On a warm August 2004 day in Philadelphia, I joined 150 first-year medical students on stage at the University of Pennsylvania to celebrate the start of our medical careers. The dean called our names and, one by one, draped short white coats around our...

A new poll indicated that Dr Ben Carson has pulled nearly even with Donald Trump among Republican primary and caucus voters. Interestingly, Carson – who sports a thin doorknocker – is the only presidential candidate with facial hair. And...

Imagine a computer programmer. What does this person look like? What is this person doing? Is the person with anyone? What kinds of hobbies might he or she have?

Chances are that you imagined someone who is: male, white or Asian...

Variability is the only guarantee when it comes to the rainfall of the Sahel, the transitional zone between the parched Sahara Desert and the wetter...

Debate light on ‘women’s issues’

Andra Gillespie, Emory University

If viewers were expecting a significant engagement of gender issues in the second GOP debate, then they were disappointed. Aside from the...

Markets have been speculating for months about whether the US Federal Reserve would raise interest rates in September. The day has finally arrived, and interestingly, there’s much less certainty now about which way it will go than there was just a few weeks...

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently announced that the company is finally working on a much-desired feature: a “dislike” button. According to Zuckerberg, this feature has long been one of those most-requested by the Facebook audience. Although his comments sugges...

There are two extremes in the debate over capitalism’s role in our present climate change problem. On the one hand, some people see climate change as the outcome of a consumerist market system run rampant. In the end, the result will be a call to replace...

Last week, Greenpeace announced it was hiring a team of journalists to make investigative reporting a pillar of its advocacy work.

The thinking goes that by bringing timely, insightful coverage into the public...

In January 2015, President Obama launched the Precision Medicine Initiative, a plan to support research into treatment and prevention strategies that take differences between people – especially genetics – into account.

However, precision medicine can’t...