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No well-intentioned researcher expects that their work will be used to justify violence. But following the racist massacre of 10 Black people in a Buffalo, N.Y., supermarket on May 14, one of us experienced just that. We join other researchers in condemning any use of genetics to justify racism or hate. In a rambling 180-page screed posted online just before the shooting, the Buffalo shooter appears to write so as to emulate an academic monograph. He cites recent developments in human molecular genetics to falsely assert…

It was 6:30 A.M., and I was getting ready to head down to the operating room (OR) for the first case of the day: an abdominal wall hernia repair. In preparation for the case, I logged on to the electronic health record portal and read through the patient’s medical history and the preoperative notes written by the surgical team. In many of the physician notes, the first line noted the patient’s body mass index (BMI) of 41. The patient’s ventral hernia was estimated to be 30 centimeters by 20 cm, one of the largest hernias…

There’s more than just pollen riding on a springtime breeze. Just as some human viruses spread when humans reproduce, plant viruses can use pollen to hitch a ride from flower to flower. A study in Nature Communications shows how plentiful pollen-borne viruses are—and suggests that human activity may help them spread. University of Pittsburgh evolutionary ecologist Tia-Lynn Ashman and her colleagues used genetic sequencing to catalog viruses on wildflower pollen from four different environments: California grasslands, the…

The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. The Atlantic hurricane season starts on June 1, and the Gulf of Mexico is already warmer than average. Even more worrying is a current of warm tropical water that is looping unusually far into the Gulf for this time of year, with the power to turn tropical storms into monster hurricanes. It’s called the Loop Current, and it’s the 800-pound gorilla of Gulf hurricane risks. When the Loop Current…

Some editorials simply hurt to write. This is one. At least 19 elementary school children and two teachers are dead, many more are injured, and a grandmother is fighting for her life in Uvalde, Tex., all because a young man, armed with an AR-15-style rifle, decided to fire in a school. By now, you know these facts: This killing spree was the largest school shooting since Sandy Hook. Law enforcement couldn’t immediately subdue the killer. In Texas, it’s alarmingly easy to buy and openly carry a gun. In the immediate…

CLIMATEWIRE | EPA’s proposal to limit toxic pollution from heavy-duty trucks is stronger than anything that has come before it. But state and local air quality agencies say it’s not aggressive enough to meet the federal regulator’s own clean air standards. The National Association of Clean Air Agencies — which represents 115 local air pollution control agencies across 41 states, four territories and the District of Columbia — estimates that more than a third of the U.S. population lives in an area that does not meet…

All remaining U.S. states with COVID-related public mask requirements have recently lifted them, and in mid-April, a district judge in Florida ended a federal mask mandate on trains, planes, buses or other public transport. For the first time in about two years, consumers can shop, exercise, travel, work and lounge in public spaces without wearing a mask, despite recent surges in COVID infections. Since the onset of the pandemic, most restaurants, grocery stores and retail shops have followed state and national…

Your kitchen sponge is teeming with microbes. But repeated contact with food waste is not the only reason; a sponge’s unique structure plays a role, too. It could even inspire a new way to grow bacteria for research, according to a study in Nature Chemical Biology. One of the biggest challenges microbiologists face is culturing bacteria species that will not readily grow in a laboratory. Some microbes are incredibly finicky, and scientists often have no idea what conditions these organisms need. “It’s kind of like trying…

Two years and counting into the COVID pandemic, we’ve all seen plenty of misinformation and junk science, whether online, on cable news or even in person by those eager to share their (sigh) “alternative views.” Meanwhile, trust in public health experts and institutions is at a discouraging low. It’s easy for sensible folks to feel exhausted by trying to do the right thing for public health, or for their kids’ education, in the face of so much negativity directed toward science. So the self-titled debut album of the Sound…

NONFICTION The Greatest Polar Expedition of All Time: The Arctic Mission to the Epicenter of Climate Change by Markus Rex, translated by Sarah Pybus Greystone Books, 2022 ($28.95) On October 4, 2019, the Polarstern, a German icebreaker the length of a football field, sidled up to a thick ice floe above the Arctic Circle and turned off its engines. Soon the sun would set for months. The remaining open ocean around the boat would ice over, and three million square miles of liquid would turn solid in the span…