Even the eccentric Sheldon Cooper, from the hit TV show The Big Bang Theory can’t resist the sight of cute koalas munching on eucalyptus leaves. Those familiar with Sheldon Cooper’s character would...
Plastics are the fabric of modern life. They’re in our cars, our planes, our kitchens, our electronics, our furniture, our bottles, our packaging, our floors and our medical equipment. We are using...
Health Canada is set to ban topical mosquito repellants that contain oil of citronella. The oil contains methyleugenol, a compound that has caused liver tumours in rats fed in large doses, but this...
Life comes down to a struggle between risk and benefit. Although not always consciously, we evaluate our diet, our cosmetics, our medications, household chemicals and activity levels on the basis...
There’s a buzz in the air these days, a loud one. I’m sure you’ve heard it but it could have easily been mistaken for a malfunctioning drone plane stuck in the trees. The sounds of summer are...
You’ve undoubtedly heard of the California gold rush of 1849. But any mention of the “coprolite rush” in southern England that took place around the same time would probably draw blank stares. Yet...
We are getting fatter. The World Health Organization estimates that a seventh of the world’s population is overweight and about 300 million people can now be classified as obese. What’s going on?...
The most fashionable address in New York is no longer Central Park West. It is 66 East 11th St., in Greenwich Village. The building doesn’t look like much from the outside; it was once a factory,...
During a public lecture on genetic modification I described an experiment that involved enriching soybeans with the amino acid methionine. Soybeans are widely used to raise animals but are low in...
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