Lyme disease is the most commonly reported tick-borne illness in the United States, and the incidence is growing rapidly. In 2009, the C.D.C. reported thirty-eight thousand cases, three times more than in 1991. Most researchers agree that the true number of infections is five to ten times higher. Michael Specter Read Quote
Consumers deserve the right to know what’s in their food – and obviously, most people want that choice. It’s hard to see how more knowledge about the products we eat every day can hurt us. Michael Specter Read Quote
There are many theories about the best way to remove excess carbon from the atmosphere – some are ludicrous, others are at least worth study. The most commonly discussed plan is to lace the sky with reflective chemicals. Michael Specter Read Quote
Any group that intends to sell laboratory meat will need to build bioreactors – factories that can grow cells under pristine conditions. Bioreactors aren’t new; beer and yeast are made using similar methods. Michael Specter Read Quote
I have covered wars, before the epidemic began and since. They are all ugly and painful and unjust, but for me, nothing has matched the dread I felt while walking through the Castro, the Village, or Dupont Circle at the height of the AIDS epidemic. Michael Specter Read Quote
Much of modern molecular biology and microbiology has been based on the effort to decipher the basic code of life, which is made up of four nucleotides: adenine, thymine, cytosine, and guanine. Michael Specter Read Quote
Although it may seem callous to say so, millions of Americans are lucky that Magic Johnson was infected with H.I.V. There is no way of calculating how many lives he has saved. No advertising agency could have invented a better, or more effective, role model. Michael Specter Read Quote
There is a major problem with reliance on placebos, like most vitamins and antioxidants. Everyone gets upset about Big Science, Big Pharma, but they love Big Placebo. Michael Specter Read Quote
Deliberately modifying the earth’s atmosphere would be a desperate gamble with significant risks. Yet the more likely climate change is to cause devastation, the more attractive even the most perilous attempts to mitigate those changes will become. Michael Specter Read Quote
We inherit every one of our genes, but we leave the womb without a single microbe. As we pass through our mother’s birth canal, we begin to attract entire colonies of bacteria. By the time a child can crawl, he has been blanketed by an enormous, unseen cloud of microorganisms – a hundred trillion or more. Michael Specter Read Quote
