Reading Time: 11 minutes It’s been a rough few days for anyone following flu season data. While China has eased zero-COVID restrictions in the face of protests, despite currently experiencing a surge in case count (along with Japan), North American hospitals face what the American Medical Association is openly calling a “tripledemic”: a wave of flu, Respiratory Syncytial Virus […]
evolution
The startling world of plant intelligence
Reading Time: 5 minutes They don’t sense human emotion, but plants have some surprising talents. They can hear, see, learn, communicate and remember.
What do trees say to each other?
Reading Time: 5 minutes The more we look, the more intelligence we find in nature. Even trees are capable of communicating, sharing resources, and responding to their environment.
On brain cells, Pong, and a major problem with science journalism
Reading Time: 9 minutes Everything old is new again, in the world of mainstream reporting on scientific progress. That’s why you can be forgiven for déjà vu if you read this week about cells trained to interact in an environment mimicking the video game Pong. Wait a second, you might have told yourself: Didn’t we do this already? And […]
Fish fossils aid the search for human origins
Reading Time: 2 minutes Perhaps the greatest question driving science—and human thought in general—is the mystery of origins. This question has manifested itself in myriad shapes and sizes: our fascination with the Big Bang, the birth of our Earth, the evolution of our own species, and even our own individual genealogies. Especially as many have turned away from religion—the […]
Surprise! The Nobel goes to evolutionary sciences, not COVID research
Reading Time: 4 minutes Swedish geneticist Svante Pääbo joined a rare group this morning: not just of Nobel Prize winners, but of “family Nobels”. His father, Karl Sune Detlof Bergström, shared the 1982 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with Bengt I. Samuelsson and John R. Vane, for work related to local-tissue hormones, or “prostaglandins”. Forty years later, that award went solely […]
Campaign ad targets Darren Bailey’s insane fundamentalist Christian beliefs
Reading Time: 4 minutes In a remarkable new ad from Illinois Governor J. B. Pritzker, the incumbent Democrat goes after his challenger, Republican Darren Bailey, for running a fundamentalist Christian school that lies to kids using textbooks from Bob Jones University Press. It’s been a rare treat this election cycle to watch Democrats condemn Republicans for being too extreme […]
The evolution of religion and the rise of the nones
Reading Time: 4 minutes The decline of Christianity in the United States does not mean that “religion” is dead or dying. News of the death of religion may excite humanists, but it is unlikely to go extinct. Religion is an adaptable social phenomenon. Religious beliefs and behaviors have always evolved. In a free country, this evolution will continue. Secularism […]
The conflict avoiders
Part 3 of 3, When science goes south | Part 1 | Part 2 We wanted the assistant principal’s head on a platter. But some things mattered more.
The Word
[Part 2 in the three-part series “When science goes south.” Part 1 here] Quick recap. My 9-year-old daughter won a national Evolution and Art contest. Her school’s assistant principal, Ms. Warner, said the principal would interview her about it on the school’s morning news program. But they wouldn’t be calling it an Evolution and Art […]