News Author Galen Lastko
The Plastic Inside Us
Photo by FLY:D on Unsplash. Plastic! Of all the anthropocene’s worldly delights, none have become so ubiquitous as that nigh-immortal petroleum product, and no form of plastic has infiltrated as much of the biosphere as microplastics. To say they are…
Sweat it out
Photo by Shashank Shekhar on Unsplash. After a relatively gentle and temperate spring, summer has well and truly arrived in force. And as temperatures rise, humans start sweating to help keep cool. Perspiration is but one finely tuned part of…
Vaccines do not cause autism
Photo by Frank Meriño. A common aphorism posits that it requires an order of magnitude more energy to refute misinformation than it does to propagate it. I’ll do my best though: Vaccines do not cause autism. I can say this…
You Deserve A Nap
Photo by Kate Stone Matheson on Unsplash If we were going strictly by the numbers, sleep is by far the favored pastime of our species. We spend nearly a third of our life in a sort of maintenance mode, where…
Athletes of the Fine Muscles
Photo by 童 彤 on Unsplash. Fine motor skills are one of humanity’s greatest tricks. While we lack the strength and powerful grip of our primate cousins, we have among the most sensitive and sophisticated dexterity of any animal, owing…
Good Grief
Photo by Pierre Bamin on Unsplash The experience of loss is an inevitable yet irreconcilable part of the human experience. We are taught from an early age that all things must pass, and even a cursory glance around the planet…
What a Pickle
Photo by The Matter of Food on Unsplash While many anthropologists will point to the development of agriculture and language as the most critical steps in humanity’s climb to the top of the food chain, more and more academics are…
Bone Appetit
Photo by Bluebird Provisions on Unsplash The first rainy days of the year always seem like a good excuse for soup, and a good soup starts with a good homemade stock. Bone broth is a remarkably easy and healthy way…
An Insensitive Subject
Photo by Dan Meyers on Unsplash One of the biggest problems with talking about suicide is that we’re not very good at talking about suicide. In many cases, it’s seen as a sensitive subject that should be discussed very carefully,…
August Pandemic Roundup
Photo by Rob Hampson on Unsplash First of all, polio isn’t really back. There’s no reunion tour or late night TV gigs, this recent appearance is more like a cover band turning up at an open mic night. While the…