Slate
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How do religious COVID vaccine exemptions work — and how do you prevent people from abusing them?
The idea of a religious exemption as a concept has a long and complicated history in the U.S., but it ...
Musician Nicki Minaj hesitates to get a COVID vaccine because it ‘caused a friend of a friend to become impotent’. Let’s review the evidence
Nicki Minaj turned a lot of heads [September 13] when she told her 22 million followers on Twitter that she ...
‘Last and only hope’: With global banana crop under siege from fungal disease, CRISPR may be only remaining solution
The banana as we know it is in trouble. Emerging reports suggest the fruit’s deadliest disease has been spotted in ...
Brains make the difference: Here’s the root of human self-reflection and self awareness
Editor’s note: This is an excerpt from Know Thyself: The Science of Self-Awareness by Stephen M. Fleming. What is it ...
‘Stop conflating all biotechnology with genetic engineering’: The case for more refined USDA regulations
Policymakers had known for years that the U.S. regulation of crop biotechnology was out of date, and by 2016, discussions ...
Beyond GM crops: Climate-friendly sheep and biofactory goats expand horizons of genetic engineering
If GMO plants now occupy 11% of cultivated areas in the world, only one genetically modified animal is currently authorized ...
Podcast: Science writer Michael Specter on what you should know about the coronavirus, food security and GMOs
Science writer, New Yorker contributor and author of the book Denialism Michael Specter joins Felix Salmon on the Slate Money ...
Promises and pitfalls of treating aging like a disease
Over the years, the movement to classify aging as a disease has gained momentum not only from longevity enthusiasts but ...
Viewpoint: China’s coronavirus is getting all the attention, but this year’s flu season is more frightening
What we appear to be having this year is a flu-the-trickster season. And while that new coronavirus is getting a lot of attention, ...
Was Darwin wrong about ‘survival of the fittest’? Collaboration may be just as natural as competition
To put it simply, we have let Darwinism set the horizon of possibility for human behavior. Competition has become a ...
‘Genome doping’: Gene-edited babies could change the world of athletics
With the taboo on human gene editing in the process of being shattered, children whose genomes have been modified before ...
Viewpoint: Legal crusade against Bayer’s Roundup herbicide threatens fish and wildlife
You’ve seen the ads flooding television and social media: “Have you been exposed to weed killer Roundup? If you have ...
Accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein’s obsession with scientists: ‘He collects beautiful minds’
As the New York Times reported [July 31], [Jeffrey] Epstein’s “passion for cutting-edge science” at times verged into eugenics. Multiple ...
‘The numbers’ tell us that anti-vaxxers may not be to blame for recent measles outbreaks
On June 5, the number of measles cases in the U.S. this year passed 1,000, a milestone the country last ...
Viewpoint: ‘Astrology-style answers’ show the darker side of consumer genetic tests
[T]he same thing that drives some people toward astrology drives others toward mail-in test kits: People want to learn more ...
Podcast: Is the ‘bliss gene’ real?
In the interview, Maria Konnikova is back for another round of “Is That Bullshit?” Because Mike experiences less anxiety than ...
Viewpoint: Lab-grown meat may hinder effort to develop a ‘just food future’
At the 2019 Milken Global Conference, which brings together business and public policy leaders to explore how market-based solutions could ...
‘Crisis-level precautions’: How hospitals fight new era of superbugs
[Superbug Candida auris can] survive for weeks outside a patient—on sinks and mattresses, door knobs and bedside tables. To eradicate ...
Viewpoint: No, we don’t need a moratorium on germline gene editing
Should researchers put the brakes on genetically engineering babies? Leading scientists and ethicists recently called for a moratorium on clinical applications of germline ...
Fears of gene editing in the US could be stoked by Russian disinformation attacks
[There’s a] risk to gene drive research that has flown under the radar. This threat combines legitimate concerns about the ...
Should we strive to engineer better humans?
While proposals like cognitive or moral enhancements to help create a less doomsday-prone population are quite speculative (and on occasion, ...
Artificial intelligence could manage our health. But can we trust it?
In May, [startup Beta Bionics] received Food and Drug Administration approval to start clinical trials on what it calls a “bionic pancreas ...
Roundup for breakfast? Checking the math on claims that glyphosate infects breakfast foods
No one wants .... to give their children a breakfast that is contaminated with weed killer. That’s why a new ...
Does glyphosate cause cancer? Jury says says ‘yes’ but years of research show the herbicide is safe
Can anyone make sense of the debate over glyphosate, the active molecule in the most widely used herbicide [Roundup] in ...
Don’t expect ‘instantaneous eureka moment’ in search for alien life
From War of the Worlds and Arrival to SETI and Stephen Hawking, both pop culture and scientists feed the expectation that the discovery of extraterrestrial life will ...
Viewpoint: Here’s why the controversial field of epigenetics is ‘so alluring’
I think of stories I’ve been told about my grandmother in 1945 Japan. … It feels plausible, and poetic, to ...
Viewpoint: It’s time to stop ‘connecting race to intelligence’
The race-and-IQ debate is back. The latest round started a few weeks ago when Harvard geneticist David Reich wrote a ...
Viewpoint: Population declines are a greater crisis than extinctions
Forget extinctions. Population decline is a much greater crisis. ... We watch for extinctions like those with the thought that, ...
