Tell Me Where It Hurts, Mr. Highway
Roads, bridges, drainage projects — the things we all use and take for granted — are the engineer’s stock-in-trade, but they suffer from incessant wear and tear. How do we know when they’re wearing...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Bedroom Layouts Reflect Ancestors’ Preferences
As evolutionary psychologists persistently point out, vestiges of our prehistoric past often turn up in unexpected places. Newly published research suggests one of them may be your bedroom. A German...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Nuclear Disasters: Do Plans Trump Actions?
As Japan’s natural disaster has unfolded into a worst-case-scenario nuclear crisis over the past week, countries around the world have turned inward toward their own nuclear policies. Germany has...
View ArticleThe Problem of the Too-Quiet Car
Obeying the unwritten law that no good deed goes unpunished, at 8:45 p.m. the day Paris launched its fleet of 250 all-electric vehicles, one of them ran down a woman who didn’t hear it coming. The...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Sarwidi Versus the Volcano
THE WORLD”S ONLY LOW-COST VOLCANO BUNKER is not a high-tech affair. Called the Rulinda—the name is a portmanteau of the Indonesian words for “emergency-protection room”—the bunker is a brick box that...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Drowning in Good Intentions
When it comes to sacrificing yourself in an attempt to prevent a drowning, Australians Joseph and Carole Sherry may be the ultimate examples. In January 2010, two of the couple’s three children, Elise,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Driving a Dead Horse: Making Cars Less Frightening in 1904
Horse attachment for an automobile — U.S. patent 777,369 issued in 1904 [Source: Google Patents] Last month the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration proposed a new rule that would...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How Safe Can a Marathon Be?
The marathon-as-spectacle is, more than any other sporting event, built on the responsibility and rationality and general non-wickedness of other human beings. You’re at this long, winding, sweeping...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Weed Makes Kids Better Drivers, According to Kids
Teens are teens. They smoke weed—and duuuude—they think it makes them better drivers because, like, my haaaaands are clear bro, and it feels like I’m one with the car—yoooooo—does that say something...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Will Bike-Sharing Programs Kill More People?
Later this National Bike Month, Citi Bike will debut in New York City. The ambitious bike-sharing program will launch with 6,000 three-speeders spread across 300 docking stations, numbers that will...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Changing War on Terror
Is the United States safe enough? That is the fundamental question being asked by the public, policymakers, and members of the Obama Administration after the Boston bombing. What shape is al Qaeda in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
After Sandy Hook, Must Our Schools Look Like Stockades?
Last year on December 14, I felt compelled to collect my daughter earlier than usual from her kindergarten here in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I encountered a number of other distraught parents driven by...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Fix Isn’t In: Why a Safety Device That Can Stop Overdoses by Kids Isn’t...
Starting in 2007, Dr. Daniel Budnitz, a scientist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Medication Safety Program, began tracking an obscure but unsettling statistic about children’s...
View ArticleIf We’re Going to Go After Dirty Doctors, We Need a Definition for ‘Abusive’...
When the agency that runs Medicare announced that it would take action against doctors who prescribe abusively in its massive drug program—perhaps banning them—it raised an interesting question. What...
View ArticlePrivacy Tools: How to Safely Browse the Web
In the course of writing her book, Dragnet Nation, ProPublica reporter Julia Angwin tried various strategies to protect her privacy. In this post, she distills the lessons from her privacy experiments...
View ArticleFlipping Over Lids: Inside the Debate About Compulsory Cycling Helmets
Should cyclists be made to wear helmets? It’s a question that sparks bitter debate within medical and public health communities. It’s also a hot-button issue among cycling advocacy groups. Bicycle...
View ArticleThe Myth of Supervision: Child Safety Isn’t About You
In 2008, Gary Smith, a reserved, silver-haired pediatrician, began dropping cheerleaders on their heads. He and a colleague constructed a 15-foot-tall tripod at Smith’s research center in Columbus,...
View ArticleOSHA Takes a Closer Look at the Most Dangerous Job in America
In a two-week span last August, four workers died from falls on cell towers scattered across the country. Before the year ended, another worker had plummeted to his death, this time in Kansas. Then, in...
View ArticleThe Female Condom Is the Next Big Thing in Safe Sex
1. EXCITEMENT In 1987, an American pharmaceutical executive called Mary Ann Leeper flew to Copenhagen to get a firsthand look at what she thought might be the world’s next great health innovation. She...
View ArticleRocky Mountain High or Reefer Madness? The Risks of Legal Pot in Colorado
I walked through clouds of marijuana smoke Friday night to get to the Denver Nuggets basketball game. The sweet smell lingering in the air reminded me less of a family event and more of the time I saw...
View Article
