Statistically speaking, a lot of your neighbors probably have a dog or cat. But there’s a decent chance that there are at least a few parrots in your neighborhood, too: About one in 20 US households owns at least one pet bird. There’s the popular parakeet, a small parrot native to Australia and other regions […]

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 […]