Science Literacy Project Daily Digest
Challenging health misinformation? People are more likely to believe AI when it responds with empathy
At a time of rampant medical misinformation online, artificial intelligence can do a good job of correcting falsehoods, but the ...
Viewpoint: RFK Jr. touts AI to guide health care…but searches using the technology he champions expose him as scientifically illiterate
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has become an unlikely cheerleader for artificial intelligence in medicine — ...
Viewpoint: ‘Bureaucratic and economic obstacles’ to agricultural biotechnology: Europe creeps into the 21st century, but blocks remain
Genetically modified crops won’t single-handedly rescue harvests from worsening droughts, but Europe’s rulebook is making sure they barely get the ...
Viewpoint: How the anti-abortion movement twists medical facts and promotes science misinformation
Misinformation and junk science about abortion are spreading at alarming rates and are becoming key components in legislation and litigation ...
Viewpoint: How ‘MAHA men’ hijacked the female-built food and wellness movement
Women built the Make America Healthy Again movement, with Instagram-savvy “MAHA moms” railing against food dyes, pesticides and ultraprocessed snacks ...
Convinced COVID shots cause widespread harm, Kennedy plans federal initiative to incentivize doctors to report alleged injuries
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is preparing a sweeping federal push on vaccine injuries, including a dedicated research clinic ...
Should we be afraid of our food?
America's food-safety system hasn't kept pace with an increasingly industrial, globe-spanning food supply, and recent staffing and budget cuts are ...
5 deaths, 1,000 reported cases: These horrific numbers underestimate the consequences of the anti-vax movement
Pennsylvania's measles outbreak has topped 970 confirmed cases across 39 counties since April, sent nearly 200 people to the hospital ...
How the tobacco industry conspired with conservative activists to kill the Biden administration’s proposed ban on menthol cigarettes
When the FDA proposed banning menthol cigarettes in 2022, it was buried under 175,000 public comments — and nearly all ...
Viewpoint: RFK Jr.’s new CDC head Erica Schwartz greenlights hepatitis B vaccine study critics call “unethical and designed to cast doubts on its safety”
The CDC is reopening its wallet for a hepatitis B vaccine trial in Guinea-Bissau shelved earlier this year amid an ...
Tearful onions? CRISPR has a solution for that
Chopping onions may one day be a dry-eyed affair. Researchers at Japan’s Chiba University and food company House Foods have ...
Countries around the world are rushing to pass teenage social media bans. Could they backfire?
Governments are racing to keep kids off social media, but whether those bans will actually improve teen mental health is ...
Personalized mRNA vaccines are poised to revolutionize cancer treatments. Here are the barriers.
Personalized mRNA vaccines that train the immune system to hunt a patient's own tumor mutations are nearing approval, but, as ...
Abortion rights opponents outraged after FDA says its “safety review” of the already-found-safe mifepristone abortion pill will continue into 2027
The FDA’s reevaluation of mifepristone, the nation’s most widely used abortion pill, won’t wrap up until next year — and ...
GAHA: The corporate-created “healthier America” movement challenging what it claims is MAHA misinformation about modern farming, chemicals, and food
Some of America’s biggest food and farm interests have decided the best way to answer the Make America Healthy Again ...
9 wellness myths busted
Spas and wellness gurus are still peddling ideas that science left behind, as The Times’ Susan d’Arcy reports in her ...
Utah becomes first state to empower AI to bypass doctors and prescribe certain drugs
Utah is letting artificial intelligence slide a little further into the doctor's chair. The state's Office of Artificial Intelligence Policy ...
RFK Jr.’s plan to curb America’s appetite for ultra-processed foods and artificial dyes blocked by the White House
RFK Jr.’s push to rein in ultraprocessed foods and artificial dyes has hit its biggest roadblock yet: the White House ...
Anti-vax Texas Senate candidate Ken Paxton alleges conspiracy by doctors, drugmakers, and insurers to push childhood vaccination for profit
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, now the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, has launched a sweeping investigation accusing pediatricians, vaccine ...
Hooked on kratom: The unregulated, natural, alcohol-free “social tonic” that is destroying lives
Feel Free, a tiny blue bottle of kratom-laced “social tonic” sold at more than 30,000 U.S. stores, is leaving a ...
Rural revival or corporate windfall? Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill tax law opens the door to big breaks for data centers—but tech giants aren’t cashing in
Starting January 1, data centers built on rural land could qualify for a generous set of federal tax breaks, courtesy ...
Is organic farming really more sustainable? 100 recent studies say ‘no’
Organic produce may wear a green halo, but it doesn’t earn a clear climate advantage. Organic and conventional farming come ...
Patches for sleep, weight, NAD+, energy, focus, periods. No evidence to support the latest social media wellness scams
Stick-on patches promising better sleep, weight loss, more energy, sharper focus and easier periods are the wellness trend du jour ...
Jump-starting global warming: Rising temperatures are driving up emissions from wildfires, fermenting wetlands, and melting permafrost
As the planet heats up, tundras are thawing, wetlands are fermenting, and forests are succumbing to larger and more frequent ...
Court links patient’s death to anti-vaccine doctor promoted by Kennedy’s Children’s Health Defense
A doctor deployed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s former anti-vaccine advocacy group to cast doubt on recent measles deaths was ...
No, GMO foods do not “damage genes, natural disposition and hormones, or decrease physical health and intelligence”
Social media posts spreading in Indonesia claim that genetically modified food can rewrite your DNA, and the science says otherwise ...
The genetics of personality
Personality isn’t written in a handful of genes — it’s scribbled across more than a thousand of them. A massive ...
