Life

January 10, 2023 –  For at least 10,000 years before contact with European settlers, Native American societies from Alaska to California conserved and interacted with natural resources using a more sustainable and spiritual approach than anything seen in the modern industrial world. A new book, “Respect and Responsibility in Pacific Coast Indigenous Nations: The World Raven […]

December 12, 2022 – Most Americans were shocked by the violence they witnessed at the nation’s Capital on January 6th, 2021. And many were bewildered by the images displayed by the insurrectionists: a wooden cross and wooden gallows; “Jesus saves” and “Don’t Tread on Me;” Christian flags and Confederate Flags; even a prayer in Jesus’ […]

WASHINGTON, Nov. 28, 2022 — The chemistry behind brining meat is well established — but is this decades-old technique just foodie smoke-and-mirrors, or does it really make meat taste better? Two Reactions hosts and a producer square off to find the answer … and find it they do! Reactions is a video series produced by the American Chemical […]

WASHINGTON, November 23, 2022 – If a predatory, high-interest credit card and an old-fashioned layaway plan had a child, it might look like “Buy Now, Pay Later” (BNPL). If you are shopping on Black Friday (or any other day), there are things you should know about that Buy Now, Pay Later offer, including that it may […]

November 21, 2022 – The next time you crack your backdoor to let your cat outside for its daily adventure, you may want to think again. For a cat, the outdoors is filled with undesirable potential. Like the risks of catching and transmitting diseases, and the uncontrollable drive to hunt and kill wildlife, which has […]

November 20, 2022 – “Every culture is beautiful. It’s like a garden, with all the beautiful flowers in nature. Nature is so beautiful. And everybody, everything, every flower is different. Why not [exist] together?” – Holocaust survivor, Franka Berk. November 20, 2022 is Transgender Day of Remembrance. This annual observance honors transgender people who lost […]

Got the winning ticket? AP Photo/Julio Cortez Jay L. Zagorsky, Boston University Someone in Altadena, California, was the lucky winner of the largest Powerball jackpot in history – or perhaps the unlucky winner? Officials revealed that the winning ticket was purchased on Nov. 8, 2022, after the Powerball jackpot swelled to US$2.04 billion. The prize […]

In the weeks after Hurricane Ian devasted communities across Florida, our team coordinated the creation of a distribution center for pet food and a pop-up veterinary clinic offering free vet services in a regional library parking lot in Port Charlotte, Florida. Dr. Katherine Polak, the vice president of Companion Animals and Engagement for Humane Society International, who […]

This year the Nobel Prize in Literature is awarded to French author Annie Ernaux “for the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory“. Due to past few years with Covid quarantine and restrictions , the Swedish Academy will present the prize to her on December 10th in Stockholm. […]

WASHINGTON, Oct. 3, 2022 — If your coffee is too bitter, add a pinch of salt. If your salad isn’t sour enough, add a pinch of salt. If your beer is too bitter, add a pinch of salt. Salt has the seemingly magical ability to enhance good flavors and dampen bad ones. How does it […]

CHICAGO, September 20, 2022 – Access to books that represent a variety of cultures and viewpoints may boost a student’s development and well-being, according to a white paper from Unite Against Book Bans, an initiative of the American Library Association and several dozen national partners.  The paper, “Empowered by Reading: The Benefits of Giving Youth […]

NEW YORK (September 15, 2022) – Today, as millions of birds are flocking to their wintering grounds, the National Audubon Society and nine partner organizations announced the Bird Migration Explorer (www.BirdMigrationExplorer.org), a state-of-the-art digital platform that reveals migration data consolidated for 458 bird species found in the United States and Canada. The free, interactive platform, […]

September 9, 2022 – Proven methods to reduce home destruction and community devastation from wildfire exist, yet current policies and programs are largely failing to put these important safety measures into practice. In a newly released report, “Policy Recommendations to Reduce Home and Community Loss from Wildfire: Report on Outthink Wildfire™ Summit,” the National Fire […]

Hundreds of young children in the United States are expelled or suspended daily from child care and preschool classrooms at a rate nearly three times that of kindergarten through 12th-grade students. Despite recent efforts by policymakers to address what researchers describe as an almost two-decade crisis, disparities in who is expelled continue. Drawing on her […]

WASHINGTON, Sept. 6, 2022 — The chemistry world has been excited about the possibility of buckyballs, graphene and carbon nanotubes for decades. But the science has taken a long time to catch up to the hype. So where are we now, and how far away are we from a carbon-powered jetpack future?  Reactions is a video […]

PROSPECT, Ore. – An anonymous tip led to the arrest of a thief who broke into an Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF) lookout tower in the Prospect area last week. The suspect, Chad Allen McPherson, 30, of Prospect, was indicted today by a Grand Jury and charged with second-degree burglary, first-degree theft, first-degree criminal mischief, […]

Russell Ellis was raised in the mountains of North Carolina where racism was “so casual it was culture”. Now he is a “reformed racist” who aims to teach other white people how to deconstruct their own racism. Listen to this powerful speech in which he talks about his childhood, the cycle of white supremacy, and […]

Little is known about what drives rare biodiversity in cities. Rare plant species in urban gardens may be the answer. The plants in turn attract rare bee and bird species, according to a Dartmouth College-led study looking at urban gardens in northern California. The U.S. National Science Foundation-supported results, published in Ecological Applications, show that women, older gardeners, and […]

A bridge and road submerged by floodwaters from the North Fork of the Kentucky River in Jackson, Kentucky, July 28, 2022. Leandro Lozada/AFP via Getty Images Janey Camp, Vanderbilt University Flash flooding is a specific type of flooding that occurs in a short time frame after a precipitation event – generally less than six hours. […]

Some really good news from a federal courtroom on a fight we’ve long been waging for horses: Last Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that the United States Department of Agriculture had unlawfully withdrawn a 2017 rule designed to fix the agency’s weak regulations that have allowed horse soring to […]