Science Literacy Project Daily Digest
AI is accelerating climate disinformation. It’s going to get worse
Climate disinformation has evolved over the last decade. What was once straightforward climate denial has given way to more subtle ...
Menopause symptoms? Social media is rife with misinformation
A women's health expert is warning against taking advice from social media feeds when it comes to hormone therapy. The ...
37 food ‘facts’ that are wrong
[T]here’s a lot of culinary misinformation out there that could potentially spoil your supper. Want to separate the myths from the ...
‘They are an essential part of a healthy diet’: Debunking MAHA’s rejection of seed oils
For years now, seed oils have been cast as the quiet villain of modern eating. Scroll through social media, and ...
Longevity cure? Don’t waste your money on NAD anti-aging supplements. They don’t work
Recent studies on aging have latched onto a “player” in longevity that had hitherto received little attention: nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, ...
Here’s how social media turbocharges the rising wave of health misinformation
Social media has turned everyone into a wellness expert. A gym selfie becomes proof of medical authority. A viral reel ...
Paywall science predicament: AI answers often skew toward misinformation
When researchers Matthew Magnani of the University of Maine and Jon Clindaniel of the University of Chicago tried prompting ChatGPT ...
Anti-vaccine activists are pushing the courts to allow doctors to spread disinformation about shot safety to patients
Doctors who give health advice to their patients or community that runs counter to the medical establishment face a rare ...
Is the longevity treatment boom over-hyped?
At Biograph, a longevity clinic with locations in New York City and San Francisco, an assessment day can last up to ...
Tyson foods on the defensive about ‘net zero’ and ‘climate smart’ beef claims
In late 2025, the global meat giant Tyson Foods agreed to a landmark settlement that bars it from describing its beef as “net‑zero” ...
Supplements to prevent cancer? They not only don’t work, they can damage your health
Dietary supplements are wildly popular, but large clinical trials and other research by Fred Hutch Cancer Center scientists show that ...
RFK, Jr.’s aversion to legislation raises the question: Will his revolution endure?
Over the course of his year in the Cabinet, Kennedy has racked up major wins for his Make America Healthy ...
Teaching AI to have a soul
As the resident philosopher of the tech company Anthropic, [Amanda] Askell spends her days learning Claude’s reasoning patterns and talking to the ...
Is there a way to stop climate disinformation? Spain has a plan
Propagandists flood our feeds with climate denial, conspiracy theories, and outrage to divide the public, inflame geopolitical tensions and destroy trust in ...
Anti-vaccine hysteria is leading to bleeding deaths in babies
For nearly 65 years, babies in the US have received a dose of vitamin K within hours of their birth ...
Trump-MAHA coalition near a breaking point?
Donald Trump issued an executive order [on February 18, 2026] to boost production of glyphosate, a widely used pesticide that’s ...
Tuskegee redux: RFK, Jr.’s unapproved, unethical vaccine experiment in Guinea-Bissau
[T]he grant request, marked as unsolicited, proposed a randomized controlled trial in the impoverished West African nation of Guinea-Bissau. The ...
AI-generated images are becoming a tool of government disinformation—even in the United States
Levy Armstrong’s arrest came less than two weeks after the killing of Renée Good in the snowy streets of south ...
Operation Stork Speed: RFK, Jr. targets baby formulas
When Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. summoned infant-formula executives to Washington last spring, he arrived with ...
Vaccines turbocharge cancer? Misinformation meme explodes online
Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, claims that vaccines can cause severe disease have been widespread on social media, ...
BBC reporter’s guide on how to hack AI to spread disinformation
A growing number of people have figured out a trick to make AI tools tell you almost whatever they want ...
Viewpoint—First year scorecard: ‘The damage HHS secretary Kennedy has done to science and public health is appalling’
It is beyond comprehension that the Senate confirmed [Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.] to oversee America’s health. The risks are so ...
Tens of millions of people rely on TikTok to understand ADHD, and that’s not good
A team led by researchers from the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Canada found that of the top 100 ...
‘We were lied to’: Will Trump’s order to increase the domestic supply of the weedkiller glyphosate split MAHA?
[T]he executive order Mr. Trump issued February 17 to increase domestic production of glyphosate — a widely used weedkiller and ...
Are you hardwired to have an affair?
As an evolutionary biologist who studies sex and relationships, I’m fascinated by these two truths. We humans make romantic commitments ...
Deepfakes raise profound ethical questions in science
Much of the public concern around deepfakes has focused on abuse, particularly non-consensual intimate imagery, political misinformation, and the erosion ...
Gene-edited foods are advancing fast—but commercialization and consumer acceptance lag
[A]s gene editing matures, another reality has come into focus. The science accelerates. Commercialization does not. That tension surfaced during ...
