• Guns Now Kill More Children and Young Adults Than Car Crashes

    For the past few decades, motor vehicle crashes were the most common cause of death from injury— and the leading cause of death in general—among children, teenagers, and young adults in the U.S. But now, firearms exceed motor vehicle crashes as the leading cause of injury-related death for people ages one to 24.

  • A Spill Outside Philadelphia Adds to the Growing List of Chemical Accidents This Year

    There have already been 50 chemical spills or fires in the U.S. this year, and it’s only March.

  • COVID-19 Origins: New Evidence, and More Politics

    Last week, researchers released a report linking SARS-CoV-2 to six near-complete samples of raccoon-dog mitochondrial DNA sold at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan. The report says that “These results provide potential leads to identifying intermediate hosts of SARS-CoV-2 and potential sources of human infections in the market.”

  • It’s Time to Talk about Food and Agriculture Security

    When large scale threats affect food and agriculture supplies, they become matters of national security. Many different threats to our food and agriculture sector exist, and any disruption to the supply chain can cause shortages at your local grocery store and limit the availability of food.

  • Report Describes SARS-CoV-2 Market Sequences, Biden Signs COVID Intel Declassification Bill

    In two major developments regarding investigations into the source of SARS-CoV-2, an international research group that examined genetic sequences from the animal market detailed their findings in a new report, and President Joe Biden signed a bill to declassify US intelligence on virus origins.

  • A Major Clue to COVID’s Origins Is Just Out of Reach

    Last week, the ongoing debate about COVID-19’s origins had yet another plot twist added to it. A French evolutionary biologist stumbled across a trove of genetic sequences extracted from swabs collected from surfaces at a wet market in Wuhan, China, shortly after the pandemic began. Katherine J. Wu writes that the sequences bolster the case for the pandemic having purely natural roots. “But what might otherwise have been a straightforward story on new evidence has rapidly morphed into a mystery centered on the origins debate’s data gaps.” Wu says that public access to the sequences was locked, and, as a result, a key set of data which could have shored up the case for a purely animal origin became unavailable to scientists.

  • Predicting Threats to Food Security

    Pests and diseases remain one of the biggest threats to food production, increasingly destabilizing food security and livelihoods across climate-vulnerable regions around the world,” says one expert. Mathematical modelling can prevent crop devastation and preserve livelihoods.

  • Physicians Get Trained on Gun Safety

    For the past three years, Winslow and Julie Parsonnet, MD, professor of medicine and of epidemiology, have worked on an online, self-paced course called Clinicians and Firearms. The aim is to promote education for clinicians, teaching how to reduce firearm injuries and deaths, including tips on how to talk to patients about safe storage and temporary removal of firearms from the home during times of high risk.

  • In a Growing Petrochemical Hub, the East Palestine Derailment Triggers “an Uneasy Feeling”

    The Upper Ohio River Valley has been layered in industrial pollution for centuries, and residents are fed up.

  • Brain-Eating Amoeba Kills Florida Resident

    A Florida resident died after being infected with a rare brain-eating amoeba. The victim was infected after rinsing their nasal sinuses with tap water. The amoeba is deadly: only four of the 154 people infected in the U.S. survived.

  • North Korea’s Nuclear Tests Expose Neighbors to Radiation Risks

    Tens of thousands of North Koreans and people in South Korea, Japan, and China could be exposed to radioactive materials spread through groundwater from an underground nuclear test site. North Korea secretly conducted six tests of nuclear weapons at the Punggye-ri site in the mountainous North Hamgyong Province between 2006 and 2017.

  • Havana Syndrome Not Caused by Directed-Energy Weapons: U.S. Intelligence

    In 2016 in Havana, Cuba’s capital, a growing number of U.S. diplomats reported symptoms of unexplained ailment, and over the next five years, employees in many other U.S. embassies complained about identical symptoms, which included dizziness, nausea, headaches, ringing ears, and disorientation. A comprehensive investigation by several agencies of the U.S. intelligence community has now concluded that the symptoms of what came to be called the Havana Syndrome were not the result of an adversary nation using directed-energy or radiation weapons.

  • COVID Pandemic “Likely” Caused by Wuhan Lab Accident: FBI

    FBI Director Christopher Wray has accused China of obstructing US efforts to find the cause of the coronavirus pandemic. He said his agency believes COVID-19 spread due to a lab accident in the city of Wuhan.

  • What Is Spillover? Bird Flu Outbreak Underscores Need for Early Detection to Prevent the Next Big Pandemic

    While not all animal viruses or other pathogens are capable of spilling over into people, up to three-quarters of all new human infectious diseases have originated from animals. The current epidemic of avian influenza has killed over 58 million birds in the U.S. as of February 2023. Following on the heels of the COVID-19 pandemic, large outbreaks of viruses like bird flu raise the specter of another disease jumping from animals into humans. This process is called spillover.

  • Ohio Chemical Spill Draws Focus on Railroad Dangers

    The U.S. has one of the most extensive rail networks in the world, but diminishing safety standards puts people and the environment at risk. The latest accident has drawn sharp focus onto the safety standards of the highly profitable freight rail industry and its prolific lobbying against regulation.