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NASA has plans to launch the first space station in deep space. Some experts say it’s an important steppingstone to long-term human space habitation, and NASA’s eventual goal of reaching the red planet. But others say it’s an expensive and risky step that engineers could skip.

After the devastation of the Los Angeles fires, officials are ready to rebuild. But as the risk of devastating wildfires increases with climate change, the calls to rebuild Los Angeles raise a series of tricky questions: How and where to rebuild — and whether to rebuild at all.

Only about 20 percent of Americans have followed current CDC guidance and gotten the latest Covid vaccine. The rest, experts say, may be experiencing vaccine fatigue or feeling distrustful about potential side effects. But are they missing out on important protection?

An energy company’s novel project spawned in the late 1980s helped set the stage for planting trees as a means to sequester carbon emissions. In the process, it resulted in a lot of lessons that are still relevant today in terms of the potential benefits, risks, and failures of forest carbon offsets.

Mirror molecules — synthesized chemical inverse images of natural counterparts — have potential as drugs for hard-to-treat diseases. But extending such work to create entire mirror organisms could pose serious biosafety risks. One researcher who studies mirror-image peptides considers where to draw the line.

The Netherlands allows medically assisted euthanasia for extreme mental suffering, and, in recent years, Dutch doctors have seen a steep rise in requests. Some clinicians are concerned and want more guardrails in place. But others argue euthanasia is sometimes the most humane option and should be easier to obtain.

Despite continued opposition, the World Bank has approved the first of five big dam projects expected to get its support in the coming months. Climate change has upped the need for renewable energy, but the environmental and social costs of building such massive projects remain.

As community violence intervention efforts have gained unprecedented funding, policymakers are asking a deceptively difficult question: Do these programs work? One sociologist says the problem lies in the definition of success and the research methods being used to determine it.

What if everyone could participate in the formal enterprise of research, publishing in journals and attending scientific conferences? C. Brandon Ogbunu argues that making both the consumption and production of research more accessible would help remedy the public’s decreasing trust in scientists.

Biostatistician Jeffrey Morris believes that to productively discuss vaccines and public health with a politically polarized public, scientists must maintain respect, transparency, a willingness to acknowledge uncertainty — and an awareness of how politics and partisanship can shape a person’s beliefs.

In 2021, the CDC recommended the state launch syringe exchange programs to help curb the spread of HIV. But state and local policymakers placed restrictions on such programs due to concerns about illegal drug use. Researchers and health workers say this has been a large contributor to the spread of disease, despite attention and other resources directed toward the outbreak.

Scientists have long posited that the disease is driven by build-up of a certain protein in the brain. Although this idea has recently been mired in controversies, data suggest the hypothesis is not wrong, so much as incomplete.

In 2023, wind energy had the second-highest employment numbers of any electricity generation sector — 131,327 jobs, over twice as many as coal. But the work is inherently risky, with varying oversight across the country. Workers aim to make changes through unions and stronger OSHA standards.

From ants to apes, animals perceive and process mortality in a number of surprising ways, Spanish philosopher Susana Monsó argues in “Playing Possum.” Drawing on a variety of scientific disciplines, she explores both the nuances of animal behavior and the potential biases at play in understanding them.

Around the world, thousands of high-containment labs work with dangerous pathogens, some with little oversight — and the pandemic prompted a global boom to build yet more. Perhaps nowhere are those tensions more apparent than in India, the world’s most populous nation and a global biotechnology powerhouse.

Carefully dosing people with SARS-CoV-2 in a controlled setting — what’s known as a challenge trial — can help researchers understand early immune responses. But the studies are controversial, and some skeptics still doubt that the potential benefits have been worth the risks.

During the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, many U.S. hospitals struggled with the crush of patients who needed intensive care while federal and state-run Covid care sites ended up largely unneeded. Now, experts are asking: How can we accurately predict the ebb and flow of infectious disease?

This week on Entanglements: What did we learn from our first season? What’s on deck for the future? Our hosts explore these questions and more in conversations with a special guest.

“Vanishing Treasures,” by Katherine Rundell, is a collection of short paeans to threatened or overlooked animals, from narwhals and Hawaiian crows to coconut crabs and hedgehogs, as well as a passionate plea to save the planet’s living cabinet of curiosities before they disappear.

The 2024 Atlantic hurricane season saw several major storms, including Helene and Milton. Newly deployed sensors showed the importance of real-time monitoring of water levels during these events. One scientist behind the effort says such hyperlocal data can help communities better prepare for the future.

While the work done to develop the atomic bomb unfolded mostly in secret, scientific research with the potential, however small, to cause a global catastrophe seems to be proceeding more openly. And yet, in many cases the public still has little opportunity to consent to the march of scientific progress.

Dairy experts, raw milk producers and raw milk consumers say standards are important for the raw milk industry because they help ensure that only high-quality and safe raw milk products make it to the market. But is it possible to create standards that make raw milk verifiably and reliably safe at a national level? Some experts say “no.”

Gain-of-function experiments are meant to uncover genetic changes in pathogens that could make them more transmissible or virulent. But such research incurs the risk of a dangerous microbe escaping the lab and potentially causing a pandemic. What does such work reveal, and are the benefits worth the risks?

This week on Entanglements: Is fluoride toxic at low levels? Our hosts explore this question in conversations with a professor from the University of Illinois Chicago College of Dentistry and a neuropsychologist and professor at York University.

In a small subset of research, scientists study pathogens that have the potential to cause the next pandemic by manipulating them to be more deadly or more transmissible. Biosecurity expert Gerald Epstein discusses how such high-risk work is — or should be — overseen by the government.

It’s college application season, and many high school seniors are making big decisions about their future. Students interested in STEM should know that university faculty often have little to no formal training in teaching, and that can hurt them. Asking questions can help push schools toward change, two experts say.

The highly reactive mineral pyrrhotite has caused foundations to crack in New England, Canada, and Ireland. Those issues have undergirded a nascent area of scientific inquiry. But researchers have only scratched the surface understanding pyrrhotite’s behavior — and how widespread the issues might be.

For decades, British Columbia’s open-net-pen salmon farmers have faced criticism that their activities are harming the environment by promoting the spread of disease and fostering parasitic sea lice that can infect wild salmon. But closing a salmon or other kind of marine farm isn’t as simple as letting a field lie fallow.

This week on Entanglements: Should we unleash GMO mosquitoes? Our hosts explore this question in conversations with a molecular biologist from the University of California, San Diego, and a social scientist from North Carolina State University.

The typical questions surveillance tends to animate — questions about privacy and consent, and even the existential worry over the creep of artificial intelligence into government surveillance — belie some more basic questions that many experts say have been largely overlooked: Do these systems actually work?

Two recent books — “Chain Reactions: The Hopeful History of Uranium,” by Lucy Jane Santos, and “Power Metal: The Race for Resources That Will Shape the Future,” by Vince Beiser — explore the lengths to which we’ve gone to obtain critical materials, and the destruction those pursuits have wrought.

Health care workers in regions experiencing war often must treat patients under the most difficult circumstances. For one physician who works half the world away, in a Toronto clinic serving new immigrants and refugees, hearing his patients’ stories brings the world’s conflicts into sharp focus.

When, if ever, is it okay to engineer more dangerous pathogens in the pursuit of public health goals? The question continues to divide researchers — even as it gets more attention from Congress and the White House.

In 2020, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., president-elect Trump’s nominee to lead HHS, called for the 5G network to be discontinued until more evidence proves its safety. But many experts say that research has not found links between cell phone radiation and health issues. If confirmed, RFK Jr. is expected to put more attention on the issue.

This week on Entanglements: Is the misinformation crisis overblown? Our hosts explore this question in conversations with a social psychologist from the University of Cambridge and a cognitive scientist from the Intstitut Jean Nicod.

Results from a government survey have prompted questions about whether weight-loss drugs known as GLP-1s could be exerting a broad influence on the weight of U.S. adults. A close look at the available data suggests it’s too soon to tell.

Ever since it opened its infrared eyes in mid-2022, the James Webb Space Telescope has been dramatically expanding our understanding of the universe. In “Pillars of Creation,” Richard Panek lays out the brave new world of the just-dawned Webb era and how the telescope is already opening new cosmic vistas.

Next year will be the 25th anniversary of the announcement of the first draft human genome. In his column for Selective Pressure, C. Brandon Ogbunu reflects on what it means to be in a “post-genomic” era and considers the emerging dialogues about what comes next in the biological sciences.

Some scientists, environmentalists, political officials, and business leaders are increasingly open to testing geoengineering technologies that could one day be used in an ambitious, or perhaps desperate, attempt to artificially cool the planet. But many questions remain.

Public health leaders say the emerging Trump administration’s interest in elevating the sometimes unorthodox concepts of Make America Healthy Again could be catastrophic, eroding decades of scientific progress while spurring a rise in preventable disease.

This week on Entanglements: Is cannabis safe for people with severe mental health disorders? Our hosts explore this question in conversations with a psychiatrist from Yale School of Medicine and a neuroscientist from the University of Calgary.

Robin Wall Kimmerer’s “The Serviceberry” is a meditation on the abundance that sharing and mutual exchange can create in nature and human society. A botanist and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she grounds her worldview in traditions that resist attempts to quantify or hoard what the Earth produces.

Hope is said to get people through tough times and motivate them to act. Without it, despair and apathy take over. When it comes to climate change, though, one environment-focused journalist discusses why optimism doesn’t always lead to action, whereas pessimistic outlooks can sometimes help.

How autonomous and semi-autonomous technology will operate in the future is up in the air. But experts say it has the potential to fundamentally change how war is waged: In the future, humans may not be the only arbiters of who lives and dies, with decisions instead in the hands of algorithms.

While production of cultivated meat is banned in several countries, one Australian company’s lab-grown alternative to foie gras offers a controversial future for the cultivated meat industry: as a luxury product for the few. Yet other companies are betting they can bring the technology’s price down to compete in grocery stores.

This week on Entanglements: Could the Covid-19 pandemic have been sparked by a lab leak? Our hosts explore this hot-button question in conversations with a Weill Cornell microbiologist and a Broad Institute scientist who is an avid lab-leak proponent.

In a wide-ranging interview with Undark, Ashish Jha, the former White House Covid-19 response coordinator for the Biden Administration, discusses what the nation got right and wrong during the pandemic, as well as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the impact of partisan politics on public health.

Covid-19 has had had a disproportionate effect on Black, Hispanic, and Native American communities. One health policy researcher says the pandemic’s toll may have shaped the U.S. electorate in ways that cost Democrats the 2024 election. Health care, he argues, must be at the forefront in future elections.

Physician Health Programs aim to help doctors struggling with substance use and other problems while also keeping the public safe. But some medical professionals say the programs are overly punitive, trail best practices in addiction medicine, and do more harm than good.

The yearly COP climate conference is growing in size, but not in its ability to act on climate goals, experts say. A 2021 report suggests splitting the conference into three parts and changing the timing could have much more impact, and would also help address some conflicts of interest.