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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

Science & Nature

How Early Modern Empire Changed Medicine

Global trade, enslaved labor, and colonial warfare created demands for medicines that would work for anyone, anywhere. That pressure to view patients as interchangeable remains with us today.

Zachary Dorner

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.

Marco Ramos, Tess Lanzarotta, Iris Chandler

Science & Nature

How Epidemics End

History shows that outbreaks rarely have tidy conclusions.

Jeremy A. Greene, Dora Vargha

Science & Nature

The Shape of Epidemics

Epidemic waves serve 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

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

Philosophy & Religion, Science & Nature

From Pandemic Facts to Pandemic Policies

The debate over pandemic response is not only about the facts—including the grim death toll. It's also about the relationship between science and decision-making, where values inevitably play a role.

Jonathan Fuller

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