Journalists have primarily depicted the overdose issue as a narrative of three interlinked and maybe inevitable waves. First, pharmaceutical corporations, spearheaded by Purdue Pharma, the producer of the infamous OxyContin, persuaded doctors to prescribe unnecessary opioids. In the 1990s and 2000s, this resulted in hundreds of thousands of new addictions. Opioid prescription has been associated…
The lyric “I’m going to live forever” appears in the chorus of Fame’s theme song, delivered by actress Irene Cara. Cara was, of course, singing about Fame’s ability to grant posthumous longevity. However, a physical manifestation of this arrogance may be found in some parts of the world, particularly in the technology industry. Immortality is…
Biosecurity researchers presented the world’s first complete map of maximum biological containment facilities on Thursday. Those labs, designated in the United States as Biosafety Level 4 (BSL-4) labs, deal with the deadliest diseases in high-security environments ranging from pressurized “spacesuits” to air-locked labs and had never been included in a consolidated database until today. The…
Scientists from a variety of fields and organizations have been struggling with Western science’s brutal colonial legacies. Efforts to name and untangle those legacies have grown in areas ranging from archaeology to public health to natural history, particularly in the aftermath of last year’s racial justice demonstrations.A new paper published in the journal Nature Ecology…
The HI-SEAS facility, which resembles an enlarged golf ball, is located somewhere along with Mauna Loa in Hawai’i. Six modest rooms, a bathroom, a kitchen, a research lab, and a relaxing space are located within the dome. It’s encircled on the outside by solar panels and is connected to a storage container. All of this…
Aging is an unavoidable aspect of being alive. Humans, on the other hand, have spent decades attempting to halt this natural process. Consumers wanting a youthful appearance have been targeted by a slew of therapies promising to turn back the clock—renew your skin, sharpen your mind, and relieve achiness in your joints and muscles. The…
A team of physicists at Fermi National Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois, reported unusual behavior in the muon’s magnetic wobble in April. The signal shows that there are factors at work in the particle’s behavior that the Standard Model doesn’t expect (see “Long-Awaited Muon Measurement Boosts Evidence for New Physics”). However, as physicist Sabine Hossenfelder explains…
We’re entering a new era of personalized medicine, in which each patient’s cancer therapy is tailored to their genetic composition. Individual tumors can be genetically profiled, and the exact mutations underlying them can be identified through genomic testing. Clinical trials are used to evaluate novel medication candidates or to investigate novel applications for current medications.…
New York became one of only a few states to legalize recreational marijuana this year when it did so in March. Cannabis, both medical and recreational, is now legal in more states than unlawful, increasing state-regulated grow operations across the US.Researchers from all across the country, including the Cannabis Research Center at the University of…
The BBC broadcasted an interview with US Special Envoy for Climate Change John Kerry and journalist Andrew Marr. Marr posed a series of challenging questions on America’s climate policies, including coal phaseout, carbon footprints, and green innovation.When asked if Americans will have to cut back on some regions of their carbon-intensive lives, such as eating…