Science Controversies
CRISPR gene-edited wheat with lower carcinogenic acrylamide levels when toasted greenlighted for UK field trials
Hertfordshire-based experiments will be the first field trials of CRISPR edited wheat anywhere in the UK or Europe. The wheat ...
Part II: Viewpoint — Questioning ‘race equity ideology’ is a career-ender in modern medicine
The national movement to eradicate what activists call systemic racism and white privilege from medicine and health care has few ...
‘Understanding long COVID is like trying to nail Jell-O to a wall’: Research emerges on long-time sufferers
“There is currently no accepted case definition for symptoms or duration of long COVID. Consequently, it is difficult to estimate ...
Russian internet meme: No, the COVID vaccine can’t turn people into chimps
Russian trolls have been using Planet of the Apes memes in a vain attempt to convince vaccine skeptics that the ...
Newly engineered nanoparticles developed to treat drug-resistant fungal infections
They’re roughly the same size as a coronavirus particle, and 1000 times smaller than a human hair, yet newly engineered ...
Which genetically engineered plant traits need US government approval? Federal government offers new guidance
USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service is proposing draft guidance for a new regulatory review process aimed at determining ...
What’s holding up biotech crop commercialization in China?
GMOs are a hot societal topic within China. For a long time, China’s policy with respect to GMOs has been, ...
Should we aim for harm reduction or absolute safety? Herbal supplement Kratom puts FDA risk calibration to the test
[T]he issue of whether or not to ban kratom is an excellent litmus test of whether the Biden administration will ...
Sleepy during the day? The FDA just approved Xywav to treat idiopathic hypersomnia
People who live with excessive daytime sleepiness may have a new option for treatment, but it’s not without its risks ...
Viewpoint: Ivermectin dewormer folly — How the right fell in love with the latest bogus COVID cure
For much of the first year of the coronavirus pandemic, President Donald Trump and his allies pushed an unproven drug, ...
Anti-mask and vaccine rejectionist protests increasingly turn violent
Across the country, anti-vaccine and anti-mask demonstrations are taking scary and violent turns, and educators, medical professionals and public figures ...
‘Window rapidly closing for scientists to evaluate COVID-19 origins’, says international Wuhan investigation team
The search for the origins of SARS-CoV-2 is at a critical juncture. There is willingness to move forward from both ...
300,000 people in the US live with heart- and gut-destroying Chagas ‘kissing bug’ disease
While many people may never have heard of Chagas in the U.S., about 8 million people in Mexico, Central America ...
Who needs a COVID vaccine booster shot, and when?
On August 12, the FDA announced that third doses of Pfizer and Moderna’s vaccines would be made available for patients ...
Viewpoint in the Daily Beast: Reactionary ‘COVID biotechnophobia’ was seeded by anti-GMO activists and compliant media — and it continues today
On Dec. 31, 2019, the first case of the coronavirus was recorded, a global pandemic was en route and emerging biotechnology would be our ...
Inside the quest to develop second-generation vaccines, variant-proof boosters and a shot that works against future pandemics
Even as vaccine supplies outstrip demand in the United States, the scientific quest for coronavirus shots has scarcely eased. In ...
Vaccine mandate war: Is it unethical for health workers to forgo COVID shots?
On [July 13], seven health organizations—including the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America, the Association for Professionals in Epidemiology and ...
Children are the ‘final frontier’ for COVID shots, and many parents are resistant. But not these, and here’s why
Toddlers and babies as young as 6 months old are testing Covid-19 vaccines to help make sure they're safe for ...
GM crops: Kenya and Nigeria progress as Uganda falters
Though several African countries, including Kenya, Nigeria and Ethiopia, are making tremendous strides in their quest to develop and commercialize ...
Seedless blackberries with a year-round growing season? Gene editing opens up new doors for radical improvements in the long-stagnant berry market
Genetic variation plus environmental effects are what make us, and the berries we grow, what we are. The interaction of ...
‘Give me whatever’: Republican governors and vaccine hesitators who question safety and effectiveness of ‘medically proven’ shots embrace unproven antibody therapies
[A]fter she fell ill with covid last month, [Joelle Ruppert, an unvaccinated] Florida preschool teacher, found herself desperate to try ...
False COVID claims multiply — Find out the latest at Politifact’s ‘Coronavirus Fact Check’
Since its outbreak in Wuhan, China, in late 2019, the virus officially known as SARS-CoV-2 and the disease COVID-19 have ...
And the death count keeps growing: At least four vaccine-bashing conservative talk show hosts have died of COVID complications
[Marc] Bernier was at least the fourth talk-radio host who had espoused anti-vaccine and anti-mask sentiments to succumb to the ...
‘She is a force of nature’: Meet the professor trying to make bone marrow transplants safer
[Agnieszka Czechowicz] is now an assistant professor of pediatrics at the Stanford University School of Medicine. In her lab research, ...
The painful life of a long COVID victim
Most days I wake up in pain and go to bed with pain. I have vertigo, migraines and blurred vision ...
Delta won’t be the last: What challenges might future COVID variants bring?
During this pandemic, we’ve developed and deployed vaccines in real time. Meanwhile, sars-CoV-2 is replicating not in a dozen flasks ...
Genome editing poised to secure global food supply, study finds
Genome editing is set to revolutionize plant breeding and could help secure the global food supply, according to a new ...
