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Welcome to Sunday. The top five most-read stories of the week are displayed below. These readers’ picks are available in a magazine-style e-book, too.
Also below are five editors’ selections that we want to make sure you don’t miss.
Did you know that collectible trails of DNA are left behind in the hair, fingernails, dead skin and saliva you shed as you move through your day? Law professors Liza Vertinsky of the University of Maryland and Yaniv Heled of Georgia State University imagine a future when “genetic paparazzi with DNA collection kits [are] as ubiquitous as ones with cameras.” It’s a scenario that has Madonna worried – should you worry too?
Next week, we’ll be following the opening of the Jan. 6 committee hearings. Learn the history of such congressional investigations, which date back to 1792.
If you have stories you’d like us to cover, please hit reply and let us know.
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Mississippi state legislators review an option for redrawing the state’s voting districts at the state Capitol in Jackson on March 29, 2022.
AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis
Henry L. Chambers Jr., University of Richmond
A ruling by the US Supreme Court to allow unlawful maps to be used in the midterm elections will affect who gets elected to the House of Representatives and may determine control of Congress.
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Mayuresh Abhyankar, University of Virginia
Research suggests that giving a person a vaccine through their nose can provide a better defense against future exposure to the coronavirus compared to a shot in the arm.
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Aslan Mansurov, University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering
One promising cancer treatment has been in the works for decades, but severe side effects have kept it out of the clinic. A reengineered version may offer a way to safely harness its potent effects.
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Jeffrey L. Littlejohn, Sam Houston State University
If Texas Gov. Greg Abbott had his way, the state’s past of lynching Blacks would be taught as an exception rather than the rule. History tells a different story.
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Yael Vodovotz, The Ohio State University
Plastic is made from oil and natural gas, which started out as fossilized plant and animal material. But buried deep underground for millions of years, those materials changed in important ways.
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DNA is a trove of personal information that can be hard to keep track of and protect.
Boris Zhitkov/Moment via Getty Images
Liza Vertinsky, University of Maryland; Yaniv Heled, Georgia State University
Both Macron and Madonna have expressed concerns about genetic privacy. As DNA collection and sequencing becomes increasingly commonplace, what may seem paranoid may instead be prescient.
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Jennifer Selin, Wayne State University
The public hearings of the House Jan. 6 investigative committee will deal with unprecedented events in American history, but the very investigation of these events has strong precedent.
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David R. Martinez, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
A new generation of vaccines and boosters against SARS-CoV-2 may take a page from the anti-influenza playbook, with shots periodically tailored to target the most commonly circulating virus strains.
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Katherine Drabiak, University of South Florida
The Supreme Court potentially overturning Roe v. Wade this spring will be only the first part of a complicated legal saga that will play out at the state level.
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Mihaela Papa, Tufts University
The Stockholm Conference in June 1972 launched five decades of international negotiations on everything from biodiversity to climate change.
Download the new e-book edition
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