recent posts
- Channeling Collective Fury into Fat Justice Is the Transformational Power We Need: Part 2
- Channeling Collective Fury into Fat Justice Is the Transformational Power We Need: Part 1
- Our Dizzying, Repeating Cycles of Cultural Amnesia Around Sex Ed: Part 2
- Our Dizzying, Repeating Cycles of Cultural Amnesia Around Sex Ed: Part 1
- We’ll Be Hiding from the Rainfall for These Beacon Beach Reads
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Category: Science and Medicine
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By Philip Warburg Since Beacon’s publication of Harness the Sun last Fall, I’ve spent a lot of time in university classrooms and on radio shows talking up solar power’s potential as a clean energy resource. These discussions have largely focused on the supply side of renewable energy, but there’s a broader and equally exciting story…
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By Carole Joffe The Zika virus crisis, which is believed to have already caused the birth of thousands of newborns with microcephaly (which causes unusually small heads and underdeveloped brains), has created an acutely distressing situation for millions of women. Most of the affected countries, particularly in Latin America, have extremely strict policies about abortion…
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By Lydia Denworth In the tragedy of Flint, Michigan’s lead poisoning crisis, Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha is one of the heroes. Last September, Hanna-Attisha, director of pediatric residency at Flint’s Hurley Children’s Hospital, stood up at a press conference and presented research suggesting that the city’s water supply was poisoning its children. The number of kids…
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In some ways, the profile of Robert Lewis Dear, the man who was arrested for a shooting rampage at the Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs on Friday, is similar to that of the other six individuals who have been charged with abortion-related murders in the past two decades. But unlike them, Dear does not…
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Rampant wildfires across the West, venomous sea snakes on California beaches—sound familiar? Rarely does a day pass without a headline focused on climate-related news. Every time I read one of these stories, my mind goes to the people living amidst it: exhausted hotshot crews in Twisp, WA, barefoot beachcombers in Oxnard, CA. Though national in…
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Today is the day to thank Ada Lovelace for the device you’re using right now to read this. Born Augusta Ada Gordon in 1815, she is recognized as the “first computer programmer.” In the early 1840s, Lovelace translated and expanded on an Italian article describing Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine. Her elaborate notes included a method…
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For years I dragged around poems in the pockets of my white coat, pressing them into the hands of unsuspecting medical students and residents. As an attending physician at a teaching hospital in New York City, my job was to supervise the medical students and residents. I had to ensure that our patients received good…
Beacon Broadside 