Science Literacy Project Daily Digest
Viewpoint: Is the criticism of organic food justified?
If you spend any time on the internet in spaces where people talk about food, nutrition, and the environment, you’ve ...
Filling an ecological niche in a post-human world’: Why octopuses could succeed humans as Earth’s dominant species
[S]peculative fiction author Ray Nayler published "The Mountain in the Sea," his first novel, depicting a not-too-distant future in which ...
Worse than Darth Vader disease: Rare genetic disorder leads to chronic insomnia and eventual death
Fatal familial insomnia, a rare genetic disease that causes sleeping difficulties, dementia, and involuntary muscle twitching, has no cure and ...
U.S. spy agencies split on whether Havana Syndrome brain-injury like symptoms caused by a foreign adversary
White House officials [said] that the truth behind the mysterious ailments known as Havana Syndrome was still unknown, contradicting a ...
Video: Intransigent vegans: Look what happened when a financially-tottering California restaurant added regeneratively-farmed meat to its menu
A vegan restaurant chain has been forced to close for good following furious customers criticizing them for putting meat and ...
Will AI robots ever be safe enough to fully welcome them into our homes?
The world might seem to be on the brink of a humanoid-robot heyday. [B]reakthroughs in artificial intelligence promise the type ...
RFK Jr. is leading the latest attack on conventional medicine
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a wellness influencer who is also President-Elect Donald Trump’s pick for Secretary of Health and Human ...
‘Race’ and cancer therapy: Here’s why Black people are least likely to be helped by today’s genetically-targeted treatments
Nearly half of all new cancer drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) over the past quarter-century ...
Pork from gene-edited disease resistant pigs should be on grocery shelves in 2025
[R]eports suggest that gene editing could bring us disease-resistant pork as soon as 2025. It’s been thirty years since the ...
Poop is helping to feed the world. Really
A new industrial facility in suburban Seattle is giving off a whiff of futuristic technology. It can safely treat fecal ...
The controversy over ultra-processed foods: Some are healthy, some are not
[One] study is helping to answer a pressing nutrition question: Which ultra-processed foods are harming our health—and which might not ...
The science is overwhelming that vaccines are not linked to autism. So why are rates rising?
When President-elect Donald J. Trump mused in [a] television interview about whether vaccines cause autism — a theory that has been ...
Gem the cocker spaniel: How the British are circumnavigating the country’s cloning ban
At first glance, Gem is simply a very happy spaniel. With a plush toy in her mouth, she is the ...
Viewpoint: U.S. taxpayer funded UN sub-agency International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC)’s broken cancer evaluation system hurts consumers and the regulatory process
TPAF [Taxpayers Protection Alliance Foundation] has even been able to use FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] requests to hold global ...
Bioenergy: Booster gene could naturally jump plant growth 30%
A gene called Booster has been identified in poplar trees that boosts photosynthesis and growth by up to 200% in controlled ...
35 years after Alar hysteria devastated the apple industry, there are more varieties than ever before. What happened?
[I]n 1989 the apple industry was hit with the notorious “Alar Scare” when the environmental group NRDC asserted that a ...
The science behind water fluoridation: What is hysteria, what fears are justified?
Water fluoridation is supported by a robust body of evidence. Numerous epidemiological studies have demonstrated significant reductions in cavities in ...
Out of Africa? Intriguing evidence that early humans may have moved from Europe into Africa not the other way around
For decades, common scientific knowledge has held that homo sapiens—human beings as we know them today—evolved in Africa some 200,000 years ago ...
Here are some animal stars who brought us wonder and joy in 2024
Every year has its breakout stars, and 2024 yielded a bumper crop: Glen Powell, Chappell Roan, Pommel Horse Guy. But only one had ...
Viewpoint: Dark money and straw donor schemes—How Patagonia is corrupting politics under the guise of saving our planet
The newest front in dark money’s war on election transparency shares an address with Patagonia, according to [a] complaint. The ...
Global farming revolution since the 1960s: ‘A miracle of science, technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship
The global production of six major food and animal feed crops (corn, wheat, rice, soybeans, cassava, and millet) has dramatically ...
Viewpoint: NGO claim that crop pesticides has led to hundreds of thousands of poisoning deaths has proven false but activists don’t retract it
“A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.” The sentence in the ...
How ‘clean food’ ingredients are opening a new frontier in skin care
The promise to support skin health, the immune system and the microbiome, among other benefits, is driving parts of the ...
Interspecies translation: Here’s how humans and animals may soon be able to talk
In 2025 we will see AI and machine learning leveraged to make real progress in understanding animal communication, answering a ...
8 breakthroughs in science during 2024
Scientists are making new discoveries every day. Although some may fly under the radar, many of these findings are groundbreaking ...
What defines ‘Regenerative Agriculture’ and does it deliver real benefits?
While explicit promotion of “Regenerative Agriculture” is a relatively recent trend, it’s practical implementation typically involves a combination of already ...
Extreme weather is threatening global food supplies. What can be done?
As the world grapples with the challenge of feeding a growing population against an increasingly unstable backdrop, leading journal Science ...
