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Editing – Features
When science is under siege, history offers a playbook
Excerpt: Scales is one of thousands of early-career researchers in the U.S. trying to make sense of how the current tumult in American science will shape their professional paths. Between lost funding and stalled programs, the young scientists of today are facing uncertainty in the job market and the possibility of having to leave the U.S. or, in some cases, leave science completely.
I worked in Antarctica for three years. My sexual harasser was never caught
Excerpt: While preparing to clean the bathrooms, I breezed into the supply closet where I kept a bucket of supplies: scouring powder, disinfectant spray, clean rags and my trusty gloves. But I recoiled when something inside the gloves caught my eye. Looking closer, I discovered a used condom. I slid it out, disgusted. Written on it in permanent marker were the words for jano girl. I was embarrassed, violated and frightened, but not surprised. I’d been warned something like this might happen.
Writing – Opinion
Science isn’t about domination. It’s about democracy
Excerpt: Science breeds diplomacy. It counters division. It tells us what is, not what we want things to be. Science enables democracy. The way the Trump administration is approaching it, by cutting funds for projects that run afoul of conservative values, such as ones related to diversity, or calling for research into claims that have already been debunked, which is the case for the idea that vaccines are linked to autism, defies all this. If that approach succeeds, it will make us a poorer nation in every sense of the word.
The measles outbreak in the US is why vaccines matter
Excerpt: We shouldn’t be fighting diseases we once eliminated. We shouldn’t be burying children who could live long and fulfilling lives, and we shouldn’t be watching as others suffer. For all the doubt that antivaccine advocates, including RFK, Jr., have sowed around childhood immunizations, for all the political proclamations of conscientious objection and the freedom to choose, this child did not have a choice. Neither did any of the others who are sick. When it comes to public health, our choices do not stop with us. And our leaders simply do not recognize that.
Why aren’t we losing our minds over the plastic in our brains?
Excerpt: This is the problem with the slew of research finding microscopic shards of plastic in our arteries, kidneys and livers, the findings that our oceans, food, soil and air are teeming with tiny bits of Tupperware. Scientists still don’t know what this plastic is doing to us. And because research takes time, while scientists are trying to answer question, we just keep inhaling, eating and drinking tiny pieces of plastic.
Writing – Health/medicine news
New weight loss drugs could shift the scales
Excerpt: Many industry, government, and academic scientists who study metabolism and appetite say the clamor for Wegovy demonstrates the need for safer and more-effective weight-loss drugs. In a field plagued by drugs with dangerous side effects and product recalls, doctors have been hesitant to prescribe these products—and companies have been nervous about investing in developing new ones. The emergence of Wegovy and a handful of other drugs over the past few years coincides with a shift in the medical complex’s and pharmaceutical industry’s description of people who have obesity, a controversial word that is defined by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as anyone with a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or higher. In the past, obesity was framed as a behavioral issue. Today, it is seen by many as a chronic disease that, because of links to other conditions like diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure, warrants continuous treatment.
Companies are racing to develop COVID-19 tests for the US. Will they help?
Excerpt: While countries like Germany and South Korea have flattened the curve of the COVID-19 pandemic through widespread testing, the US has seen cases surge. Many blame that meteoric rise, in part, on bottlenecks in diagnosing the novel coronavirus. To try to break this logjam, some companies and academic groups are developing tests that exploit a variety of technologies and platforms.
Gut bacteria feast on the pills we pop
Matthew Redinbo remembers the day he entered the murky waters of the gut microbiome. He had popped in to say hi to Lisa Benkowski, a colleague in the Chemistry Department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It was 2002, Benkowski had colon cancer, and she was taking a powerful chemotherapy called irinotecan.
“She said the side effects were a nightmare,” Redinbo says, describing how a large number of people on the drug, marketed as Camptosar, suffer from diarrhea and nausea. “Some days she could not get out of bed and certainly could not leave the house.”
