Conjuring fear of Nazism and anti-Semitism, Jews recoil from the thought that Judaism might be a race, but medical geneticist Harry Ostrer insists the 'biological basis of Jewishness' cannot be ignored.    In his new book, “Legacy: A Genetic History of the Jewish People,” Harry Ostrer, a medical geneticist...

Weather change and its consequences are inevitable.  Governments and rating agencies around the world have tools  to “motivate” short-term-focused insurers to broaden their risk perspectives, with their executives facing personal liabilities if their coverage reserves fall short. Without more aggressive moves, the rest of the world could end up like Grenada and Jamaica, circa 2004.

Let’s play "Jeopardy." Round One: Science Literacy. Category: Evolution. For $500: Which is the largest demographic group to reject Darwin’s theory of evolution?”

According to Chris Mooney’s best selling new book, The Republican Brain, a follow up to his 2007 polemic The Republican War on Science, the answer is easy:...

Al Armendariz, the top Environmental Protection Agency official in the oil-rich Southwest region, resigned from his post, effective Monday. It’s the latest twist in the never-ending and increasingly ugly fracking fracas. A two-year old video had surfaced last week (and since pulled) featuring Armendariz comparing his “philosophy of enforcement” to...

The term "political science" used to mean public policy studied not just as opinion but based on empirical, documentable evidence. Today it's come to mean something darker--the subversion of science in the hands of ideologues committed to manipulating public policy to their end. This new, and disheartening use of the...

Are global corporations cleaning up their supply chains? The debate over the abysmally low wages paid to workers in emerging economies illustrates the difficulty. There are two conflicting narratives, both tied to China.

New York Times natural-gas reporter Ian Urbina last week launched another salvo in his crusade against the shale-gas industry, and demonstrated once more why there is little trust of him at USDA.