This week in ideas: A $1 microscope, healing our divisions, Planet Earth is back

By Mike Riggs
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Public Health
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This microscope “folds like origami,” costs just a buck, and can open up a small new world.

If this election has you feeling tense, Jonathan Haidt gave a talk you might want to watch.

BBC’s Planet Earth series is out with another season, and it looks incredible. This clip of an iguana fleeing a pack of snakes has set the internet on fire:

FOX is getting ready to reboot the whole X-Men universe.

Leonard Cohen died yesterday, and if you want to read something that perfectly encapsulates both the man and his legacy, you should read this.

Is it time to revisit the idea of “good” cholesterol? A new meta study finds raising HDL levels doesn’t make us healthier. Pharmaceutical companies have already given up on developing a drug to boost HDL.

Do you believe in miracles? The doctors at Johns Hopkins make me want to. Despite astronomical odds, they managed to save a young woman and the baby inside her after both were struck by a stray bullet.

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