People who love the ocean know it can be blue, or green, or gray, depending on the weather. It’s a different color in the tropics than here in New England or up in the Arctic. But here’s a factor most people probably have not considered when it comes to ocean color – climate change.

Life expectancies have increased around the globe in recent decades. That is, in large part, due to the decline in infectious diseases. But, for some of the world's poorest countries, that progress has come with a price - widespread unemployment and skyrocketing chronic health problems.

Fifty years ago, on March 3rd and 4th, 1969, students and faculty at MIT walked out of their labs and gathered to protest the Vietnam war. There were, of course, plenty of anti-war protests on college campuses at that time. But this one was different. Rather than just holding a sit-in, they organized a two day teach-in with speakers including notables like Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, and Lionel Trilling. Fifty senior faculty members signed a statement that launched the Union of Concerned

“The term quantum leap has already pervaded our vocabulary. We use it to mean something magical - something that challenges the imagination - even if many people who use it don't quite understand what it means." -Evelyn Hu This week on Living Lab Radio: Physicist Alan Chodos looks back on MIT's March 4th, 1969 anti-war teach-in that he helped organize, and which led to the founding of the Union of Concerned Scientists. Ocean scientist Stephanie Dutkevicz explains how climate change could affect

Acute flaccid myelitis, or AFM, has been compared to polio - a description that strikes fear in the hearts of parents. What starts as a respiratory infection can develop into muscle weakness and paralysis, primarily in children. Sometimes the paralysis is permanent, sometimes not. But investigators don't yet know why, or even what causes the illness. The first large outbreak of the illness occurred in 2014, during cold and flu season, and during an outbreak of a respiratory virus. Logically,

By Marc Diamond , UT Southwestern Medical Center Imagine if Alzheimer’s was treated like other common diseases. Instead of worrying about the prospect of slowly losing your memory, you might get a series of shots during middle age to prevent the onset of this neurological nightmare, just as we do to reduce the risk of flu. Or you could take a daily pill as many do to control their cholesterol or blood pressure.

The question of why zebras have stripes goes back to the time of Charles Darwin. One theory goes that they work as camouflage. Another theory is that they are an identification system that only zebras can understand. Now we know that the stripes serve as an important protection against biting flies.

“Science helps us diagnose the problem. The reality, though, is that scientists have been diagnosing for quite a while and it still hasn’t moved us to action.” - Reverend Mariama White-Hammond on climate change This week on Living Lab Radio: Tim Caro of UC Davis answers the age-old question of why zebras have stripes , and whether they are black with white stripes, or vice versa. Biologist Marc Diamond makes the case for a Manhattan Project approach to Alzheimer's disease, which currently

When it comes to climate change, there’s a growing realization that there’s a lot of overlap between what scientists tell us we need to do and what faith leaders say we should do. Last May, more than a hundred scientists and 500 religious leaders from Massachusetts signed a joint appeal for climate action and launched a coalition to formalize those common interests and goals. The faith leaders continue to speak out.

Buttons are everywhere in our lives. But why? We push buttons on dishwashers, car dashboards, doorbells, our phones, and, of course, those “like” buttons on social media. Where did buttons come from, and what gives them an edge over, say, dials or switches? And why do they so often seem not to do what we think they should?