I grew up in the Maryland suburbs and spent much of my childhood in the woods. I would turn over rocks to find shiny centipedes and watch small schools of fish glide through the creek as box turtles sunbathed on the banks. A squirrel’s frenzied search for a nut would capture my full attention.  I […]

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court handed down a one-sentence order announcing that California’s newly gerrymandered maps, which are expected to give Democrats as many as five more seats in the US House, may go into effect during the 2026 midterms. These maps were enacted to counterbalance a Republican gerrymander in Texas, which could also give […]

An elixir for keeping our brains and bodies younger may already be sitting on pharmacy shelves across the United States — if only we’d take advantage of it. I’m talking about the shingles vaccine.  It was invented because, well, shingles is a terrible disease. If you ever had chickenpox (like I did), this virus is […]

It’s been just over a week since TikTok — in the United States — transferred into the hands of new owners. And it’s been a mess ever since. At the government’s urging, TikTok’s parent company ByteDance sold the app to a mostly American group of investors, including the software business giant Oracle (founded by Trump […]

Over the past couple of years, celebrities, tech bros, and biohackers have come to believe they’ve found the ultimate source of good health. Boosting this one thing, they say, will cure all ails, rejuvenate the body, and lead to longer life. They are talking about the star of middle-school biology class: mitochondria.  The “powerhouse of […]