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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.