Disease Update

When criminals rule the land

In Latin America, tens of millions of people live in territories that are governed by outlaws — from powerful drug cartels to crime syndicates. What can be done to restore legitimate law and order?

Sounding the alarm: How noise hurts the heart

Loud road and air traffic has been linked to a greater risk of high blood pressure, heart attacks and strokes. Scientists are uncovering new details about how what you hear stresses the cardiovascular system.

When courtroom science goes wrong — and how stats can fix it

COMIC: Bite marks, shoe prints, crime-scene fibers: Matches to suspects are often far shakier than courtroom experts claim. Better statistical methods — among them, a little beast known as the “likelihood ratio” — can cut down on wrong convictions.

Out of the mouth of babes

Learning a language is child’s play, but linguists are still trying to understand how children do it so easily

How to recover from the Great Education Disruption

OPINION: Children around the world were out of school for months, with big impacts on learning, well-being and the economy. How do we avoid a ‘generational catastrophe’?

Analytics wind up for a shot in ice hockey

Moneyball-like statistical tools have already changed baseball, basketball and football. But bringing such methods to the ice has proved challenging. That might soon be changing.

How cities can fight climate change

Urban activities — think construction, transportation, heating, cooling and more — are major sources of greenhouse-gas emissions. Today, a growing number of cities are striving to slash their emission to net zero — here’s what they need to do.

Do patents invent innovation?

They're a common index of technological creativity, but research finds they can impede rather than encourage it

Happy hens, happy world

Farmers are recommitting themselves to animal welfare, and that might help the planet, too

The lasting anguish of moral injury

Psychologists are finding that moral code violations can leave an enduring mark — and may require new types of therapy

The power of brands, conscious and unconscious

Economists explore the complex forces that shape what ends up in your shopping cart and how that might change in the online marketplace 

Five mysteries about breast milk

The little that we know about breastfeeding tells us a lot — imagine if we knew more

An archaeological look at modern refugees

The techniques of archaeology, usually used to study the past, also illuminate the experiences of today’s displaced people

Why scientists need to be better at data visualization

The scientific literature is riddled with bad charts and graphs, leading to misunderstanding and worse. Avoiding design missteps can improve understanding of research.

Pliny the Elder’s radical idea to catalog knowledge

This year marks 2,000 years since the birth of the Roman author of the first natural encyclopedia

The hidden damage of solitary confinement

Meant to punish or protect, social isolation in prison creates a ripple of unintended effects on the psyche

Managing pain in a time of opioid abuse

Other therapies, more training, a new mindset: Can doctors bring relief to patients without putting them at risk for addiction?

Detention nation

As locking up immigrants has become common in the US, scholars tackle ‘crimmigration’ and its complexities

Taxes through the ages

Hi, robot: Why robotics and language need each other

Machines might better understand our commands if they experienced our physical worlds, researchers say. That enhanced perception could sharpen their listening skills and improve performance.