Category: Featured Article

How do genetics, lifestyle, diet and the environment affect the microbiome-and then affect human health and disease?

Featured Article

Research has shown that the human microbiome can play a large role in a person’s health. But how do “genetics, exposome [environmental factors], lifestyle and diet” affect the microbiome? Featured article: *Gacesa, R., Kurilshikov, A., Vich Vila, A. et al. (2022). Environmental factors shaping the gut microbiome in a Dutch population. Nature. “Alterations in gut microbiota composition and function are associated with a broad range of human health…

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Climate change intersections: wildfires and flooding

Featured Article

Wildfires in the western United States are becoming more intense and are burning larger areas. At the same time, heavy, extreme rainfall is becoming more frequent and intense. When these happen in the same area within a short period of time, they “can cause dramatically more damage to communities than one of the events alone.” Research indicates that the combination of extreme wildfires and extreme…

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People gave up on flu pandemic measures a century ago when they tired of them – and paid a price

Featured Article

J. Alexander Navarro, University of Michigan (from The Conversation) Picture the United States struggling to deal with a deadly pandemic. State and local officials enact a slate of social-distancing measures, gathering bans, closure orders and mask mandates in an effort to stem the tide of cases and deaths. The public responds with widespread compliance mixed with more than a hint of grumbling, pushback and even…

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Discrimination based on how we talk and how we sound

Featured Article

**See the updated version of this post (November 4, 2024)** Does discrimination happen based on how people talk and sound? Based on accents, word choice, enunciation, emotion, etc.? In the United States, people can be judged harshly because they do not sound “American” or do not speak what a person may consider is “standard English”, or because they (often women) show emotion through voice and…

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The behavior of crowds: partisan/politicized

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More research on the behavior of crowds–benefits and risks … Featured articles: *Becker, J., Porter, E., & Centola, D. (2019). The wisdom of partisan crowds. PNAS Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 116(22), 10717-10722. [PDF] [Cited by] “Theories in favor of deliberative democracy are based on the premise that social information processing can improve group beliefs. While research on the…

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Facial recognition technology: privacy and political orientation

Featured Article

There is growing concern that the widespread use of facial recognition technology has led and will lead to the decline of privacy and civil liberties. CCTV cameras and huge databases of facial images–taken from sources such as social media and ID card registers–make it easy to identify individuals as well as track their movements and social interactions. Plus, “facial recognition can be used without subjects’…

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