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For two decades, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, which advises the Pope on scientific issues, has made wise observations about the importance of molecular techniques for genetic modification and the most appropriate approaches to regulating them. It's a cardinal sin that most of the world has ignored them.

In the Northeast, honeysuckle – perhaps the sweetest smelling flower around – is blooming. It's not just sweet it’s also easily identified. What chemicals make honeysuckle smell so good? You may be surprised.

The media have sounded smoke alarms throughout the Northeast this week, for good reason. We haven’t seen air this bad since the 1960s when heavy (and dirty) fuel oil was the heating medium of choice. The main culprit was particulate matter from black smoke, especially severe in the winter heating seasons. Now we see dirty skies emanating from Canadian forest fires transported by unfavorable wind conditions.

A recent study linking marijuana use to schizophrenia attracted widespread attention. Now that the excitement has died down, let's take a closer look at the science. How does Pfizer's weight-loss pill compare to Ozempic, the obesity treatment beloved by celebrities the world over?

Paratek, an antibiotic biotech first established in 1996 has finally met its end. Its story is long, sad, predictable, predicted and its end completely preventable.

“As the field of transgender health care has transitioned from pathologizing patients to a gender-affirming and patient-centered model and from an understanding of gender as binary to a fuller picture of gender as a spectrum, its associated diagnoses have similarly evolved.” An article in JAMA’s newest spinoff, Journal of Ethics, tries to explore the benefits and problems of a medical diagnosis.

Australia plans to turn e-cigarettes into prescription drugs and will ban people from buying them without a doctor’s prescription. Vaping retailers publicly vow they will move to the underground. We have seen this prohibition movie before. It doesn’t have a happy ending.

New York State's legislators are about to place drastic restrictions on neonicotinoids ("neonics"), a popular, safe, and effective class of pesticides. They're putting the bogus claims of activists ahead of the welfare of consumers and farmers. Let's hope Governor Hochul will be more sensible and veto the bill.

Even as the Surgeon General bemoans the dangers of social media to young people, several states are enacting laws allowing those 14 and over to work without permits, reversing child labor laws enacted almost a century ago. How did we get to the point of curtailing the protection of our most vulnerable segment of the population?

Thalidomide, one of the most infamous drugs of all, caused severe birth defects in the children of pregnant women who took the drug for nausea in the 1950s. Its story has been repeated over and over – mostly wrong. Here's why.

Color me concerned?
Walking About
What does Saudi Arabia have in common with Arizona?
Does the duck-rabbit illusion explain our polarization?

It's finally time to consider Safe and Just Earth System Boundaries proposals to reclaim and reset Earth Systems Boundaries. First up, the three most significant (at least in my view): climate, water, and nutrients. The authors of the paper in Nature challenged us to read their proposals and then discuss them. In the spirit of that challenge, I will let them do the talking.

Let us consider Nature's remaining proposals to reclaim and reset the Biosphere and aerosol pollution. The authors challenged us to read their proposals and then discuss them. In the spirit of that challenge, I have let them do the talking (to be found in the quotes). But I do want to share a few final thoughts.

Russia's decades-old propaganda machine is vast and vicious. Its goal is to damage the health and prosperity of the country's adversaries, especially the United States.

In December, a federal judge dismissed 50,000 Zantac cases because the scientific evidence establishing cancer causation didn’t pass legal muster. In March, a California state judge reached the opposite conclusion. What happens next?

Science and law are both relatively recent human creations. Applied science made its appearance well before its written version. The people of the British Isles erected Stonehenge, and the Egyptians built the pyramids. The science of that time was goal-directed, finding a better way to live in the world and connect with the controlling powers of their gods. Today, science has taken on new roles, especially in understanding those controlling powers and seeking ways to better predict and manage them.

In Part I, I presented a precis of the methodology the authors of Nature’s Earth System Boundaries had for the “… multiple levels of likelihoods to reflect underlying scientific uncertainties and variabilities.” As their findings “are meant as a transparent proposal for further debate” let’s now consider and debate the more contentious methodology underlying their proposed action – justice.

The nightly news often brings a surfeit of environmental disasters: forest fires, floods, tornados, drought, iceberg melting. What have we done to deserve them? Here I draw on various sources of climate change data to provide some understanding of what may lie ahead.

“Humans are taking colossal risks with the future of civilization and everything that lives on Earth.” So begins a report in Nature attempting to quantify Safe and Just Earth boundaries. The findings “are meant as a transparent proposal for further debate and refinement by scholars and wider society.” I took them at their word; let’s consider and then debate their proposals.

One of the (many) overhyped "miracle cures" we're seeing constantly is apple cider vinegar. Sure sounds nice, right? Of the dozens of health claims about the stuff perhaps the claim that it treats heartburn and acid reflux makes the least sense since vinegar is acidic enough to dissolve steel wool. What's the deal?

The virus leads to approximately 60,000-120,000 hospitalizations and 6,000-10,000 deaths yearly in people over 65 in the U.S. It also threatens young children and pediatric vaccine approvals are expected soon.

A recent prospective study of post-surgical patients confirms what many other studies have already shown: prescribing opioids to control pain carries a very low risk of addiction or misuse.

The Agency's drug approval and enforcement actions are falling through the cracks, while regulators are squandering time and resources on insubstantial trivia.

Congestion pricing
Visually literacy requires us to go slow
A fork in the fertilizer path
African American English

Nitrates – widely used preservatives – are found in a variety of foods. Are they good or bad? After all, they can form nitrosamines, recognized carcinogens. A new study uses the metaphor of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde to separate science truth from science fiction. Here’s what I learned.