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Stephen Maciejewski dropped to a knee on a Center City sidewalk Wednesday morning and gently scooped up a yellow-billed cuckoo that had smashed into a skyscraper and died on its way to Central America or the West Indies. “This probably happened yesterday,” said Maciejewski, a 71-year-old retired social worker and volunteer for Audubon Pennsylvania. He labeled a plastic bag with the time, date, and location, tucked the slim migrator into it, and continued his rounds. Maciejewski gets emotional when he speaks about all the birds he finds, but nothing, he says, prepared him for what happened Friday. “So many birds...

SAN DIEGO — The average American lives to be around 75 or 80 years old; but if you had an opportunity to slow down the aging process and live an extra couple of decades would you take it? It’s a loaded question, strife with philosophical, religious, and societal considerations. Humans have pondered the possibilities of extended, or even immortal, life for as long as we’ve inhabited this planet. But at the end of the day it’s all just a daydream, right? Not necessarily, according to new research out of the University of California, San Diego. The study, led by UCSD...

President Donald Trump’s deputies have restored the biology-based definition of sexual discrimination in federal healthcare rules, ending the novel transgender definition, which was inserted by President Barack Obama. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) “will continue to vigorously enforce federal civil rights laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, disability, age, and sex in healthcare, as Section 1557 provides,” according to a statement released by the agency. In its 2016 regulation, the Obama administration redefined “sex discrimination” as “gender discrimination.” But the definition of “gender” that is pushed by transgender activists says that each...

When all babies’ DNA is stored forever and accessible to whoever has the most money or political clout, no one’s most fundamental privacy is secure. The coronavirus pandemic has intensified the discussion about the right to biological privacy. Dr. Anthony Fauci at White House press conferences muses about “certificates of immunity” to be carried by Americans who have antibodies to the virus. Bill Gates advocates a national tracking system so the government can see where the virus is. Whether his envisioned system involves microchipping the population is the subject of some debate. Privacy advocates warn about allowing the government to...

BEIJING -- China has opened its first bio-safety level four laboratory, capable of conducting experiments with highly pathogenic microorganisms, according to the national health authority on Thursday. Wuhan national bio-safety level four lab of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Wuhan P4 lab) is part of Sino-French cooperation in prevention and control of emerging infectious diseases, said the Department of Health Science, Technology and Education with the National Health and Family Planning Commission. Level four is the highest bio-safety level, used for diagnostic work and research on easily transmitted pathogens which can cause fatal disease, including Ebola virus. The Wuhan P4...

BOSTON (AP) — A Harvard University professor has been c harged with lying about his ties to a Chinese-run recruitment program and concealing payments he received from the Chinese government for research, federal officials said Tuesday. Charles Lieber, chair of the department of chemistry and chemical biology, is accused of hiding his involvement in China’s Thousand Talents Plan, a program designed to recruit people with access to and knowledge of foreign technology and intellectual property.

Back when I went to college, many years ago, my biology teacher brought up a thing called the K level, which he did after discussing how animals have a supposed level where they reach their peak of numbers and then some disaster, a disease, a climate thing or a malfunction of biology, something, occurs to cause their deaths and bring their numbers down to a different level where they begin to thrive again. He said there is a thing called the "K Level" which is the level the human race reaches this same predicament and at that point the numbers...

A team of Canadian scientists has successfully isolated and grown copies of the coronavirus — bringing the world a step closer to finding a vaccine to fight the deadly illness. Researchers from the Sunnybrook Research Institute, the University of Toronto, and McMaster University were able to isolate and replicate the virus in a lab using samples taken from two Canadian patients. The lab-grown copies will now be able to help scientists study the pathogen to develop better diagnostic testing, treatments, vaccines, and gain a better understanding of its biology, the team said in a statement.

Studies suggest that most people who transition to another gender do not have second thoughts. But after two trans men met and fell in love, their personal gender journeys took an unexpected turn, to a destination neither had foreseen. "I always felt we have a very special history. We have special bodies, and a special connection based on the physical experience we had." Ellie is 21 and Belgian. Her German partner, Nele, is 24. Both took testosterone to become more masculine, and they had their breasts removed in double mastectomy surgery. Now they have detransitioned, and live again as female...

Retired NBA All-Star Dwyane Wade recently opened up about supporting his daughter Zaya, who identifies as a transgender girl. In an interview with Ellen DeGeneres on "The Ellen Show" this week, Wade said that one day his 12-year-old came home and asked to have a discussion about using she/her pronouns and going by a different name than the one that she was given at birth

The Department of Justice announced today that the Chair of Harvard University’s Chemistry and Chemical Biology Department and two Chinese nationals have been charged in connection with aiding the People’s Republic of China.  Dr. Charles Lieber, 60, Chair of the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University, was arrested this morning and charged by criminal complaint with one count of making a materially false, fictitious and fraudulent statement.  Lieber will appear this afternoon before Magistrate Judge Marianne B. Bowler in federal court in Boston, Massachusetts.Yanqing Ye, 29, a Chinese national, was charged in an indictment today with...

Weeks after J.K. Rowling expressed disdain for a British employer firing an employee for stating sex is binary, another employer—this time in the U.S.—allegedly fired a freelance columnist for saying there are only two sexes. Jon Caldara, a regular columnist for The Denver Post, announced Jan. 17 in a Facebook post that the publication had fired him for his traditional, but apparently offensive and “insensitive,” beliefs about sex and gender. An editor’s note posted Jan.21 at The Denver Post confirmed Megan Schrader, editor of The Denver Post’s editorial pages, decided the publication no longer would run Caldara’s weekly freelance column,...

An Idaho state legislator plans to introduce a bill that would require biologically male athletes to compete on boys sports teams, regardless of whether they identify as a transgender girl or not. Idaho state Rep. Barbara Ehardt is the latest Republican lawmaker across the country to introduce legislation ensuring girls aren’t forced to compete against biologically male athletes. The wave of proposed legislation comes as biological males have piled up victories in female athletics. “Boys and men will not be able to take the place of girls and women in sports because it’s not fair. We cannot physically compete against...

A question about rape ends up on a biology homework assignment for ninth graders at a Houston-area high school. Klein Independent School District confirms a teacher at Klein Collins High School sent home what the district calls an “inappropriate homework question” on a take-home assignment Friday. The question was part of a biology DNA assignment and reads: “Suzy was assaulted in an alley and is a victim of rape. The police collected a sample of sperm that was left at the crime scene and now have three suspects in custody. Which of the suspects rape (sic) Suzy?” Parents along with...

Just when it seemed as though the transgender movement was reaching a fever-pitch and it was becoming impossible to stand up to the zealous mob of trans-enthusiasts, it appears some celebrities may have found the secret to shutting them down and evading the dreaded “cancel culture” imposed on anyone who dares speak truth or reason. Perhaps this culture battle is not all but lost after all. Back in December, famed author J.K. Rowling tweeted her support for Maya Forstater, a former tax expert who lost her job at think tank Center for Global Development for declaring that men and women...

Unless you live under a rock, you’ve witnessed a cultural transformation wherein people describe themselves in terms of how they “identify.” It’s common to hear men say they “identify as a woman” or in some extreme cases to hear a Caucasian person identify as black. However, no amount of identifying as a woman will make a man have a period. No amount of identifying as a woman will allow a man to grow or birth a child. Identifying as a woman makes a man a woman as much as my identifying as a 2-year-old makes me a toddler. Our identity and...

COLORADO SPRINGS — Biology textbooks used in American high schools do not go near the sensitive question of whether genetics can explain why African-Americans are overrepresented as football players and why a disproportionate number of American scientists are white or Asian. But in a study starting this month, a group of biology teachers from across the country will address it head-on. They are testing the idea that the science classroom may be the best place to provide a buffer against the unfounded genetic rationales for human difference that often become the basis for racial intolerance. At a recent training in...

I live in Fairfax County, Virginia, which has the 10th-largest public school district in the nation, but I never focused on our public schools. My kids go to Catholic schools, and that was the center of our universe. I never focused, that is, until I heard that the Fairfax County School Board voted to let boys into the girls’ bathrooms. The vote was 10-1. Was there only one sane person on the Fairfax County School Board? I had to find out. So I began attending school board meetings. And there I saw moms and dads begging the school board to...

"This whole concept of political correctness ... it's going to destroy our nation." That was the no-nonsense response of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Ben Carson to Congresswoman Jennifer Wexton (D-Va.) earlier this week. Wexton was trying for a "gotcha" moment in a congressional hearing when she asked Dr. Carson if he would "apologize" for being quoted for expressing concern over "big, hairy men" trying to gain entry into an Alaska women's homeless shelter. I could not have said it better. On yesterday's edition of Washington Watch, Dr. Carson – or Dr. Politically Incorrect as I've called him -...

Brain inserts and carbon-absorbing bacteria aren’t just the fantasies of Silicon Valley’s richest executives, they’re also a part of a larger hope to advance artificial intelligence and computing efforts. “Biology will undoubtedly fuel computing” in coming years, former Google CEO and current technical advisor Eric Schmidt said at a conference called SynBioBeta in San Francisco Monday. “Taking biology, which I’d always viewed as squishy and analog, and turning it into something that can be digitally manipulated, is an enormous accelerator.” Schmidt’s comments come as Silicon Valley’s seeming obsession with biology attempts to move beyond fascinating projects and into more serious...