Science Literacy Project Daily Digest
Insect farming (and eating) is booming in Africa but a backlash is growing
Insect farming is rapidly becoming a key player in sustainable. ... [I] as the fastest-growing sustainable protein industry in the ...
Feeding the Future: CRISPR gene editing key to preserving crop genetic diversity
Excessive farming of domesticated plants over the wild-type cultivars could threaten the conservation of the wild-type genetic variant causing genetic ...
Viewpoint: ‘Fake science’ and ‘conspiracy theories’ likely if Trump wins and appoints RFK, Jr. ‘health czar’
“I’m going to be deeply involved in helping to choose the people who can run F.D.A. and N.I.H. and C.D.C.,” ...
How Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” inspired today’s misplaced chemophobia and endangers public health
[C]hemophobia has roots in the heart of the modern environmental movement. [In] 1962, biologist Rachel Carson published Silent Spring, a book ...
Brain-tracking headphones can improve focus but they raise privacy concerns
Activity trackers have come a long way. No longer mere step-counters, they can monitor your heart rate, blood oxygen level, and ...
‘Growing food in space isn’t exactly a walk in the park’
Picture a future where astronauts harvest fresh lettuce on the Moon and bake bread on Mars. It might sound like ...
Corruption, water scarcity, and outdated farming are undermining food security in Africa
Africa is grappling with a severe food insecurity crisis, with over 282 million people undernourished and more than a billion unable to ...
With urban expansion and reductions in arable land, vertical farming is thrust into the limelight
Vertical farming promises to revolutionize how we produce food in urban and extreme environments by optimizing plant growth through dynamic ...
Genetically modified mosquitoes could strengthen war on malaria
It’s been 127 years since British medical doctor Sir Ronald Ross discovered that mosquitoes in the Anopheles family are primarily responsible for transmitting malaria ...
Is there a market for hydroponically grown food?
Consumer behavior around food production remains largely disconnected from how the food they consume is actually grown. "The majority of ...
Viewpoint: What do social conservatives really believe about IVF?
[S]eemingly stung by Kamala Harris’s assertion that IVF treatments have been curtailed “under Donald Trump’s abortion bans,” the former Republican ...
Once a pariah, genetically edited plants are coming to your garden center
The introduction of genetically modified plants into the consumer market brings with it both exciting opportunities and potential challenges. With ...
In the age of gene therapy, what does ‘being cured’ mean?
Gene therapy comes with the expectation that it will “cure” an expanding number of genetic disorders. If you’ve never wondered ...
Pet owners are pushing for more sustainable food options
Pet food consumers are more likely to switch brands or products due to concerns about sustainability, according to a recent ...
AI enables first indoor vertical farm dedicated to berry production
Plenty Unlimited Inc. has launched the world’s first large-scale, indoor vertical farm dedicated to berry production. ... This marks a ...
Contrasting European Union and United States approaches toward sustainability and agricultural genetic modification
The food industry plays a key role in feeding the global population, but as the number of people is continuously ...
Do we need to regulate testosterone clinics?
Nowadays, men in their 40s ... are constantly being urged to get their testosterone levels checked, as private clinics and ...
Calorie dense beverages are exceeding what our bodies have evolved to handle
Humans started drinking the equivalent of very, very light beer 13,000 years ago. And we may have consumed milk from livestock as ...
Voice cracks and menstruation periods: What was maturation like for ancient teenagers
Landmark new research shows Ice Age teens from 25,000 years ago went through similar puberty stages as modern-day adolescents. In ...
Avian flu on US farms could remain forever. Here’s what that may mean for human health
Bird flu has been spreading in dairy cows in the US—and the scale of the spread is likely to be ...
Book excerpt: What’s the evolutionary role of the placenta, the only organ that humans shed completely
"Human evolution has occurred both due to, and in spite of, the placenta. Every pregnancy, unthinkingly, must navigate a careful ...
Can the delayed evolution of humans on Earth help explain why we have not been visited by aliens?
[T]he Earth is 4.6 billion years old, and life began about 4 billion years ago, yet humans—the only intelligent, technological ...
Wild wheat: Genetically-tweaked varieties that are not just climate-resilient, but also environmentally regenerative or in the wings
Modern wheat can thank its “wild relatives” — grassy cousins millions of years old and tested through extremes of earth’s ...
Viewpoint: Mass litigation targeting glyphosate could put beet farmers out of business
Glyphosate is used on 98% of Idaho's sugar beet acres, allowing those farmers to contribute over $385 million to our ...
A lack of funding in agriculture is crippling Africa’s smallholder farms and exacerbating an already present food crisis
[D]espite the estimated 41 million smallholder farmers in Africa producing food, many countries are still grappling with food crisis. The ...
Viewpoint: ‘There is no solid evidence’: ADHD diagnoses are on the rise, but the science evidence suggests it’s probably a statistical artifact
Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is one of the most commonly diagnosed neurodevelopment disorders and seems to be on the rise, in ...
COVID took a toll on teenage victims? Can we fix them?
Research has shown that the pandemic exacerbated teen mental health issues, as the lockdown severed connections between young people at the most critical ...
