Dr. Caitlin Ahrens is an assistant research scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and the University of Maryland. She is a member of the Diviner Science Team with the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. In collaboration with Artemis, she serves as a technical support scientist to assist in risk assessments of astronaut, rover, and lander activity at the lunar surface. Dr. Ahrens is Principal Investigator on a recent lunar sustainability work funded by the (former) NASA Office of Technology, Policy and Strategy. She also is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) working on how lunar architectures should be monitored for hazards, including construction, at the lunar surface.
Coronaviruses were first discovered by veterinarians in the early 1930s. Physicians discovered them in the 1960s while studying “the common cold” but assumed that they were merely nuisance microbes. Medical researchers lost interest in them until the shocking appearance of SARS. Gain-of-function research of pandemic potential pathogens, such as SARS, and the possibility that it might have led to Covid-19, raises concerns about the ethics and risks of this type of research.
Dr. Laura H. Kahn is a physician, policy researcher, educator, and author. For almost 20 years, she was a research scholar in the Program on Science and Global Security at Princeton's School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University. Her education and training encompass nursing, medicine, public health, and public policy.
A native of California, Dr. Kahn holds a bachelor's degree in nursing from UC Los Angeles, a doctorate in medicine from the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, a master's degree in public health from Columbia University and a master's degree in public policy from Princeton University. Dr. Kahn is a fellow of the American College of Physicians. In 2007, the New Jersey Chapter of the American College of Physicians awarded her with their highest honor, the Laureate Award. In 2014, the American Association of Public Health Physicians awarded her with a Presidential Award for Meritorious Service, and in 2016, the American Veterinary Epidemiology Society (AVES) awarded her with their highest honor for her work in One Health: the K.F. Meyer-James H. Steele Gold Head Cane Award.
Pseudoscience is a wild mix of history, pop culture, and good old-fashioned science–that not just entertains, but sheds a little light on why we all love to believe in things we know aren't true.
Nate Pedersen is an award-winning nonfiction writer and anthologist living in southern Minnesota. He is the co-author of Quackery: A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything, Patient Zero: A Curious History of the World's Worst Diseases, and his most recent book Pseudoscience: An Amusing History of Crackpot Ideas and Why We Love Them, all from Workman / Hachette. His website is http://natepedersen.com.