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The drug-resistant infection MRSA has been all over the headlines, ever since scientists documented the prevalence of the disease. Experts are glad the issue is getting attention, but they’re not all sure it’s the right kind of attention. WNYC’s Fred Mogul reports.
A couple of Silicon Valley start-ups plan to market genetic testing to the masses. One possible feature is a networking component based on your DNA. Portfolio Magazine contributing editor David Ewing Duncan discusses the future of what may be a multi-billion dollar direct-to-consumer biotech industry.
With climate change looming large in the national consciousness, nuclear energy is experiencing a PR makeover. This Monday saw the first proposal for new reactors in America since the Three Mile Island meltdown in 1979. We look into the evolution of nuclear energy's image.
A new study suggests that merely seeing ads for smoking cessation products significantly increases smokers' chances of quitting - even if they never use the product. Alan Mathios, co-author of the study, explains that such ads may even be more effective than traditional anti-smoking campaigns.
Touting a commitment to the environment has become a lucrative strategy for the unlikeliest of industries. And greenwashing ads are where corporate America sells its enviro-conscience. Corporate watchdog John Stauber explains the lack of regulation that lets any company wrap itself in green.
In the early ‘90s, the Advancement of Sound Science Coalition, a faux grassroots organization, started casting doubt on global warming. Big Oil was behind the effort. And as Guardian columnist George Monbiot explains, Big Tobacco was too.
The Weather Channel, long a stalwart of straight-ahead weather reporting, has decided to start comprehensively following the story of climate change. The channel’s resident climatologist Heidi Cullen argues that all TV meteorologists should integrate climate change science into every weather report.
The G8 summit in Germany this week brought new rhetoric from the United States about climate change. President Bush seemed to signal a willingness to cooperate with international partners, after nearly a decade of ignoring international agreements like the Kyoto Protocol. Andrew Revkin, environment reporter for The New York Times, looks at how Bush has warmed to a new approach and the unlikely influence of an old Bush nemesis, Al Gore.
