September-October 2009

What happens when witches meet wonks? With Halloween approaching, Miller-McCune's skeleton staff digs up some facts about the haunted holiday.

Miller-McCune magazine highlights current research that merits a raised eyebrow or a painful grin.

The University of Arizona's Michael Hammer is using advanced DNA techniques to figure out where we came from. Which, apparently, is not just one place, or even one species.

Readers are impressed and distressed by the idea that racism ages blacks before their time.

To save water, some cities let residents replace grass lawns with artificial turf. Environmentalists call for xeriscaping. Aesthetes wince.

A Harvard psychologist argues that our mindless acceptance of stereotypes leads to premature aging.

Wastewater recycling and other water-efficiency programs are saving aquifers and helping a famed produce industry thrive.

To chase street gangs out of suburbia, adults will have to make a dramatic change: They'll have to start paying attention to the culture their children live in.

You don't always need a standardized test to know a school is in trouble. Just look in the boys' john.

There appear to be cheaper, more effective ways to improve education in developing nations than the glitzy One Laptop per Child program.

In the capricious world of nuclear waste, a scientist focuses on promising technologies for the capture and storage of the maddeningly elusive iodine-129.

Why it's time to minimize use of the LSAT in law school admissions.

Are The St. Joe Company's development plans for huge swaths of timberland in northwest Florida an environmentally sensitive 'New Ruralism' or a serious threat to irreplaceable ecosystems? Perhaps both.

New book Healing the Broken Mind by Timothy Kelly demonstrates how to begin fixing America's utterly failed mental health care system.

The FDA bans injecting chicken eggs with antibiotics as a human health threat but backs down when industry groups — known collectively as 'Big Chicken' — squawk.

If the politicians in a sharp-elbowed place like Houston can work across party lines, why can't yours?

As the Germans and French have shown, a 'public option' for health insurance needn't give government a socialistic monopoly.

MDMA holds promise as part of a therapy that helps post-traumatic stress patients confront and extinguish their fears. But ecstasy's recreational reputation has slowed research.