A bill recently introduced in the California State Assembly would prohibit five chemicals: brominated vegetable oil, potassium bromate, polyparaben, red dye #3, and titanium dioxide – all banned in Europe – from food products in California. Let’s dig past the headline.

"Medical scribes" transcribe information during clinical visits in real time into electronic health records (EHRs) under physician supervision. That frees physicians to focus on the patient. 

Dr. Fauci, speaking on vaccinations: “Past unsuccessful attempts to elicit solid protection against mucosal respiratory viruses [COVID-19] and to control the deadly outbreaks and pandemics they cause," he said, "have been a scientific and public health failure that must be urgently addressed.” That's a lot to unpack.

No matter how you slice it "Jamaican vomiting sickness" is something you want to avoid. You can do so by not eating the ackee fruit, a staple of that Caribbean nation – or at least waiting until it's ripe. Here's a lesson about metabolic toxicity wrapped in a mini-travelogue.

Mega journals – peer-reviewed, open-access publishing of more than 2,000 articles annually – provided 6% of 2015’s scientific literature. Today, they publish nearly 25%. An opinion piece written in part by Dr. John Ioannidis, the researcher that everyone loves to hate or hates to love, considers the consequence of mega journals increasing dominance.

Are we plant blind?
Artificial heart
Thinking Out Loud to Yourself
Academia, metaphorically speaking

Borlaug was a brilliant scientist and plant breeder, but the other secrets of his success were his perseverance and persuasiveness.

Advances in technology will continue to affect our lives in myriad ways. Technology Review magazine recently picked ten of the potentially most important ones. Let's see what we have to look forward to.

Does masking reduce the transmission of SARS-CoV-2? The Cochrane Collaboration tried to analyze the messy evidence and re-ignited an incendiary political debate. What conclusion should we draw from their findings? There's lots of misinformation out there; there's also rampant misinformation about misinformation. Don't be fooled by either of them.

A long life free of disease and illness is preferable for many of us. The evolving science behind life expectancy gives us clues on how to achieve this goal by looking at eight risk factors – the ones most under your control – that can add years to your life and, evidently, life to your years.