Each year, more than 450,000 kids show up in the emergency room to be evaluated and treated for head injuries. Now, no parent relishes the idea of taking their child to the hospital with a concussion. But growing concern about the long-term effects of head injuries have made that already stressful situation even more fraught. And the best course of action isn’t always clear.

The death of a 26-year-old man off the coast of Wellfleet September 15th marked the first deadly shark attack in Massachusetts in more than 80 years. But it was also the second shark attack here in a month. Sixty-one-year-old William Lytton was bitten by a great white off of Truro on August 15. He survived.

Two weeks ago, we brought you a conversation with Julie Libarkin - a researcher at Michigan State University who has spent two years compiling a database of more than seven hundred cases of sexual misconduct in academia. That database contains some shocking stories, as well as evidence that serial abusers are a prevalent problem in academic settings. But the database is far from comprehensive.

The idea of what it means to be American has been a central theme in our increasingly polarized political landscape -- from immigration policy to the controversy over NFL players taking a knee during the national anthem. Of course, you can find people on both sides of any of these debates playing the “it’s un-American” card. So, what factors do Americans actually believe are important to the American identity?

We know that smart phones and other information technology are changing the way we live and the way we relate to other people, but could they actually be making us dumber?

As hurricane Florence approached the east coast this past week, weather forecasters warned of an historic disaster. But, they didn’t say a lot about why this storm had gotten so big or so powerful.

Each month, we check in with the writers at Nature News to talk about the stories they've been following. This time we speak with Nisha Gaind, Nature News European bureau chief.

Neither the controversy over football players taking a knee during the national anthem nor the increasingly apparent risk of long term brain damage for players has badly hurt NFL television ratings thus far. For players, the draw is the competition, the fame, and the fortune. The average salary is a little over two million dollars per year for NFL players.

Rates of sexual abuse and harassment in academic science are second only to the military. It's estimated that at least half of women faculty and staff face harassment and abuse and that 20 to 50 percent of women students in science, engineering, and medicine are abused by faculty. Those numbers are generally based on surveys, which are an important way of getting a handle on the problem and how it changes women’s career trajectories. But when it comes to holding institutions accountable and

It seems like there’s a new study with some sort of dietary health recommendation every week, and often the latest results contradict what we’ve heard before. Just in the past couple of weeks, a study came out claiming that the low-carb diets so many of us have been encouraged to follow may actually be shortening our lives. Another group of researchers announced that their findings suggest moderate alcohol consumption is not the way to go, that there is in fact no safe level of drinking. The