SCIENTIFIC SOCIETY

Central America, and especially its Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, are front and center in the Biden administration’s foreign policy priorities. These countries face major challenges in terms of insecurity, corruption, joblessness and vulnerability to...

Children are natural negotiators. When taking on a tired parent, a six-year-old can adeptly turn five minutes more at the playground to 10 minutes more, the “last” episode into “just one more” and a kiddie-sized ice cream cone into...

In the 1980s, scientists discovered that oyster mushrooms are carnivores. The delicious, inescapable inference is that they’re the only vegan food that can itself eat meat. The meat in question is definitely meat, too. Nematodes, also called roundworms, are little...

If you’re thinking about the COVID pandemic as an assault against physical health alone, you’ve got it all wrong. The statistics on illness and death are staggering—but there’s been an equally staggering toll exacted on our mental health. Nearly...

There was almost a religious reverence in the hush that descended upon the audience at the beginning of a Stephen Hawking lecture. Typically, every seat was taken, and if the fire marshals weren’t a force to be reckoned with,...

About 15 million years after the big bang, the entire universe had cooled to the point where the electromagnetic radiation left over from its hot beginning was at about room temperature. In a 2013 paper, I labeled this phase...

Pulmonary fibrosis (PF) is an uncommon and frequently fatal lung disease, and the road to diagnosis can be long and difficult. No one is certain how many people are affected by PF. Research estimates that idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF),...

In November and December of 2020, with COVID cases rising across the nation, state and city leaders across the U.S. imposed restrictions to curb the spread ahead of the holiday season. The Centers for Disease Control even recommended that...

The items below are highlights from the free newsletter, “Smart, useful, science stuff about COVID-19.” To receive newsletter issues daily in your inbox, sign up here. About 30 percent of the U.S. now has received at least one dose of...

Celeste Warren is vice president of the Global Diversity Center of Excellence at Merck, one of the leading pharmaceutical companies worldwide. She understands what it takes to have an inclusive setting for the workforce. “You want a diverse workforce,...