farming, which is harmful to biodiversity. A closer look ...
Biopharming can help pioneer new treatments but cumbersome, outdated regulations block innovation
Obtaining medicines from plants is not new. Aspirin was first isolated from the bark of the willow tree in the ...
Podcast and video: Animal mRNA vaccines under fire; Too many antibiotics in agriculture? Does ‘Big Ag’ control the global seed market?
The same technology that yielded COVID-19 vaccines could help protect livestock from deadly diseases, but a growing chorus of skeptics ...
Plant microbiomes: Humans are not the only organisms that need healthy biomes. Here is how to grow safer and more nutritious food and feed
A “physical examination” is the standard way to track human health. It involves a variety of measurements such as blood ...
Is biology sexist and racist? The escalating battle over ‘inclusive terminology’ and the language of science
Science, biology in particular, is rife with racism and other egregious forms of prejudice and bigotry. That’s the belief now ...
Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools to detect crop diseases are on the way
Swarms of locusts devastating crops in East Africa, corn rootworms wreaking havoc in the Midwestern US. Blights destroying rubber trees in Brazil and ravaging potatoes in South India ...
Did Neanderthals’ meat-eating habits contribute to their demise?
Understanding our ancestors’ diets may reveal critical clues about their evolutionary success or failure ...
Re-examining 10 science-challenged studies suggesting GMOs are harmful
The blog "10 Scientific Studies Proving GMOs Can Be Harmful To Human Health" is now a fixture on cyberspace. A ...
Viewpoint: GMO crops are key to sustainable farming — why are some scientists afraid to talk about them?
A shallow piece in the journal Science downplaying the importance of GMO crops belongs in a New Age publication ...
Viewpoint: Modern humanity is only 300,000 years along. Does that explain why we screw up so much?
How can humans have gotten so far, but still have so many problems? We are a young species. We are ...
“GMOs”, “contamination” and “coexistence”: Challenging the misuse of concepts and wrongheaded regulation of agriculture and food
The term “genetically modified organisms” (or “GMOs”) has come into wide use over the past two decades although it is ...
Does conventional livestock farming use drugs at ‘unnecessarily high levels’, endangering human health, as activist critics claim?
Livestock farming generates some striking external impacts: while production provides 30% of human dietary protein, it occupies 75% of agricultural ...
GLP podcast and video: ESG undermines sustainable farming? Top-10 anti-biotech propagandists; FDA’s ‘healthy’ food labels
Environmental-Social-Governance (ESG) metrics are supposed to help promote sustainable industry, but could they actually undermine efforts to make farming more ...
Will you get a hangover after a night of heavy drinking? Genetics is key
After a good night out you may not be surprised when you wake up feeling rough the next morning. But ...
Viewpoint: Existential ethics — Pondering the extinction of the global human population
Why would it be so bad if our species came to an end? It is a question that reveals our ...
Here’s how the GMO purple tomato soon to be in US grocery stores came to fruition
Norfolk Healthy Produce’s purple tomato first appeared in The New York Times Magazine eight months ago. Genetically engineered to naturally produce ...
Agriculture and climate change: Taking the best of all farming systems could tip the carbon scale in the right direction
Agriculture contributes a significant portion of the world's climate-changing greenhouse gases. In turn, changes in climate will reduce agricultural yields ...
Crops that tolerate droughts and climate change? Here’s how cactus genes could help
This past summer, a widespread drought across the United States lowered crop yields by as much as one-third as corn, ...
Viewpoint: People spread chemophobic drivel about ‘dangerous chemicals’ that science says are safe as used — then continue to drink alcohol
Thanks largely to the press and some radical environmental groups most people are terrified of chemicals because they can give ...
