Author: Marchelle Calnan

E. coli that tested positive for NMD-1 growing in a petri dish. The sample came from a 67-year-old man in India. Nathan Reading via Flickr After the attacks of September 11, 2001, and the subsequent anthrax mailings, the United States government started taking the possibility of biological terrorism very seriously. It spent billions of dollars […]

Any cup you sip from could provide a sample bearing your DNA. dohtoor via Shutterstock Almost everywhere you go, you leave a bit of yourself behind—a hair, a fingernail clipping, a bit of skin, a few skin cells from your lips on a drinking cup. For a long time, that trace of you was little […]

The unlikely heroes that made starlight possible.

The unlikely heroes that made starlight possible.

Seven hundred years ago, Timbuktu was a dream destination for scholars, traders, and religious men. At the southern edge of the Sahara desert in what is now Mali, travelers from Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, Egypt, and Morocco met in the bygone metropolis to exchange gold, salt, and ideas. According to a description of Timbuktu in […]

Zurijeta via Shutterstock The home is in many ways the basic unity of society, a bastion of shelter and family bonds. It is the means by which the social order is reproduced and the context in which children are brought into the world. Yet for millions of women, children, and men, all over the world, home […]

The next time you stop at the local drug store to pick up household standbys like shampoo, ibuprofen, and tissues, you might also consider picking up something rather more serious: an HIV test. Show your ID (the test is only approved for adults aged 17+), pay $40, and you can return home and learn your […]

Shouldn’t neighborhoods be as diverse as the swamps and forests that surround them?

Want to see evidence of other universes? Just look up.