Summary: A new study in mice reveals that maternal immune activation during a precise gestational window triggers autism-like developmental disruptions exclusively in male fetuses. Researchers traced this vulnerability to damaged…
Category: Genetics
Disruption of Striatal D2 Receptor Neurons Drives ADHD and Impulsivity
Summary: Researchers have demonstrated that deleting the membrane-fusion protein NSF specifically from dopamine D2 receptor (D2R)-expressing neurons leads to striatal shrinkage, severe dopamine depletion, and classic ADHD-like hyperactivity and impulsivity…
Viewpoint: Dubious environmental fears: Why the AI buildout is critical to America’s ecological future
Opposition to artificial intelligence has intensified over the past year. A majority of Americans worry that AI will kill jobs, distrust the information it generates, and doubt that tech leaders…
A meaty problem: How to make cell-grown protein taste like steak, chicken, and seafood
Lab-grown, or cultivated, meat options are already a reality in select restaurants worldwide. For example, the omakase restaurant Robin in San Francisco sells cultivated salmon as part of a tasting…
Central Genetic Switch Controls Long-Distance Axon Navigation
Summary: Challenging the dogma that growing axons navigate exclusively via local cues processed at their tips, neuroscientists have discovered that a centralized genetic switch inside the neuron’s cell body directs…
‘Jet fuel didn’t melt the steel’: 9/11 conspiracy theories debunked
Twenty-five years after the September 11 attacks, conspiracy theories about the World Trade Center’s collapse still circulate — but as Popular Mechanics reports in a piece revisiting its long-running fact-check…
Facing ridicule, Hegseth rescinds Pentagon’s new testosterone mandates
The Pentagon abruptly yanked its new testosterone-screening rules just a day after posting them, as ABC News’ Luis Martinez reports. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had ordered mandatory “low-T” testing folded into…
How climate change could impact food safety
Climate change isn’t just fueling stronger storms and longer droughts — it’s also making the food on your plate riskier, as Popular Mechanics’ Darren Orf reports. A new review from researchers at…
Politicizing science: Trump’s pick to head the FDA—Heidi Overton— promotes an ‘alternative system’ of ‘conservative-based science’
President Trump’s nominee to run the Food and Drug Administration once called for conservatives to build their own scientific journals and steer research funding toward right-wing policy goals, as Scientific American’s…
Viewpoint: No, regenerative agriculture—whatever that means—is no better for the planet or your health than conventional farming that uses pesticides judiciously
Americans have been subjected to a decades-long misinformation campaign about agriculture. Instead of the truth—conventional farmers grow ever-increasing amounts of food with relatively fewer pesticides—the public is told that regenerative…
