Wastewater-based epidemiology, the process of monitoring health indicators through sewage, has become a common way to track the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID. But before 2020 scientists were using the technology to follow a different public health threat: the opioid crisis. Just as sewage data can fill gaps in SARS-CoV-2 tracking, this… Continue reading The Opioid Crisis Is Now Being Tracked with Wastewater
Borders, Migrants, & the State of the Union
Very soon, “Catholic” President Biden will address Americans at the 2024 State of the Union. No matter what spin he puts on things, Americans must know that the state of our nation is gravely imperiled by many of Biden’s failed policies – most especially, his misguided “compassion” regarding immigration that egregiously violates Catholic social teaching… Continue reading Borders, Migrants, & the State of the Union
Climate Concern Grows Nationwide, Even in Some Republican States
CLIMATEWIRE | American voters are increasingly concerned about global warming, a new national public opinion analysis found, but that hasn’t changed the deeply partisan lens through which voters still view climate policy. The 2023 Yale Climate Opinion Maps report released Tuesday found that two-thirds of Americans agree that “developing clean energy should be a priority for the president… Continue reading Climate Concern Grows Nationwide, Even in Some Republican States
Toilet Taboos Can Make Scientific Fieldwork Dangerous
Gawain Antell knew something was seriously wrong when students started vomiting. In spring 2019, the paleobiologist — then earning a Ph.D. at the University of Oxford — was working as a teaching assistant on a geological mapping field trip in Scotland when, after returning to the hotel, a handful of undergraduate women grew grievously ill.… Continue reading Toilet Taboos Can Make Scientific Fieldwork Dangerous
China’s New Dark Matter Lab Is Biggest and Deepest Yet
Some 2,400 metres below the Jinping Mountains in southwest China, the world’s deepest and largest underground laboratory has just opened. The enormous space is home to scientists who are hunting down dark matter — the hypothetical substance that is thought to make up more than 80% of the mass in the Universe. The China Jinping… Continue reading China’s New Dark Matter Lab Is Biggest and Deepest Yet
Never-Repeating Tiles Can Safeguard Quantum Information
This extreme fragility might make quantum computing sound hopeless. But in 1995, the applied mathematician Peter Shor discovered a clever way to store quantum information. His encoding had two key properties. First, it could tolerate errors that only affected individual qubits. Second, it came with a procedure for correcting errors as they occurred, preventing them… Continue reading Never-Repeating Tiles Can Safeguard Quantum Information
Inside the Crime Rings Trafficking Sand
Transnational security investigator Abdelkader Abderrahmane set out from the Moroccan city of Kenitra with two research assistants to inspect sand-mining sites on the Atlantic Ocean coast. They drove across the dry, flat terrain for six kilometers, the last stretch on a rutted dirt road that had them crawling in low gear, windows closed against the… Continue reading Inside the Crime Rings Trafficking Sand
Your Body Has Its Own Built-In Ozempic
January 25, 2024 4 min read Your Body Has Its Own Built-In Ozempic Popular weight-loss and diabetes drugs, such as Ozempic and Wegovy, target metabolic pathways that gut microbes and food molecules already play a key role in regulating By Christopher Damman & The Conversation US The following essay is reprinted with permission from The… Continue reading Your Body Has Its Own Built-In Ozempic
Your Mysterious Experiences! (300th Episode!)
Podcast: Download MYS300: We’re celebrating our 300th numbered episode and so Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli are discussing more of our listeners’ and viewers’ mysterious experiences and what Jimmy makes of what you’ve shared with them. Get all new episodes automatically and for free: Follow by Email | Watch this episode and subscribe on YouTube… Continue reading Your Mysterious Experiences! (300th Episode!)
Babies Exposed to COVID in the Womb Are More Likely to Suffer Breathing Problems
More than four years after the virus that causes COVID first appeared, scientists continue to discover new ways that the illness threatens pregnant people and babies—as well as additional evidence that vaccination offers significant protection. A new study finds that babies born to women who got COVID while they were pregnant were three times more… Continue reading Babies Exposed to COVID in the Womb Are More Likely to Suffer Breathing Problems