What we're reading

A growing number of scientists are reconsidering the dangers of prospecting for unknown viruses and conducting other high-stakes work with pathogens

California can be a world leader in the climate crisis by using its direct democracy tools

A new analysis adds to evidence suggesting that the pandemic began when animals at the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan, China, spread the coronavirus

U.S. life expectancy is in freefall as the young and the poor bear the brunt of struggles for shared prosperity

Reflections on how the threat of gun violence has affected people’s mental state or the way they lead their lives

One of the most powerful public health measures is simply recording every birth and death. In rural Colombia, it’s a lot harder than it sounds

Candida auris, a drug-resistant fungus that health officials hoped to contain is now in more than half the fifty states

The number of life-saving liver transplants has plummeted in some Southern and Midwestern states that struggle with higher death rates from liver dise

Millions of lives were saved in the three years of the pandemic, but millions more were needlessly lost. And the world is far from ready for the next

In 2021, deaths of pregnant women soared by 40 percent in the United States, according to new government figures

A century ago, Thomas Midgley Jr. was responsible for two phenomenally destructive innovations. What can we learn from them today?

How China’s imperial exam system stymied civil society