07 Dec
Coronavirus, Deep Dives, Highlights, Interview, Latest

A Virulent Antisemitism: An Interview with Dr. Peter Hotez

Peter J. Hotez (MD, PhD) is internationally known for his public science advocacy, having taken on anti-vax groups’ attempts to connect autism with vaccines and, more recently, for combating misinformation about fighting COVID. He regularly appears on major news shows and in print media and maintains an active presence on Twitter. In his forthcoming book, The Deadly Rise of Anti-Science: How Health Freedom Propaganda Endangers the World, Hotez estimates that 200,000 Americans needlessly lost their lives from COVID during the last half of 2021 alone, which he largely blames on propaganda from the far right. An expert on neglected tropical diseases, Dr. Hotez is dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine and professor of pediatrics and molecular virology & microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. He’s also codirector of the Texas Children’s...

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27 Mar
2019 March-April, Ask the Rabbis, Jewish World

Ask The Rabbis | Should We Edit Our Children’s Genes?

INDEPENDENT Maybe not edit. Maybe just proofread and add a comma or a few comments in the margin. If circumstances require, perhaps add an exclamation mark, or in a dire situation, all caps and in bold. Run-on sentences can muddle our intent, although you might get away with a semicolon. Editing was built into our creation. Even Leah edited her male fetus and turned him into a female (Talmud Bavli, Berachot 60a). And although God made men with foreskins, we were instructed to edit them. The Word of God itself has been through more editorial changes since the beginning of time than the number of base pairs in a human genome. “For the Torah is like wheat from which to derive flour; flax from which to derive cloth” (Midrash Tana D'Bei Eliyahu Zuta, Ch. 2). But...

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09 Jun
Israel, Latest

U.S. Pullout From Paris Climate Agreement Could Have High Stakes for Israel

“The Paris accords were a rare occurrence in which the world united—save for Syria and Nicaragua—to care for the welfare and health of future generations,” Israel Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz posted on Facebook. “Even if there’s a 50 percent likelihood that climate change and global warming are caused by human activity, it is our duty to act to minimize risks.”

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06 Jun
2017 May-June, Arts & Culture

Interview | Yuval Harari

Born in Haifa to Eastern European immigrants, Harari now lives with his husband in a moshav outside Jerusalem. A vegan deeply distressed by the suffering of domesticated animals, Harari meditates daily (plus a 60-day silent retreat each year). He does this, he says, to understand more fully the nature of human consciousness and “human dissatisfaction.” Moment talks with Harari about the role of technology in politics and the rise of big data, as well as topics Harari does not usually discuss, such as Judaism and Israel.

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04 Dec
Arts & Culture, Latest

6 Questions for Comedian-Slash-Scientist Adam Ruben

Longtime science lover Adam Ruben spends his days in a lab coat, peering down a microscope in search for a malaria vaccine. But by night, the Sanaria Inc researcher takes to the stage, cracking up crowds as a professional comedian in Washington, DC. Ruben performs at Capital Fringe Festival and the Kennedy Center, co-hosts the Science Channel’s Outrageous Acts of Science and teaches a stand-up comedy course at Johns Hopkins University. He is also the author of Surviving Your Stupid, Stupid Decision to Go to Grad School. Ruben's comedy often draws on his Jewish upbringing, and he is the second-place winner of the Funniest Jewish Comic Contest at the Laugh Factory in Times Square. Moment asks him about his how his upbringing influences his comedy, and what science and stand-up have in common.—Maggie Miller Q: You’re a full-time molecular biologist, but you...

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Mark Post and a Burger
03 Sep
2014 September/October, Arts & Culture, Food, Talk of the Table

Test-Tube Burgers: Holy Cow?

In Genesis, God granted humans dominion over animals. In modern times, that dominion has spawned one of the planet’s biggest threats: a livestock industry that spews greenhouse gases, guzzles resources and renders the lives of billions of animals brutish and short. Last August, vexed by the problem, a Dutch physiologist named Mark Post came up with a solution: a burger no cow had to die for. He called it the “test-tube burger.”

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31 Jul
2014 January-February, Arts & Culture, Big Questions, Jewish World

How Has Jewish Thought Influenced Science?

How has Jewish thinking influenced science? Moment poses the question to scientists and scholars Yehuda Bauer, Jonathan Ben-Dov, Edward Bormashenko, Jeremy Brown, Allison Coudert, Noah Efron, Shmuel Feiner, Gad Freudenthal, Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, Susan Greenfield, Menachem Kellner, Daniel Matt, Judea Pearl, Jonathan Sacks, Gerald Schroeder, Howard Smith, Hermona Soreq, Moshe Tendler and Yossi Vardi.

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