Featured in Weekly Newsletter
GLP podcast and video: Low-carb diets cause heart disease? Economic de-growth or ‘green’ growth?
Many people have turned to low-carb diets as a way to shed unwanted body fat, but a new study suggests ...
Honeybee health: Driving problem is not climate or pesticides but the deadly Varroa mite
Some food grown in the US, especially high-cost luxuries like almonds, are pollinated using bees. Since bees are most often ...
Three years after WHO declared COVID a global emergency, Americans remain sharply divided over pandemic truths and myths
Trust in public health officials declined over the course of the pandemic, particularly among Republicans. Over the course of the ...
Changing negative perceptions about GMOs? Gene-edited purple tomato with great taste, longer shelf life and as much anthocyanin as blueberries is one of many new GM foods
The first genetically modified (GM) food ever made commercially available to the public was a tomato, invented in the US ...
5 traits in modern humans that trace back to our distant ancestry
Many of us are returning to work or school after spending time with relatives over the summer period. Sometimes we ...
How the war in Ukraine has derailed the European Union Farm to Fork initiative — and sparked debate about what constitutes sustainable agriculture
In March 2020, the EU, unveiled its Farm to Fork (F2F) strategy, an ambitious policy designed to reduce agriculture’s carbon ...
GLP podcast and video: Eating bugs safe? Pesticide use exploding? COVID and trust in science
The European Union is all too happy to allow consumers to eat potentially dangerous bug-based food, yet it remains hostile ...
Viewpoint: Before you blindly endorse a ‘meatless future’ to limit greenhouse gasses and protect the environment, read this
Many activists and reporters claim we should eat little or no meat to prevent climate change. But instead of presenting ...
How might we adapt to fast-changing global temperatures? 2-million year old ‘environmental DNA’ offers clues
The reconstruction of a once-living landscape in northern Greenland from 2 million years ago, deduced from bits of DNA bound ...
Viewpoint: Innovation vs. extreme precaution — What should drive science regulation and policy in Europe?
People like me often claim we need science-based policy. Regulations have to follow the best available evidence and European agencies ...
Viewpoint: ChatGPT gets a lot wrong or garbled. That doesn’t mean it’s not useful.
It doesn’t take much to get ChatGPT to make a factual mistake ...
Viewpoint: ‘Health impact of chemicals doubled in last 5 years’? Media misreporting flawed studies misleads the public
“Plastics and pesticides: Health impacts of synthetic chemicals in US products doubled in last 5 years, study finds," a July ...
Beepocalypse Myth Handbook: Assessing claims of pollinator collapse
After a decade of debate, the causes of the mid-2000s spike in bee deaths is coming into focus. Culprits are ...
Viewpoint: ‘Intransigent regulation’ — Genetic modification solution to limit crop frost damage waits for government green light
The EPA's intransigent regulation of genetically engineered bacteria that could mitigate frost damage to crops prevented their commercialization. Especially when ...
Reassessing the East Palestine chemical scare: How dangerous is vinyl chloride?
News coverage of the East Palestine train derailment has ranged from hysteria to hysteria. One would think that one of ...
GLP Podcast & Video: FDA checks chocolate-heart health claims; Cure for binge drinking? Gene-edited wheat may cut cancer risk
Does dark chocolate reduce your heart disease risk? The FDA says candy companies need to tread lightly when it comes ...
Best way for obese people to lose weight? Lifestyle change advocates debate gloomy prognosis linked to the role of genes
It's been a challenging few months for people with severe overweight issues mulling how best to shed what could be ...
Concerned about pesticide levels in food? Environmental Working Group’s Dirty Dozen list ignores organic pesticides while misrepresenting conventional trace chemical dangers
The Environmental Working Group wants to insure allied journalists like Sheila Kaplan that their new "dirty dozen" list is almost ready ...
Analysis: US public health officials scramble to restore trust in science and vaccines after two years of COVID controversies
By the summer of 2021, Phil Maytubby, deputy CEO of the health department here, was concerned to see the numbers ...
Sudan connection: Are Ethiopian Jews descendants of the ancient Israelites?
A broad suite of genetic and historical evidence points to an ancient Jewish heritage for Ethiopian Jews, contradicting established theory ...
How green are biofuels? Does corn-derived ethanol promote sustainability?
Tyler Lark, a geographer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, grew up among farms, working on a neighbor’s dairy, vaguely aware ...
Genomic surveillance: How studying malaria parasite genes helps develop more effective treatments
In a classic evolutionary ‘arms race’ between pathogens and their human hosts, both sides develop arsenals of weapons. Our immune ...
GLP Podcast & Video: Synthetic biology makes $10,000 perfume way cheaper; ‘Fashionable organic fantasies’ at the WEF; Sleeping pills cause dementia?
A bottle of perfume used to cost more than $10,000. The price has dropped precipitously thanks to advancements in synthetic ...
Regulatory inconsistency and the precautionary principle: Why the European Court ruling limiting neonicotinoid pesticide use is misguided
Important questions loom, now that European sugar beet and oilseed rape farmers face a potential ban on the use of ...
Viewpoint: The Guardian cites ‘shocking’ statistics from environmental lobby groups claiming increasing dangers from pesticide poisonings. Here’s why they are wrong, yet again
The evidence is quite clear at this point. Properly used, pesticides do not pose a serious risk to human health ...
Can we know for sure COVID’s origins? Why is Omicron so persistent? Knowing how evolution works provides guidance
The latest phrase borrowed from biology in COVID conversations is convergent evolution. It refers to pairs of unrelated species that ...
How cats got their stripes: The mystery of color patterns in mammals
In 1902’s Just So Stories, Rudyard Kipling famously explained how the leopard got his spots in what would today be deemed an ...
