So-Called “Puppy Mills” Are Not All As Bad As We Think, Pioneering Research Suggests

So-Called “Puppy Mills” Are Not All As Bad As We Think, Pioneering Research Suggests

New research challenges the popular notion that all commercial breeding kennels are inhumane.

(© sommai/Adobe Stock)


Keep Reading Keep Reading
Kim Kavin
Kim Kavin is a lifelong journalist who has been reporting on and writing about the dog industry for nearly a decade. Her 2012 book Little Boy Blue and her 2016 book The Dog Merchants both won national awards. More recently, Kim won the 2019 Donald Robinson Prize for Investigative Journalism for a piece in The Washington Post that documented a multimillion-dollar river of cash flowing from rescue nonprofits, shelters and dog-advocacy groups through dog auctions into the pockets of dog breeders. Kim lives in New Jersey with her two adopted shelter mutts. Learn more about her at www.kimkavin.com
Catching colds may help protect kids from Covid

A new study shows that the immune system's response to colds can help prepare it to defend against COVID-19 - but only in the very young.

Adobe Stock

A common cold virus causes the immune system to produce T cells that also provide protection against SARS-CoV-2, according to new research. The study, published last month in PNAS, shows that this effect is most pronounced in young children. The finding may help explain why most young people who have been exposed to the cold-causing coronavirus have not developed serious cases of COVID-19.

One curiosity stood out in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic – why were so few kids getting sick. Generally young children and the elderly are the most vulnerable to disease outbreaks, particularly viral infections, either because their immune systems are not fully developed or they are starting to fail.

Keep Reading Keep Reading
Bob Roehr
Bob Roehr is a biomedical journalist based in Washington, DC. Over the last twenty-five years he has written extensively for The BMJ, Scientific American, PNAS, Proto, and myriad other publications. He is primarily interested in HIV, infectious disease, immunology, and how growing knowledge of the microbiome is changing our understanding of health and disease. He is working on a book about the ways the body can at least partially control HIV and how that has influenced (or not) the search for a treatment and cure.
Friday Five: Eye scans could reveal how fast you're aging, research shows

In this week's Friday Five: The eyes are the windows to the soul - and biological aging?
Plus, what bean genes mean for health and the planet, a breathing practice that could lower levels of tau proteins in the brain, AI beats humans at assessing heart health, and the benefits of "nature prescriptions"

The Friday Five covers five stories in research that you may have missed this week. There are plenty of controversies and troubling ethical issues in science – and we get into many of them in our online magazine – but this news roundup focuses on new scientific theories and progress to give you a therapeutic dose of inspiration headed into the weekend.

Keep Reading Keep Reading
Matt Fuchs
Matt Fuchs is the host of the Making Sense of Science podcast and served previously as the editor-in-chief of Leaps.org. He writes as a contributor to the Washington Post, and his articles have also appeared in the New York Times, WIRED, Nautilus Magazine, Fortune Magazine and TIME Magazine. Follow him @fuchswriter.