High-profile police shootings and deaths of black men in custody – or even while out jogging – bring cries of racism across the country. The May 25 death of George Floyd by a white police officer in Minneapolis and the shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery in Brunswick, Georgia on Feb. 23, 2020 by a white...
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How Pandemics Past and Present Fuel the Rise of Mega-Corporations
In June 1348, people in England began reporting mysterious symptoms. They started off as mild and vague: headaches, aches, and nausea. This was followed by painful black lumps, or buboes, growing in the armpits and groin, which gave the disease its name: bubonic plague. The last stage was a high fever, and then death. Originating...
George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery Deaths: Racism Causes Life-Threatening Conditions for Black Men Every Day
High-profile police shootings and deaths of black men in custody – or even while out jogging – bring cries of racism across the country. The May 25 death of George Floyd by a white police officer in Minneapolis and the shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery in Brunswick, Georgia on Feb. 23, 2020 by a white...
George Floyd: Why the Sight of These Brave, Exhausted Protesters Gives Me Hope
In a way, you could say we’ve been holding our breath this whole time, until now. What you’re witnessing is Black America exhaling and breathing fire all over the country. We calculate, in horror, the awful symmetry of the killings of Eric Garner in 2014 in Staten Island and George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020....
In Glowing Colors: Seeing the Spread of Drug Particles in a Forensic Lab
When two scientists from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) brought black lights and glow powder into the Maryland State Police crime lab, they weren’t setting up a laser tag studio or nightclub. Instead, their aim was to study the way drug particles get spread around crime labs when analysts test suspected drug...
Climate Change’s Toll on Freshwater Fish: A New Database for Science
Scientists have created a new database to help track the impacts of climate change on fish living in rivers, lakes and other inland waters throughout the world. The Fish and Climate Change Database — or FiCli (pronounced “fick-lee”) — is a searchable directory of peer-reviewed journal publications that describe projected or documented effects of climate change on...
Portland State Study Finds Bike Lanes Provide Positive Economic Impact
Despite longstanding popular belief, bicycle lanes can actually improve business. At worst, the negative impact on sales and employment is minimal, according to a new study from Portland State’s Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC). The report is part of a larger National Street Improvements Study, conducted by Portland State University, with support from consulting...
Digital Agriculture Paves the Road to Agricultural Sustainability
In a study published in Nature Sustainability, an ecosystem scientist and an agricultural economist outline how to develop a more sustainable land management system through data collection and stakeholder buy-in. Bruno Basso, professor in the College of Natural Science at Michigan State University, and John Antle, professor of Applied Economics at Oregon State University, believe the...
Majority of U.S. States and Territories Do Not Require Day Care Providers to Inform Parents of Firearms
Home- and center-based child care providers are not required by most states or U.S. territories to inform parents when guns are stored on the premises, according to a new study from researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The researchers found that a majority of U.S. states and territories–47 out of 56–do not...
Promoting Advantages of Product Category, Such as E-Cigarettes, Can Backfire
Industries often position products to tout the benefits of one category over another — such as the higher-quality, traditional ingredients of a microbrew over mass-produced brewery beer. Researchers suggest that during the past decade, efforts to promote e-cigarettes as a healthier alternative to combustible cigarettes instead backfired, resulting in a product with a reputation as...