Top 6 Six
Wellness influencer nonsense: No, nicotine does not boost cognition and productivity, but it can damage your health
If you spend any time on social media, you may have noticed a curious trend: wellness influencers singing the praises ...
Food labels, decoded: What they really mean
Here I am at Costco, getting far too many things for my family of four. As I try to navigate ...
Viewpoint: Is Trump turning against RFK, Jr.’s vaccine rejectionism?
Every fall, I scramble to get my garden hoses into storage before the first deep freeze. Like clockwork, every spring, ...
Hypnagogic state: The twilight zone between sleep and wakefulness is a creative sweet spot. Here’s how you can make it work for you
The Beatles’ song Yesterday was written in what psychologists refer to as the “hypnagogic state”. This is the twilight zone ...
From ideology to engineering: As green opposition to nuclear energy softens, the debate shifts to what can scale
For years, the country’s major environmental groups stood shoulder to shoulder against nuclear power. That unanimity may be starting to ...
Send women to jail for decades for having an abortion? Extremist Republicans get pushback, even from some in their own party
When a trio of Republican state lawmakers introduced a bill last year that would subject women who obtain abortions to ...
Viewpoint: The extremist right degraded the public conversation after its massive infiltration of the internet and social media. AI is their next target
How can society police the global spread of online far-right extremism while still protecting free speech? That’s a question policymakers ...
Nine deadly vaccine myths that RFK, Jr. and MAHA promote
In consulting rooms across America, physicians face a challenge that no medical school prepared them for. A parent arrives with ...
Viewpoint: When it comes to chemicals in medicine and agriculture, ‘natural’ is often less safe than synthetic
Almost nothing in your life is natural. And that’s a good thing. Take a look around—your smartphone, your fridge, your ...
Viewpoint: Why has organic and sustainable farming veered so far away from the scientific evidence?
The Trump administration’s US$700 million Regenerative Pilot Program, announced in late 2025, is one of the most significant federal investments ...
Social media gullibility: Challenging student’s increasing embrace of conspiracy theories
Mike Evans knew something had to change. As the lead instructor for American Government 1101 at Georgia State University in ...
Viewpoint: Lancet’s reputation as a leading science journal takes another hit in its capitulation to MAHA fearmongering over ultra-processed food
The new Lancet Series on ultra-processed foods (UPFs) draws on decades of global data, mechanistic evidence, and more than 100 ...
Chemophobia & Monetized Activism: Year in Review
Chemophobia — the reflexive fear that “chemicals” are inherently dangerous — stokes public anxiety about health and the environment. It ...
Viewpoint — Lysenkoism 2.0: RFK, Jr. is more dangerous than the 1930s Soviet scientist Trofim Lysenko, whose crackpot views killed millions of people and set back Russian science for decades
We don’t need to look to dystopian authoritarian theocracies portrayed in science fiction novels and movies to know that it ...
Deadly Rise of Wellness Grift: Year in Review
Over the past year, the MAHA-based wellness industry has emerged as a direct threat to public health. Robert F. Kennedy ...
There is no clear evidence (yet) that microplastics is driving soaring under-50 cancer rate increase, but they are a serious and growing health threat
Links between environmental exposures and increases in cancer rates take time to emerge. They range from community-wide disasters, like the ...
Yummy goldenberries with their pineapple-mango taste could transform via gene editing into a mass grocery market star
Goldenberries taste like a cross between pineapple and mango, pack the nutritional punch of a superfood, and are increasingly popular ...
Viewpoint: In trying to link aluminum in vaccines to autism, RFK, Jr. unsurprisingly again bungles the science
RFK Jr is a liar. Full stop. He has been for decades — it’s what has led to his profitable ...
Viewpoint: Toxic politics and the culture wars—MIT’s ‘Undark’ caves to the MAHA—RFK, Jr.—predatort lobby
Few issues reveal the corrosion of scientific reasoning in contemporary politics more clearly than the escalating fight over the alleged ...
From creating healthy menus to eliminating food waste, AI is transforming the link between food and health
Across the food system, AI is being harnessed for good—helping consumers make smarter nutritional choices, waste less food, and even ...
Power, culture, and identity: How did milk get caught in the crosshairs of the culture wars
Milk is one of the most familiar things in the world – comforting, wholesome, ordinary. But beneath this common perception ...
Can you really become addicted to food?
People often joke that their favorite snack is “like crack” or call themselves “chocoholics” in jest. But can someone really ...
Treating Huntington’s
During my neurology rotation as a medical student, one of my first patients was in the middle stage of much-dreaded ...
RFK, Jr.’s bungled science on thimerosal and vaccines
Mercury, the element, is no longer used in thermometers, but it remains at the center of a decades-long debate over ...
Viewpoint: Tylenol causes autism? Diet Coke brain tumors? Ice cream shark attacks? None of the claims is true—unless you’re an activist or a tort lawyer
Every week, the headlines blare a new health apocalypse: “Diet soda causes depression!” “Tylenol in pregnancy linked to autism!” “Pesticides ...
The next front in the U.S.–China trade war: Beijing’s control of life-saving medicines?
The U.S.–China trade conflict reignited this past week when Beijing announced it would expand export controls on rare earth minerals ...
Sugar-sweetened beverages: The health impact of soda, sweetened waters, fruit drinks, coffee and other SSBs
Sugar-sweetened beverages, the liquid delight promising a moment of joy and delivering a lifetime (?) of regret. Positioned as a ...
