Top 6
Viewpoint: UN’s ‘hand-in-glove’ alliance with anti-pesticide groups cripples response to Africa’s ravenous locust swarms
In a year devastated by locust plagues, the COVID-19 pandemic, and massive flooding that displaced over a hundred thousand people ...
Resurrection of phrenology? AI’s quest to link facial features and criminality has a shady Victorian legacy
'Phrenology’ has an old-fashioned ring to it. It sounds like it belongs in a history book, filed somewhere between bloodletting ...
Podcast: Ag Secretary Sonny Perdue interviews GLP’s Jon Entine on feeding the world sustainably through biotech innovation and challenging the ‘myth of organics’
Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue wants to welcome you to his very own podcast – “The Sonnyside of the Farm.” ...
The ‘Church of Nature’ and the sudden collapse of the cult of Extinction Rebellion
When a cult loses its grip on a person, a form of reawakening takes place. It involves having to return ...
Struggle to decide when kids should go back to school mirrors 1918 pandemic debate
During the influenza pandemic in 1918, even though the world was a very different place, the discussion [about whether to ...
Pesticide hypocrisy? EU edges toward banning glyphosate after finding it safe but clears organic copper sulfate after finding it a ‘public health and environment concern’
Of all the elements the EU considers in ag regulations, science gets the shortest shrift ...
Viewpoint: ‘Superfood’—a lucrative marketing term with no scientific basis
Walking through the grocery aisle, there is an overwhelming number of new superfoods to choose from. Hemp hearts are full ...
Dissecting male-female brain and behavior differences
People have searched for sex differences in human brains since at least the 19th century, when scientist Samuel George Morton ...
Stigmatization faced by people who underwent intersex surgeries to correct ambiguous genitalia
Eugene Robinson recovered from his double mastectomy on a hospital porch in Durham, North Carolina. It was August 1956, and ...
Chile poised to tackle food shortages and climate change with ‘Golden Apple’ and other CRISPR-edited crops
Chile’s intense political unrest exacerbated by months of COVID-19 quarantine has temporarily overshadowed a relentless environmental, farming crisis: an intense ...
5 things you should know if you have COVID and are asymptomatic
Blood tests that check for exposure to the coronavirus are starting to come online, and preliminary findings suggest that many ...
Podcast: Activism’s dark side—Earth Liberation Front bombs ‘GMO’ tree lab, destroys endangered plants instead
Law enforcement agencies keep a watchful eye on environmental groups that have engaged in eco-terrorism, notably Greenpeace and PETA, and ...
Viewpoint: Ideology, politics pollute the debate over health risks of red meat
For decades there has been a statistical controversy about meat. By statistical I mean it was never a real health ...
Debating group differences in intelligence: A conversation with philosopher Nathan Cofnas
Nathan Cofnas is an American philosopher and philosophy PhD Candidate at Oxford University. He is known for his works on ...
Viewpoint: Farm to Fork failure—How Europe’s ‘obsession’ with organics undermines the global sustainable farming movement
Europe’s quest to confront climate change and achieve carbon neutrality is being undermined by “Big Ag”? That’s not my claim. It’s the ...
Anti-GMO movement merging with anti-vaccine groups, escalating threat to global coronavirus response
As scientists around the world work at an unprecedented pace to develop a vaccine for COVID-19, anti-vaccine proponents are planting ...
Viewpoint: How prosperity and technology are defeating ‘environmental pessimism’
In 1980, the year that PERC was founded, I spent three months in the Himalayas working on a wildlife conservation ...
Viewpoint: ‘Health impact of chemicals doubled in last 5 years’? Gullible media misreporting flawed studies mislead the public
“Plastics and pesticides: Health impacts of synthetic chemicals in US products doubled in last 5 years, study finds," a July ...
Viewpoint: How body building culture and fad diets mislead consumers about protein
In most supermarket aisles you’re likely to come across at least one product that features ‘protein’ somewhere in the title ...
Viewpoint: Is there a scientific basis to ban gene drive technology that can rid us of virus-carrying rodents and mosquitoes?
Gene drives may be invaluable tools to control the spread of parasites, invasive species, and disease carriers. But the technology ...
Viewpoint: ‘All natural’ pet food is no better for Fido, and it’s terrible for the environment
Gone are the days when a proud new pet owner could waltz into the grocery store and pick up a ...
Why SARS disappeared in 2003 while the coronavirus keeps on spreading
The unusual cases of pneumonia began to appear in midwinter, in China. The cause, researchers would later learn, was a ...
‘Vaccine nationalism’: Will the spoils go to the victors in the vaccine race?
Hundreds of COVID-19 vaccine candidates are currently being developed. The way emerging vaccines will be distributed to those who need them ...
Why do humans mate in private? Instinct or morality?
A debate has emerged as to why humans mate in private while every other animal – except the Arabian babbler ...
‘No change in insect population sizes’: Massive North American study challenges ‘insect apocalypse’ claims
In recent years, the notion of an insect apocalypse has become a hot topic in the conservation science community and has ...
Viewpoint: Glyphosate-tainted hummus? Environmental Working Group’s latest pesticide scare short on facts
In the wake of a highly publicized legal settlement between Bayer, owner of former glyphosate-maker Monsanto, and lawyers representing plaintiffs ...
COVID-19 conspiracy theories give people the feeling of being in control
A few weeks ago, I took an uncomfortable trip down the rabbit hole of Covid-19 conspiracy theory videos. As a newly ...
Viewpoint: While ‘elitist academics’ praise local food ‘industrial farming’ feeds us during a pandemic
With the world COVID-19 pandemic in its sixth month, food activists are back to trumpeting locally grown, and even home ...
