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At The Scientist, we report stories that deal mostly with the nuts and bolts of biology. Whether we’re writing about cutting-edge cancer research or the latest ecological insights, we tend to focus on new conceptual or technical ground that scientists are breaking in the lab and field, and how this knowledge changes, confirms, or enhances our understanding of living things.
But when one considers the practical ripples that biology sends through societies—issues of public health and the shared goal of minimizing the impact of diseases on a global scale—human behavior and prevention become vitally important. As I write this piece, prevention of this type is on the lips of just about everyone, with infections of the newly discovered SARS-CoV-2 virus sweeping around the world, causing illness and death and prompting closures and cancellations aplenty. Public health officials are rightly championing preventive measures, such as ...
