America Dissected

You can’t miss them, HOKAs — those clunky athletic shoes with the thick foamy sole — are everywhere. But why? Abdul reflects on the broader juxtaposition between fitness and health. Then he sits down ...

1 Aug 202351min

Think about your favorite place. Chances are you thought about how it looks — but not necessarily how it sounds. Sound is all around us, so constant that we often ignore it. But it turns out that soun...

25 Juli 202359min

What is gender-affirming care — and why is the far right trying to ban it? Abdul reflects on the way misinformation intended to flatten and decontextualize gender-affirming care has been critical to d...

18 Juli 20231h

For most of America’s medical history, the idea of a doctors’ union has been an oxymoron. Doctors were management, rather than labor. But the consolidation of healthcare over the past several decades ...

11 Juli 202355min

Putting a taste-less, odorless, colorless chemical in our water is among the most effective public health interventions known to humans. So why are there so many conspiracy theories about fluoride? Ab...

27 Juni 202349min

We don’t have definitive proof of how COVID-19 emerged. But several agencies in the US Intelligence community have concluded that a leak from the Chinese government-run virology research institute jus...

20 Juni 202351min

ChatGPT set off a flurry of excitement — and anxiety — over the impact Artificial Intelligence will have on every aspect of society. One of the most important disruptions that AI will impose is on hea...

13 Juni 202358min

The pandemic took a major toll on the mental health of young people. But truth be told, mental illness had been rising among young people for the decade before that. Abdul reflects on the causes of me...

6 Juni 202355min