Salon
Viewpoint: Misplaced MAHA health strategy: Remove products that science says are not necessarily harmful while slashing federal programs that work
While the decision to remove artificial food dyes is typically something people across the political spectrum can get on board ...
Appreciating music: What are the evolutionary links between humans and other animals
Historically, many thought that humans were the only animals that could recognize an external beat and synchronously move to it ...
Viewpoint: RFK, Jr. promises to ban comparatively safe dyes while the administration cuts programs that actually do protect public health
While the decision to remove artificial food dyes is typically something people across the political spectrum can get on board ...
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 ...
Systemic racism hurts minorities in accessing human eggs and donors
"Eggonomics: The Global Market in Human Eggs and the Donors Who Supply Them," a new book by University of Alabama ...
Understanding ego death: Psychedelics can be humbling for some people — but for others it inflates their egos. Why?
A commonly recounted experience with psychedelics is that it dissolves one’s ego, blurring the boundaries between ourselves and others ...
Octopuses are incredibly intelligent creatures. Should they receive more protection against scientific experimentation?
According to Dr. Barbara J. King, professor emerita of anthropology at the College of William & Mary and author of ...
How heirloom seeds help preserve genetic diversity
Safeguarding heirlooms may be more important now than ever, as the full scope of our current biodiversity emergency continues to come into ...
Can we ‘vacuum carbon dioxide from the atmosphere’ to fight global warming?
In August, the Biden Administration granted $1.2 billion in federal funding to kickstart a project intended to vacuum carbon dioxide up ...
‘Like veins in a leaf, rather than branches on a tree’: Updated human origin model illuminates how Homo sapiens arose in Africa
There's a promising new model for human origins in Africa — but scientists don't quite know what to do with ...
From a ‘chemical soup’ to complex life: Understanding the beginning of evolution of life on Earth
Did evolution occur before life even existed? New research illuminates the ancient processes from which the first life arose on ...
Grains, coffee and citrus are among foods threatened by rising temperatures. Some species may go completely extinct without new solutions
There are some ways in which we can definitely expect climate change to alter what we eat. Here are some ...
With climate change accelerating spread of aflatoxin mold in Midwest corn, farmers look to genetically modified seeds as key solution
Climate change is expanding the reach of aflatoxin, a chemical produced by a gray-green mold that infects corn crops and ...
A transgender woman says she’s breastfeeding her daughter during the formula shortage. Is that possible?
As America's baby formula shortage continues to inspire scammers and politicians alike, parents have become desperate for solutions. Sometimes they get so creative ...
Red-fleshed apples: The story behind the genetic anomaly with health and nutritional benefits
To an unsuspecting consumer, these delicate apples could easily be mistaken for the commonplace Gala or Braeburn varieties. But inside, ...
‘This a crop that not only does not exist in the wild, but could not exist in the wild’: Modern corn is humanity’s creation, for mostly better and some worse
While the 1,500 miles of America's corn belt might mislead you into thinking corn is a wild crop, it was ...
More than 50% of Americans accept the science of evolution — but only 32% of fundamentalist Christians
Americans are more scientifically literate than ever in 2021 — so much so that creationism has become a minority opinion. And ...
Viewpoint: Might embracing fake news and conspiracy theories serve as an evolutionary survival strategy?
Human beings have an evolutionary history, and deception is commonplace in the animal world because it confers evolutionary advantage. There's ...
‘If humans are so smart, why do women menstruate? Who thought that was a good idea?’ Interview with ‘Evolution Gone Wrong’ author Alexander Bezzerides
Okay, humans, if we're so smart, why do our backs hurt so much? Why do we cry? And menstruation, who ...
Viewpoint: Evolution is more than a Darwinian ‘selfish gene’ battle to the death
The idea that selfishness and greed are drivers of evolution, and therefore possess underlying virtue, has been around for over ...
Life on Earth originated on Mars? Here’s the intriguing case
Though the idea that life started on Mars before migrating on Earth sounds like some far-fetched sci-fi premise, many renowned ...
Understanding the ‘post-truth’ world: Is cognitive bias hard-wired?
One of the deepest roots of post-truth has been with us the longest, for it has been wired into our ...
Are all anti-vaxxers kooks? Here is one couple’s journey to vaccine rejection and what might change their minds
Anti-vaccine parents are deeply concerned with being good parents. They are college educated and usually members of the middle class ...
CRISPR breakthrough — gene edited lizards
According to a study published in the journal Cell Reports [August 27], a group of scientists at the University of Georgia successfully ...
While managed honeybees get all the attention, some native pollinators ‘dwindle toward extinction’
Those honeybees you’ve been fretting over are getting native bumblebees sick. A new study shows that viruses infecting domestic honeybees ...
Viewpoint: Even as a doctor, I didn’t understand my 23andMe breast cancer risk analysis
Anyone can order 23andMe — with less than $150 and a small tube of saliva, you can learn much about ...
De-extinction debate: Why we should bring back the woolly mammoth
De-extinction is just what it sounds like: taking a species that has gone extinct, and through cloning or genetic engineering, ...
Viewpoint: Vertical farming not nearly as feasible as popular media reports
[In] their efforts to develop a system that sustainably supplies cities with a large share of their food, theorists and ...
