Featured in Weekly Newsletter
‘Minimizing the probability of adverse outcomes’ is driving the ever-changing, sometimes conflicting recommendations on mask wearing
There is increasing confusion, and even consternation, over what seem to be disparate policies, recommendations, and mandates emerging in response ...
‘War on glyphosate’ and the unintended negative environmental consequences of the demonization of a safe and effective herbicide and its removal from the garden market
Across social media they celebrated. The electronic victory laps commemorated Bayer’s decision to remove the herbicide Roundup from the residential ...
Why the COVID-19 coronavirus continues to surprise us
As people in the US grapple with a return to masking to stay ahead of the delta and lambda variants ...
Crop Chemophobia II: When activist journalists twist science in support of ideology
Attacking pesticides is sexy. Many activists, lawyers and journalists have made careers out of propagating a simple, compelling narrative about ...
Viewpoint: Creationism overruns archaeology? Promotion of indigenous origin stories challenges scientific consensus
In April, one of us—Elizabeth Weiss—gave a talk, titled Has Creationism Crept Back into Archaeology?, at the 86th Annual Meeting of ...
Drought tolerant, disease resistant GMO corn that produces 3 times the yield of conventional or organic? It’s a reality in a Nigerian trial
Data from the third confined field trial of the TELA Maize project, that is being carried out at the Institute ...
Crop chemophobia I: Pesticides are vital to organic and conventional agriculture — but they can be misused. Here’s how to distinguish between legitimate concerns and anti-science propaganda
It seems not a month goes by without an “investigative reporter” somewhere on the internet warning about the dangers of ...
GLP podcast: Greenpeace v Golden Rice; Vaccine side effects—myth or reality? Objective truth under fire
The Philippines has finally approved Golden Rice, and Greenpeace is doing everything in its power to reverse the decision. A ...
Seed treatment overload? Are there unintended consequences from a popular practice?
For the first time in nearly a decade, Dan Hesterberg poured a few bags of untreated corn seed into his ...
Skin cancer and screening: The good and the bad of ‘overdiagnosis’
About a decade ago, when he was a first-year dermatology resident, Adewole Adamson learned that “exploding” rates of melanoma were ...
Hulu’s Rosemary’s Baby redux ‘False Positive’ bungles the science and stretches credulity
I looked forward to Hulu’s original horror film False Positive, pitched as a modern-day Rosemary’s Baby. It premiered at the Tribeca ...
African agricultural scientists cite continent-wide double standard in embracing GM COVID vaccines while blocking GM crops
Most African countries are still in the early stages of COVID-19 vaccination dissemination, if they’ve begun imports of the shots ...
Gene-edited crops made in Latin America, for Latin American needs
In recent years, precision biotechnologies have appeared on the Latin American horizon, introducing new ways to modify genomes affordably easily ...
Our prowess in sports has deep roots in evolution
The coming Olympics will showcase some of the most extraordinary human feats of strength, speed, and agility. As an archaeologist ...
Viewpoint: It’s time for a reassessment of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC)’s role in sabotaging glyphosate, one of the world’s most popular — and safest — herbicides
As we’re in the midst of a reevaluation of whether the Virology Laboratory in Wuhan, China was the true source ...
High on prehistoric life: When did humans begin experimenting with mind-altering drugs and alcohol?
Humans constantly alter the world. We fire fields, turn forests into farms, and breed plants and animals. But humans don’t ...
Podcast: The COVID genetic sequencing revolution; Ban human gene editing? Brainless slime redefines cognition
For all the ills it brought, the COVID-19 pandemic may have helped revolutionize genetic sequencing. Human gene editing is fraught ...
Podcast: By focusing on biotechnology breakthroughs, have scientists overlooked simpler solutions to our food security problems?
Gene editing could revolutionise agriculture, with some scientists promising healthier and more productive crops and animals, but will consumers want ...
How endangered great apes provide a crucial window into human evolution — and why we should help preserve these species
When I was a kid, every trip to the zoo featured a visit to the orangutan habitat. I was fascinated ...
Viewpoint: Stanford is a world-class science institution … except when it comes to critical thinking about the ‘sustainability myth’ of organic agriculture
Stanford, which consistently ranks among the top U.S. colleges and universities, is one of the great research institutions in the ...
Viewpoint: How the anti-GMO movement devolved from dangerous to irksome to irrelevant
Introduced in the 1990s, crops genetically engineered (GE) to withstand exposure to the weed killer glyphosate (Roundup) were a game-changer ...
You don’t have to be a COVID vaccine rejectionist to want to fully understand the nonspecific effects (NSE) of vaccines
The world’s attention is presently focused on the mRNA vaccines, which may turn out to be the most revolutionary vaccines ...
Podcast: Trash transformation — Here’s how researchers are turning plastic waste into vanilla flavoring
We have two major problems. Vanilla is mostly produced in a narrow set of unstable economies and the supply chains ...
Epstein-Barr virus link? Tantalizing clues suggest EBV potentially triggers COVID long-haul symptoms
COVID-19 has already broken all the rules. Since when does a virus make people lose their sense of taste and ...
Extreme heat and evolution: We adapted to handle a vast range of temperatures but current conditions are pushing limits
Heat waves are the leading cause of weather-related deaths in the United States, not the more photogenic windstorms and floods. Hotter ...
Viewpoint: How COVID has altered the future of US agriculture and the role of biotechnology
The past year has been a doozy. Being locked up for a year and watching half a million Americans die ...
GLP Podcast: Animal gene editing moves ahead in Russia; Biotech eliminates flavorless produce; Edible cholera vaccine coming soon?
Russia wants to produce allergen-free milk using animal gene editing. How much progress have they made? If you're bored with ...
