Enfant, Terrible

Most-polluted places in California see highest infant mortality rates The results of a San Francisco Chronicle analysis of infant morality...

Joe Sherman’s Gasp! explores the history of air and finds it’s anything but empty

Oxygen may not strike you as a likely protagonist for a book. It's invisible, it's all around you, it's something you inhale 19,000 times a day and take utterly for granted. But Joe Sherman's Gasp! The Swift and Terrible Beauty of Air is a masterfully inventive biography of air, weaving together geology and history, myth and science, to deepen our understanding and appreciation of life's most precious gas.

Bush judicial nominees could shake the foundations of environmental law

William G. Myers III is George W. Bush’s choice for a lifetime position on the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of...

Where the environmental movement can and should go from here

Adam Werbach presented this speech at the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco on Dec. 8, 2004. Further discussion of the...

Plan B tries again

Plan B, the emergency contraceptive rejected for over-the-counter sales by the FDA in May, has reapplied after limiting sales to those 16 years of age and older.

Concern about sales of the contraceptive to young teens was the FDA's putative reason for rejecting Plan B, despite the overwhelming support for the medicine from FDA's scientific panel. Many observers believe that the FDA's director bowed to pressure from the anti-abortion movement and its allies in the Bush administration.

But Plan B is likely to slash the number of abortions. As the PI article reports:

James Trussell, director of Princeton University's Office of Population Research . . . has concluded that easy access to emergency contraception could cut by half the number of unintended pregnancies and abortions among U.S. women, ages 15 to 44.

Global dimming? Global warming? What’s with the globe, anyway?

Raise a toast to solar radiation. The director of the Zurich-based World Radiation Monitoring Center, the organization that measures the...

GOP has set its sights on revamping the Endangered Species Act

The newly empowered Republican majority on Capitol Hill will grease the skids for plenty of legislation that’s sure to gall...

Have Modified Genes, Will Travel

Genetically modified plants spreading hither and thither Genes from genetically modified grass can spread much farther than previously believed, according...

Presidential candidates on science

It would be an exaggeration to say that science is a top issue in this election ... or ever, really.  But the scientific community itself is far more involved and engaged than usual.  There was the Union of Concerned Scientists open letter accusing the Bush administration of distorting science for political ends.  And just recently, a group of science-types formed a group called Scientists and Engineers for Change, explicitly devoted to booting Bush from the Big House.

These developments, combined with the drip-drip of science-related miniscandals coming out of the White House -- on salmon hatcheries, peer review, global warming, etc. ad nauseum -- have raised the profile of science somewhat.  

All of which is by way of saying that tens of ... tens of people will be interested to read the flurry of science-related interviews with the candidates that have come out recently.