Category: Science and Society

  • Alt-Foods

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    Yvette Chin Rebooting the traditional food production model to improve climate and environment is driving innovative entrepreneurs to pursue a vegan path. The resulting alt-foods are, unlike alt-facts, solidly grounded in science, as the personnel list at these companies—data scientists, bioinformaticians, chemists, biologists, nutritionists and chefs—attests. While we already have soy-based meat alternatives, such as…

  • Quotable Quote

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      “Why are we suddenly a nation and a people who strive for security above all else? In fact, security is essentially elusive, impossible. We all die. We all get sick. We all get old. People leave us. People surprise us. People change us. Nothing is secure. And this is the good news. But only…

  • Autism Awareness

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    Guadalupe Astorga April is National Autism Awareness Month. April 2 is a day meant to create consciousness, tolerance and acceptance of people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). A better inclusion in society is essential to increase their quality of life and expectations. Autism spectrum disorder encompasses a vast range of behaviors, genetic mutations and neurophysiological…

  • An Italian Easter

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    Francesca Cavallo Easter brings to mind egg hunts, chocolate, jelly beans, and the Easter bunny. In Christianity, Easter is the holiest and oldest of all traditions, and it’s related to the even more ancient Jewish festival of Passover, which is described in the Old Testament. Both holidays are often celebrated at the same time of…

  • For Your Consideration – And They’re Off! Edition

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    Jim Keller As I’ve said many times one can liken the Oscar race to a horserace with each studio betting on its thoroughbreds hoping to place in the end. The studio is the owner, public relations is the jockey, and the horse is the actor or film in the analogy. Here I’ve included my rankings…

  • Creating Unnecessary Addictions in our Kids

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      Guadalupe Astorga When my younger brother was a child, he had a hard time following the teacher’s instructions at school. He was not intellectually incapable, but a restless and vivacious youngster. When the teachers found themselves unable to create any method to capture the interest and attention of this little creature, he was evaluated…

  • Renewable Energy

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    Yvette Chin When Sheikhs invest in solar, you know a paradigm change has arrived. A slew of sun-drenched Middle Eastern states, prompted by the now-favorable economics of renewable energy, and a concomitant cloudy outlook for fossil fuels, are looking to transition their oil-heavy economies towards solar energy production. Closer to home, New York State Governor…

  • Twenty-four visits to Stockholm: a concise history of the Rockefeller Nobel Prizes

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    Part XXIII: Ralph M. Steinman, 2011 Prize in Physiology or Medicine Joseph Luna A macrophage is on the hunt. Crawling and sniffing its way across a petri dish, this “big eater” lunges forward, its rolling membranes like tank treads, toward a colony of bacteria. A pall descends on the prokaryotes, and soon a membrane washes…

  • Ten minutes with…Leslie Vosshall

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    Fernando Bejarano Last year, gender inequality in science hit the headlines of numerous major scientific journals. Several remarks from notable scientists about their thoughts on women working in science brought up again the dearth of women in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields to the public consciousness. According to the US Bureau of Labor…

  • Twenty-four visits to Stockholm: a concise history of the Rockefeller Nobel Prizes

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    Part XXII: Roderick MacKinnon, 2003 Prize in Chemistry Joseph Luna In the early 1950s, two English physiologists named Alan Hodgkin and Andrew Huxley wrote a five-part magnum opus of papers formally describing the electrochemical basis of action potentials, those short lasting impulses that travel along nerve cells. Starting with electrophysiological measurements of squid giant axons,…

  • How the approval of the “Against Mass Immigration” initiative threatens science in Switzerland

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    Juliette Wipf Over the last decade, nationalist and anti-immigration parties have gained voters throughout Europe (Front National, Golden Dawn, Alternative für Deutschland, Lega Nord, and many more). Brexit is not the first case where citizens have decided in favor of legislation that jeopardizes international academic cooperation. In Switzerland, scientific collaborations are at stake after the…

  • Twenty-four visits to Stockholm: a concise history of the Rockefeller Nobel Prizes

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    Part XXI: Paul Nurse, 2001 Prize in Physiology or Medicine Joseph Luna All cells, in the end, are copies of copies. But unlike the loss of quality in the Xerox sense of making a copy, a cell needs to be perfect. It must faithfully and exactly duplicate its genetic information, gather extra membranes, energy and…