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Race, Science & Nature

How a Popular Medical Device Encodes Racial Bias

Pulse oximeters give biased results for people with darker skin. The consequences could be serious.

Amy Moran-Thomas

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Science & Nature

Global Justice, Science & Nature

The Political Economy of Saving the Planet

An interview with Noam Chomsky and Robert Pollin on the climate crisis, COVID-19, and the future of environmental politics. 

Noam Chomsky, Robert Pollin, C. J. Polychroniou

Science & Nature

The Economic Case for a People's Vaccine

Ensuring a COVID-19 vaccine is available to all makes both moral and economic sense.

Sanjay G. Reddy, Arnab Acharya

Science & Nature

Steps to a Better COVID-19 Response

There’s no silver bullet, but local experiments and global experiences can help us control the pandemic.

Natalie Dean

Science & Nature

From Restraining Orders to Assassinations, the Dangerous Work of Saving the Monarchs

Monarch butterflies may be gone in thirty years. Saving them seems apolitical, but environmentalists have landed in the sights of drug cartels, illegal loggers, Trump supporters, and even clandestine avocado farmers.

Rob Nixon

Science & Nature

Climate Change’s New Ally: Big Finance

Huge investors like BlackRock are forcing corporations to take action on emissions. But what does their power mean for democracy?

Madison Condon

Class & Inequality, Science & Nature

Pigs and Capital

In a world unraveled by COVID-19, the brutality of factory farming demands we rethink our relationship to animals.

Troy Vettese

Science & Nature

COVID-19 Is Changing What It Means to Be a Doctor

American medicine has long functioned as an elitist institution, putting professional prestige over the well-being of patients and physicians alike. It’s time doctors unite behind the fight for health justice.

Marco Ramos, Tess Lanzarotta, Iris Chandler

Science & Nature

How Epidemics End

Contrary to hopes for a tidy conclusion to the COVID-19 pandemic, history shows that outbreaks of infectious disease often have much murkier outcomes—including simply being forgotten about, or dismissed as someone else’s problem.

Jeremy A. Greene, Dora Vargha

Arts in Society, Science & Nature

Imagining American Utopia

Rereleased this year in a single volume, Kim Stanley Robinson’s trilogy Three Californias imagines three possible futures for the world writ large through the lens of Orange County, California.

Dayton Martindale

Science & Nature

The Shape of Epidemics

Waves have taken pride of place in the COVID-19 crisis, serving not just to predict but also to persuade. Their special blend of mathematical and moral messaging will shape the future of the pandemic.

David S. Jones, Stefan Helmreich

Philosophy & Religion, Science & Nature

From Pandemic Facts to Pandemic Policies

In the debate over COVID-19 responses, it is not only the scientific facts—including the grim death toll—that are at issue, but also the less often discussed relationship between science and decision-making, where values inevitably play a role.

Jonathan Fuller

Science & Nature

Will Evidence-Based Medicine Survive COVID-19?

The UK government’s ultra-cautious approach to “evidence-based” policy has helped cast doubt on public health interventions. The definition of good medical and public health practice must be urgently updated.

Trisha Greenhalgh

       

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