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This week on Entanglements: Is fluoride toxic at low levels? Our hosts explore this question in conversations with a professor from the University of Illinois Chicago College of Dentistry and a neuropsychologist and professor at York University.

In a small subset of research, scientists study pathogens that have the potential to cause the next pandemic by manipulating them to be more deadly or more transmissible. Biosecurity expert Gerald Epstein discusses how such high-risk work is — or should be — overseen by the government.

It’s college application season, and many high school seniors are making big decisions about their future. Students interested in STEM should know that university faculty often have little to no formal training in teaching, and that can hurt them. Asking questions can help push schools toward change, two experts say.

The highly reactive mineral pyrrhotite has caused foundations to crack in New England, Canada, and Ireland. Those issues have undergirded a nascent area of scientific inquiry. But researchers have only scratched the surface understanding pyrrhotite’s behavior — and how widespread the issues might be.

For decades, British Columbia’s open-net-pen salmon farmers have faced criticism that their activities are harming the environment by promoting the spread of disease and fostering parasitic sea lice that can infect wild salmon. But closing a salmon or other kind of marine farm isn’t as simple as letting a field lie fallow.

This week on Entanglements: Should we unleash GMO mosquitoes? Our hosts explore this question in conversations with a molecular biologist from the University of California, San Diego, and a social scientist from North Carolina State University.

The typical questions surveillance tends to animate — questions about privacy and consent, and even the existential worry over the creep of artificial intelligence into government surveillance — belie some more basic questions that many experts say have been largely overlooked: Do these systems actually work?

Two recent books — “Chain Reactions: The Hopeful History of Uranium,” by Lucy Jane Santos, and “Power Metal: The Race for Resources That Will Shape the Future,” by Vince Beiser — explore the lengths to which we’ve gone to obtain critical materials, and the destruction those pursuits have wrought.

Health care workers in regions experiencing war often must treat patients under the most difficult circumstances. For one physician who works half the world away, in a Toronto clinic serving new immigrants and refugees, hearing his patients’ stories brings the world’s conflicts into sharp focus.

When, if ever, is it okay to engineer more dangerous pathogens in the pursuit of public health goals? The question continues to divide researchers — even as it gets more attention from Congress and the White House.

In 2020, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., president-elect Trump’s nominee to lead HHS, called for the 5G network to be discontinued until more evidence proves its safety. But many experts say that research has not found links between cell phone radiation and health issues. If confirmed, RFK Jr. is expected to put more attention on the issue.

This week on Entanglements: Is the misinformation crisis overblown? Our hosts explore this question in conversations with a social psychologist from the University of Cambridge and a cognitive scientist from the Intstitut Jean Nicod.

Results from a government survey have prompted questions about whether weight-loss drugs known as GLP-1s could be exerting a broad influence on the weight of U.S. adults. A close look at the available data suggests it’s too soon to tell.

Ever since it opened its infrared eyes in mid-2022, the James Webb Space Telescope has been dramatically expanding our understanding of the universe. In “Pillars of Creation,” Richard Panek lays out the brave new world of the just-dawned Webb era and how the telescope is already opening new cosmic vistas.

Next year will be the 25th anniversary of the announcement of the first draft human genome. In his column for Selective Pressure, C. Brandon Ogbunu reflects on what it means to be in a “post-genomic” era and considers the emerging dialogues about what comes next in the biological sciences.

Some scientists, environmentalists, political officials, and business leaders are increasingly open to testing geoengineering technologies that could one day be used in an ambitious, or perhaps desperate, attempt to artificially cool the planet. But many questions remain.

Public health leaders say the emerging Trump administration’s interest in elevating the sometimes unorthodox concepts of Make America Healthy Again could be catastrophic, eroding decades of scientific progress while spurring a rise in preventable disease.