Science Literacy Project Daily Digest
The most developed countries have declining birth rates, endangering their economies—or maybe not
Low fertility rates—the average number of children born to a woman—may not spell economic trouble after all, scientists say. In ...
40% of American adults have confidence in RFK Jr.’s leadership on health, and the numbers are sinking
Americans are losing confidence in the nation’s public health agencies, according to a survey from the Annenberg Public Policy Center ...
Viewpoint: How ‘fake news’ shapes our behavior?
In recent years, the spread of fake news—particularly in the health domain—has become a significant concern. Misinformation about medical treatments, vaccines, ...
The Trump administration pledged to speed approval of rare disease drugs. The reality is the opposite
Rare disease breaks the traditional math of drug development. Companies can’t run a 10,000-patient trial when only a few thousand ...
Viewpoint: ‘The battle to feed humanity is over”: Eco-pessimist Paul Ehrlich leaves a legacy of misinformation about the mortal threat of overpopulation
The butterfly biologist turned rock-star eco-pessimist, Paul Ehrlich has died at the age of 93. That in itself is remarkable ...
As vaccine disinformation sweeps the country, pediatricians struggle to respond
Across the country, clinicians like Dr. [Alissa] Parker, who also holds a doctorate in nursing practice, are contending with a ...
Viewpoint: Social media influencers are promoting RFK, Jr.’s dangerous protein-heavy diet
The rise of social media influencers promoting the carnivore diet with its emphasis on eating as much beef, butter and ...
Viewpoint: Farmers face mounting challenges — Proposed U.S. farm bill doesn’t meet them
The House Agriculture Committee advanced a proposed farm bill ... —a set of legislative proposals that have traditionally balanced the social safety ...
Supreme Court likely to have final say on RFK, Jr.’s currently-blocked vaccine policy
Although a federal judge in Boston has temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s changes to the US childhood immunization schedule, the ...
Pentagon nears use of untested AI in life-and-death war targeting decisions
The US military might use generative AI systems to rank lists of targets and make recommendations—which would be vetted by ...
Grassroots MAHA pushes back against White House plan to back away from anti-vaccine rhetoric
White House officials are steering the Trump administration away from vaccine reform, fearing the political consequences of emphasizing a relatively ...
With food prices rising, Democrats blame “corporate consolidation” over food aid cuts as a campaign message
At the Capitol Hill roundtable ..., hosted by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York), farmers, union leaders, lawyers, academics, ...
Challenging the fasting myth: No, it will not help you lose weight
There are several ways to fast. Some people fast for several days in a row. Others follow the so-called 5:2 ...
Viewpoint: Wheat has become a target of glyphosate critics. Should the herbicide be banned?
We have reached a point where the mere mention of glyphosate reflexively triggers public reactions of fear, regardless of whether ...
RFK, Jr.’s choice for U.S. Covid vaccine czar accused of unethical and misleading research
The MIT professor who has been appointed by Robert F Kennedy Jr to review the safety of Covid-19 vaccines has failed to ...
Viewpoint: Should you quit ChatGPT on ethical grounds?
QuitGPT is one of the latest salvos in a growing movement by activists and disaffected users to cancel their subscriptions ...
RFK, Jr. vaccine rebuke: Judge reverses Trump administration childhood and Covid vaccine policies
In a severe blow to the Trump administration’s health agenda, a federal judge in Massachusetts [on March 16, 2026] blocked the ...
U.S. defunding International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), UN-affiliated group that issued cancer warnings for glyphosate, steak, and getting a haircut
The United States’s withdrawal this year from the World Health Organization (WHO) is having knock-on effects on an influential global ...
Iran creates an alternate war reality: Social networks awash with AI-generated videos showing its fake destructive power
A torrent of fake videos and images generated by artificial intelligence have overrun social networks during the first weeks of ...
Viewpoint: Is the Republican-backed farm bill an agriculture industry giveaway?
The newly proposed, Republican-led farm bill includes a range of provisions opponents say constitute a “pesticide industry wishlist” that would ...
White House clamps down on RFK, Jr.’s vaccine rejectionism but he reportedly retains Trump’s support
The White House is more tightly controlling the messaging and policies—including around vaccines—coming from the Department of Health and Human ...
AI tools designed to combat misinformation may actually promote it
As online misinformation grows harder to detect, new artificial-intelligence tools promise to help us separate fact from fiction. But do ...
Malaysia fighting a losing battle against climate disinformation
In today’s digital and AI-shaped information environment, disinformation has become a systemic risk, weakening trust, distorting decision-making, and ultimately undermining ...
The intersection of vaccinations and faith: Should the ultra-religious get exemptions from mandatory vaccines shots?
From the perspective of mainstream scientific medicine, the choice between vaccination and potentially fatal diseases seem obvious. So are religious ...
Viewpoint: Why health practitioners need to be disciplined for spreading misinformation—and why that’s so challenging
Unfortunately, in most cases health misinformation has been allowed to stand with very few, if any, professional consequences. Some prominent ...
Viewpoint—Liberal delusion: No, RFK, Jr. would not have made a great Secretary of Agriculture
The standard non-MAGA take on Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is that it’s too bad he’s such a brain-wormed lunatic about ...
U.S. government accused of pushing ‘fake news’ about UFOs to cover-up secret dark-project drone and aircraft technology
Donald Trump’s pledge to release official files relating to UFOs has intrigued conspiracy theorists who suspect the US government has ...
