• EPIDEMICDid Sweden’s Controversial COVID Strategy Pay Off? In Many Ways It Did – but It Let the Elderly Down

    By Emma Frans

    Sweden’s approach to COVID was controversial, with some calling it “the Swedish experiment.” But almost two-and-a-half years after the pandemic began, what can we say today about the outcomes of this “experiment”?

  • FOOD SECURITYNuclear War Would Cause Global Famine

    More than 5 billion people would die of hunger following a full-scale nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia, according to a global study that estimates post-conflict crop production. Even a regional nuclear conflict would devastate crop production.

  • EPIDEMICSNew Test May Predict Covid-19 Immunity

    By Anne Trafton

    The paper test measures the level of neutralizing antibodies in a blood sample and could help people decide what protections they should take against infection.

  • FOOD SECURITYRise of Precision Agriculture Exposes Food System to New Threats

    By George Grispos and Austin C. Doctor

    Farmers are adopting precision agriculture, using data collected by GPS, satellite imagery, internet-connected sensors and other technologies to farm more efficiently. These practices could help increase crop yields and reduce costs, but the technology behind the practices is creating opportunities for extremists, terrorists and adversarial governments to attack farming machinery, with the aim of disrupting food production.

  • CLIMATE CHALLENGESGrowing the Impacts of Climate-Smart Agriculture

    A range of ‘climate-smart’ farming practices have the potential to lower that impact, and also help sequester carbon dioxide emitted by other parts of the economy. For example, planting cover crops in between plantings of cash crops can absorb CO2 into the soil, among other benefits. However, cover crops and other climate-smart practices aren’t yet the norm.

  • PUBLIC HEALTHHow Polio Crept Back into the U.S.

    By Robin Fields

    U.S. public health agencies generally don’t test wastewater for signs of polio. That may have given the virus time to circulate silently before it paralyzed a New York man.

  • UNCONVENTIONAL WEAPONSOrigins of Unconventional War

    By Adrienne Mayor

    Flamethrowers, poison gases, incendiary bombs, the large-scale spreading of disease: are these terrifying agents of warfare modern inventions? Not by a long shot. Societies around the world have used biological and chemical weapons for thousands of years. “One sobering result of writing this book is the realization that there was no time or place when biological weapons were unthinkable,” says Adrienne Mayor, the author of a new book on the subject.

  • DROUGHTSFor Advance Drought Warning, Look to the Plants

    Among the extreme weather impacts resulting from climate change, drought is a growing problem around the globe, leading to frequent wildfires, threats to water resources, and greater food insecurity. Researchers find signals in vegetation can help forecast devastating ‘flash’ droughts.

  • SUPERBUGSStudy Highlights Community Spread of Superbugs

    New US surveillance data indicate that infections caused by multidrug-resistant bacterial pathogens are moving beyond the healthcare setting.

  • PUBLIC HEALTHResearchers Launch Global Dashboard to Track Invasive Mosquitoes Carrying Deadly Diseases

    To combat the ongoing threat of mosquito-borne diseases worldwide, researchers have launched a mosquito-tracking dashboard driven by citizen science – a scalable solution proven effective in a recent study.

  • FLOODSFlood Maps Show U.S. Vastly Underestimates Contamination Risk at Old Industrial Sites

    By Thomas Marlow

    Floodwaters are a growing risk for many American cities, threatening to displace not only people and housing but also the land-based pollution left behind by earlier industrial activities. For communities near these sites, the flooding of contaminated land is worrisome because it threatens to compromise common pollution containment methods, such as capping contaminated land with clean soil. It can also transport legacy contaminants into surrounding soils and waterways, putting the health and safety of urban ecosystems and residents at risk.

  • BIOTECHNOLOGYRegenerate: Biotechnology and U.S. Industrial Policy

    By Ryan Fedasiuk

    A revolution in biotechnology is dawning at the precise moment the world needs it most. Amid an ongoing climate crisis, fast-paced technological maturation, and a global pandemic, humans must find new ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve food security, develop new vaccines and therapeutics, recycle waste, synthesize new materials, and adapt to a changing world. The United States needs some form of industrial policy to promote its bioeconomy—one that is enshrined in democratic values and focused on improving access to four key drivers of bioeconomic growth: equipment, personnel, information, and capital.

  • COVID-19 ORIGINSCOVID-19 Origins Linked to Wildlife Sales at Chinese Market; Other Scenarios Extremely Unlikely: Studies

    Analyses based on locations and viral sequencing of early cases indicate the COVID-19 pandemic started in Wuhan’s Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, with two separate jumps from animals to humans.

  • CLIMATE CHALLENGESU.S. Launches Heat.gov with Tools for Communities Facing Extreme Heat

    The administration launched Heat.gov, a new website to provide the public and decision-makers with clear, timely and science-based information to understand and reduce the health risks of extreme heat. Heat.gov will provide a one-stop hub on heat and health for the nation and is a priority of President Biden’s National Climate Task Force and its Interagency Working Group on Extreme Heat.

  • HEALTHCARE & CYBERSECURITYNIST Updates Guidance for Health Care Cybersecurity

    In an effort to help health care organizations protect patients’ personal health information, NIST has updated its cybersecurity guidance for the health care industry. The revised draft publication aims to help organizations comply with HIPAA Security Rule.