Science Controversies
Viewpoint: Polyphenols or NAD+ supplements to combat aging: No, Gwenyth Paltrow and followers, don’t waste your money.
“No, I don’t.” That’s my answer to the increasingly frequent questions I’ve been asked about whether I take anti-aging supplements ...
Across Eastern Europe, science disinformation has spread far beyond COVID and vaccine denialism. Here’s the grim list.
Medical misinformation in Poland has become in 2025 a much larger ecosystem than the old anti-vaccination narratives. A NASK report, ...
Which among war, weather and cyber attacks is the biggest world threat? None of the above. It’s misinformation, and here’s why.
The UN and the World Economic Forum have identified misinformation and disinformation as top global risks—ranking them as higher short-term ...
Viewpoint: Long-contained diseases are on the rise in the U.S. Are Trump cuts to blame?
As beachgoers flock to water during the busy July Fourth weekend, danger could be lurking in some areas. Researchers this ...
AI being mobilized to target misinformation about vaccines–on AI
Artificial intelligence doesn’t have a great reputation for veracity. Social media abounds with AI-generated concoctions, from cute images of fake ...
Viewpoint: SCOTUS strikes a blow against junk science in Bayer glyphosate case. Will it deter mass tort litigators?
Mass tort litigation grows like weeds. Last week, the Supreme Court created the ultimate lawsuit-killer by rejecting state court claims ...
Do cold plunges and contrast therapy work?
Images of people jumping from icy plunge baths after a period in saunas or hot tubs are heating up social ...
2,300 endangered species: Controversial de-extinction company Colossal Biosciences joins U.S. effort to preserve their DNA
The Trump administration and a company that is promising to bring long-gone animals back from extinction announced a partnership on ...
Signal or noise? Study links GLP-1 drugs to slowing the aging process
A theory that GLP-1 medications like Ozempic or Zepbound might help people live longer has been bandied about by biohackers ...
Viewpoint: Europe clears the way for gene-edited crops — but fear-driven restrictions still slow their full potential
On 17 June 2026, the European Parliament adopted new rules on plants obtained by certain new genomic techniques (NGTs), including the ...
Viewpoint: Trump poised to politicize all U.S.-supported science research
I recall the precise moment I realized U.S. science was in for a very rough time. My wife and I ...
Viewpoint: Oxygen chambers? Pulsed electromagnetic field therapy? The only thing biohacking improves is the bottom line of preventative medicine hucksters
... [A]longside valuable services such as physiotherapy, dietitian support and exercise programs, increasingly trendy interventions pop up: IV vitamin infusions, ...
Viewpoint: CRISPR-hating activists air their grievances about gene editing farming innovation
Why Farmers Are Sounding the Alarm on EU Deregulation? The European Parliament’s recent decision to authorize the commercialization of plants ...
World’s first AI-designed vaccine explained
Researchers at the University of Cambridge have developed what they describe as a fundamentally new type of vaccine using artificial intelligence (AI) ...
Facts & Fallacies podcast: The ‘woke’ crusade against anthropology? Dr. Elizabeth Weiss
Museums are now reburying both 12,000-year-old human skeletons and presenting creation myths as factual history—while critical research on the first ...
AI is making even its founders uneasy: ‘We find evidence of introspection, joy, satisfaction, fear, grief and unease.’
Anthropic, Google and Meta have over the past year hired computer scientists, neuroscientists and philosophers to study concepts like the ...
Technical milestone or designer baby obsession: Latest gene-editing advance reignites a familiar ethical debate
Scientists at Columbia University have used a precise gene-editing tool, base editing, to make changes in three disease-linked genes in ...
Viewpoint: How politicized science became a political religion
Political science is a social science that studies the workings of government. Lately it seems to have picked up a ...
Viewpoint: In the science misinformed grifter game plan, the organic-food-is-healthier myth might be the worst.
Organic food marketing, vaccine denialism, cancer pseudoscience, climate denial, wellness culture, and conspiracy theories may look different, but they're all ...
Is Ebola a hoax created by fake humanitarians to steal African land and resources? Disinformation sweeps through the Congo.
As Ebola virus disease sweeps through the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the surrounding region, healthcare workers aren’t ...
Viewpoint: Weaponizing misinformation
There are moments in global debates when a concept becomes so technical, institutional, and wrapped in the language of risk ...
Viewpoint—Gutting the CDC: Survey of current and past CDC workforce accuses RFK, Jr. and Trump of destroying the agency and endangering public health
Since the Trump administration took office in January 2025, the workforce at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has ...
‘Trust, access, and equity’: After billions of doses worldwide, yet another review of COVID vaccine confirms its safety and effectiveness
A comprehensive review of the billions of COVID-19 vaccine doses made with mRNA technology shows that these vaccines are safe ...
Viewpoint: As MAHA blows up over Supreme Court ruling limiting glyphosate litigation, Trump offers toothless plan to reduce pesticides in food
President Trump, facing a backlash from supporters of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for allying himself with the chemical ...
PEW study: The sick state of American health information
Most Americans say it’s important to be healthy, but fewer think they are doing a good job at managing their ...
Viewpoint: Why are there no approved bioengineered insect-protected (Bt) apples?
642 separate Bioengineered (aka, GM/GMO, recombinant DNA) events, of 42 traits, in 32 different crops or plants have received regulatory ...
Ideological red flag: Led by anti-vax doctor, Tennessee is now the U.S. epicenter selling potent ivermectin shown worthless to prevent or treat Covid
Four years ago, Tennessee became the first state to allow adults to buy the antiparasitic drug ivermectin from a pharmacy ...