by Christopher Gerry Graduate school teaches you to accept how much you don’t know. Being a liberal arts college graduate and a current Ph.D. student in chemistry, I know—and gratefully accept—that I’m not an expert in federal tax law. So I initially didn’t imagine that I’d be writing about the tax reform bill that was passed through the House of Representatives earlier this month; that’s … Continue reading Tax Reform Punches Down
The world is currently experiencing its sixth mass extinction event. Species are disappearing at an estimated 1000x the expected normal rate of extinction (roughly 5 species per year). Conservation efforts around the world are trying to reduce the rate of biodiversity loss, but they are hindered by the lack of hard evidence linking conservation spending to biodiversity improvements. A team led by University of Oxford researchers … Continue reading Conservation spending proven to make a difference
by Katherine Wu My freshman year of college, I was given a choice: techie or fuzzy? And, before you ask, no, it wasn’t about creepy role-play. It was worse: my major. At Stanford, there were two kinds of people: those who studied the technical, hard science, and mathematics-based majors were “techie,” and those pursuing the humanities, arts, and social sciences were “fuzzy.” I chose biology … Continue reading How to be a Socially Conscious Scientist
Update: Since the writing of this article, Donald Trump has picked Scott Gottleib as FDA commissioner. -SITN editorial staff by Linda Honaker figures by Rebecca Clements Donald Trump will soon pick a new commissioner for the Federal Drug Administration (FDA). The choice will likely be someone who will try to make the administration’s drug approval requirements less rigorous in order to get drugs on the … Continue reading Make the FDA Great Again? Trump and the future of the drug approval process
According to the CDC, 70.7% of the US population is overweight or obese (BMI>30), with 37.9% being obese. Obesity related health expenses accounted for an estimated $147 billion in healthcare spending in 2008 alone. The dire health consequences for obese individuals include higher incidence of high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes and coronary heart disease to name a few on top of overall decrease in … Continue reading Parental weight and its impact on early childhood development
The first clinical trial using the gene editing technique CRISPR was given the go-ahead by panel from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH). The trial is aimed at determining if the technique is safe for use on human subjects. As there is much we have yet to learn about genes and their expression, it is a valid concern that modifying DNA in humans could … Continue reading First Human Trial of Gene Editing Technique CRISPR Approved
by Vivian Chou figures by Daniel Utter If you have been following the 2016 US presidential elections, you are, in all likelihood, aware of the controversy surrounding mandatory childhood vaccination. Vaccines have risen to the limelight in recent years, but their history is much longer than that. Ever since the first vaccination was scientifically documented in 1798 [1], they have reshaped the landscape of human … Continue reading To vaccinate or not to vaccinate? Searching for a verdict in the vaccination debate
by Rebecca Mandt We usually think of extinction of a species as a bad thing. But what if that species is directly causing human suffering or death on a global scale? The ultimate goal of disease eradication efforts is to target an infectious disease by completely removing the pathogen from the human population, thereby reducing the number of cases to zero worldwide, generally leading to … Continue reading The Road to Guinea Worm Eradication: Running the Final Mile
by Jordan Wilkerson figures by Brad Wierbowski The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently issued a new wave of regulations, and they focus on one thing: methane. Due to the EPA’s recent proposal, we have been inundated with stories about methane, its connection to the fossil fuel industry, and its comparison to carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas [1,2]. However, the authors often leave out a … Continue reading Natural Gas Leaks Increase Climate Risk of Energy Source
A recent study has delighted many by claims that taking the pill Truvada prevents HIV infection. The study is one of the first to test the pill in a real-world setting involving 600 individuals at risk of getting HIV in San Francisco, CA. Although promising, the applicability of the pill to other settings still warrants further analyses. The study is convincing for its testing on … Continue reading A Successful Pill for Preventing HIV?