Science Literacy Project Daily Digest
Trump administration has deleted or altered nearly 400 federal datasets on public health, education and safety standards
America's official data trove is quietly shrinking, and nobody in charge is explaining why. A Guardian investigation by reporters Amy Qin and ...
Viewpoint: CRISPR licensing for gene-edited agriculture is booming — just not where you’d expect
Pairwise, the CRISPR gene-editing company built on row crops like corn and soybeans, is now finding its fastest growth elsewhere ...
The CDC’s ‘zombie programs’ have funding, but almost no one left to run them
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars earmarked for public health work, but ...
Viewpoint: Social media is fueling reproductive health myths and ‘hormonophobia’
Scroll through TikTok's sexual-health corner long enough, and the birth control pill starts to look like public enemy number one ...
Kindergarten vaccine exemptions hit record high as Trump’s order squeezes school mandates
American kindergartners are skipping their shots at a record pace, CNN reporter Deidre McPhillips found, and the White House just ...
Three weird ‘gut hacks’ currently coursing through social media that don’t work–and could be dangerous
Scroll through gut-health content on TikTok and you'll find parasite cleanses, colon flushes, and a ritual glass of hot water ...
RFK Jr.’s FDA wants to close a food-safety loophole. Critics say it’s still half-open.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s Health and Human Services Department unveiled a plan on August 17, 2026, to close a decades-old ...
Elderly are increasingly befuddled by mass-produced AI health videos
A 68-year-old man in Gumi, South Korea, took a YouTube "doctor" at his word: "200g of blueberries has the same ...
Fact check: COVID vaccines are not linked to miscarriages
A viral claim that COVID-19 vaccines cause an 82 percent miscarriage rate exploded across social media and Congress this month, ...
Viewpoint: Will RFK, Jr.-led MAHA voters swing the midterm elections toward like-minded Republicans?
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said the Make America Healthy Again movement will be a decisive ...
PTSD cure? U.S. military is testing treatments for soldiers so they can fight longer
The U.S. Department of Defense is funding two studies testing whether MDMA-assisted therapy can treat PTSD in active-duty soldiers so ...
Creepy and cool ways cloning may be used on animals and humans
Cloning is having a moment, and not for the reason you'd guess. A new piece from MIT Technology Review, by senior ...
‘The cure for measles is chicken soup and vitamin A’: Kennedy’s dangerous history of mocking vaccines
In 2021, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stood on a Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, farm and told 1,500 Amish attendees that health ...
Testosterone therapy is having a moment. The science hasn’t caught up.
The Pentagon is preparing to screen service members for low testosterone. The Trump administration wants the FDA to loosen who ...
Viewpoint: CDC website is wrong. Yet another study shows MMR vaccines do not cause autism
A new study of more than 2.5 million children has delivered the same verdict researchers have reached for over two ...
The emerging Republican campaign to ban human-AI marriages
As reported by Jason Parham for WIRED, a small but growing number of Americans don't just chat with their AI companions—they ...
Viewpoint: The global implications of Trump’s misguided vaccine policy
President Trump signed an executive order on August 10, 2026, that could turn getting your kid vaccinated into a multi-visit ...
Ivermectin, mebendazole and fenbendazole join a long historical list of pseudoscientific cancer cures
... If you search “cancer treatments” on Facebook (one of the first prompts that appear if you type “cancer” into ...
Backlash against AI data centers is a flashpoint in midterm elections
Data centers have quietly become the most contentious infrastructure fight in America, and the opposition is borrowing its playbook straight ...
Debunking another RFK Jr. autism myth: No, circumcision cannot cause autism
A study of U.S. children found no evidence linking neonatal male circumcision with autism spectrum disorder, prospective data from the ...
‘No causal link between COVID vaccines and excess deaths’: Study at the heart of anti-vaccine hysteria retracted
A high-profile study claiming COVID-19 vaccines contributed to excess deaths across dozens of countries has been retracted by BMJ Public ...
How technology transformed India from a health basket case into a breadbasket in three generations—and more than doubled its life expectancy
The average human life expectancy in India has risen to over 68 years, a substantial jump from the baseline of ...
When anecdotes become medical advice: No, ADHD cannot be managed with supplements
If social media is to be believed, ADHD can be managed with supplements, breathing exercises, herbal remedies, and just about ...
Disinformation tracker maps declining confidence in science and public health
When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, false claims about “US-run biolabs” began circulating almost immediately through Russian state ...
‘Dangerous’: As measles cases reach a 30-year high, American Academy of Pediatrics blasts Trump/RFK Jr. vaccine order
The president of the American Academy of Pediatrics blasted President Trump’s ... executive order calling for fewer childhood vaccines. “As measles cases reach a ...
‘Sick Tok’: Viral social media videos push medical misinformation
Medical professionals across the globe are sounding the alarm over a dangerous explosion of health misinformation propagating on short-form video ...
Viewpoint: Bible radio and other social media falsely claim Heinz ketchup contains ‘dangerous GMOs’
A viral image circulating on social media platforms claims that Heinz ketchup has been “forced to now carry a ‘contains ...
