SCIENCE
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BMI Sidelined in New Obesity Definition That Favors Health Evaluation
Amid the rising buzz around Ozempic and similar weight-loss drugs, a group of 58 researchers is challenging the way obesity is defined and diagnosed, arguing that current methods fail to capture the complexity of the condition. They offer a more nuanced approach. The group’s revised definition, published in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology on 14 January, focuses on how excess…
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The Supreme Court’s Trans Health Case Shows Why Patients Should Make the Decisions
January 16, 2025 5 min read The Supreme Court’s Case on Trans Health Shows Why Patients Should Make the Decisions Supreme Court arguments over trans health care makes plain how badly we need personalized health care in all of medicine By Meredithe McNamara & Dan Murphy edited by Dan Vergano A transgender rights supporter takes part in a rally outside…
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Climate Opportunities in Greenland May Be Part of Trump’s Interest
January 13, 2025 4 min read Why Does Greenland Interest Trump? Climate Change Is Only Part of the Story Arctic shipping routes and burgeoning mining opportunities may be part of Greenland’s appeal to President-elect Donald Trump, but each comes with challenges as well By Meghan Bartels edited by Jeanna Bryner Container ship navigating among icebergs in the harbor of Narsaq,…
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Bird Flu, Salmonella and Other Health Risks from Raw Eggs, Explained
January 10, 2025 4 min read Can You Get Bird Flu from Eggs? Your Egg Safety Questions Answered Eggs can carry nasty viruses and bacteria. Here’s how to store and eat them safely By Tanya Lewis edited by Jeanna Bryner Véronique Duplain/Alamy Stock Photo Eggs can be eaten in many different forms: scrambled, poached, fried, boiled or in omelets, soufflés,…
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Elon Musk’s DOGE Panel Won’t Fix Bureaucracy
A constitutional winter is upon us, partly enabled by last summer’s spike in the price of eggs. While the Federal Reserve battled egg inflation, angry voters reinstalled Donald Trump in the White House. Among his first acts: appointing two tech billionaires, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, as efficiency czars. What their Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—more an advisory group, really—proposes…
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Heliophysics Is Set to Shine in 2025
January 3, 2025 3 min read Heliophysics Is Set to Shine in 2025 The science of the sun and its effects on the solar system is a sprawling discipline that expects a very exciting 2025 By Meghan Bartels edited by Lee Billings The sun sends out a constant flow of charged particles called the solar wind, which ultimately travels past…
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Do We Live in a Special Part of the Universe?
Ever since humans started gazing at the heavens through telescopes, we have discovered, bit by bit, that in celestial terms we’re apparently not so special. Earth was not the center of the universe, it turned out. It wasn’t even the center of the solar system! The solar system, unfortunately, wasn’t the center of the universe either. In fact, there were…
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For the New Year, the FDA Is Changing What Foods Can Be Called ‘Healthy’
Until now, an orange couldn’t be called healthy, according to U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The fruit has 70 calories, three grams of fiber and more than 100 percent of the recommended daily value for vitamin C. Yet the whole fruit can’t qualify for a “healthy” label based on existing FDA guidelines for use of the term. Water can’t do…
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Why Probability Probably Doesn’t Exist (But It’s Useful to Act Like It Does)
Life is uncertain. None of us know what is going to happen. We know little of what has happened in the past, or is happening now outside our immediate experience. Uncertainty has been called the ‘conscious awareness of ignorance’ — be it of the weather tomorrow, the next Premier League champions, the climate in 2100 or the identity of our…
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NASA’s Parker Solar Probe Attempts a Record-Breaking Christmas Eve Flyby
There are some places in the solar system no human will ever go. The surface of Venus, with its thick atmosphere and crushing pressure, is all but inaccessible. The outer worlds, such as Pluto, are too remote to presently consider for anything but robotic exploration. And the sun, our bright burning ball of hydrogen and helium, is far too hot…
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