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When I first heard the announcement on Wednesday that the Department of Defense will begin a mandatory testosterone screening program for service members, my mind naturally leapt to a series of questions derived from my career studying men’s health and population-level screening in men’s health. In particular, I fear that the widespread rollout of testosterone screening may lead to some surprising and unintended consequences that must be carefully weighed if we want to prioritize the health of U.S. servicemembers.

As a practicing urologist and health outcomes researcher, I have seen firsthand how testosterone supplementation has received growing interest in recent years. I have also studied the impacts and implementation other types of screening tests, including among military servicemembers . As with any type of population-level medical screening, a careful examination of risks and benefits is vital.

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Science word of the day: Autotroph

Pronunciation: AW'-tuh-trohf

What it means: Autotrophs are organisms that can feed themselves with inorganic substances such as light (for plants) or methane (certain microbes). Autotrophs were the first single-celled life-forms to colonize the planet, thriving on chemicals bubbling up from the subsurface at deep-sea vents or figuring out how to harness the sun for energy. Heterotrophs (like you, me and all fungi), arrived on the scene later to feast on these DIY-ers.

How to use it in a sentence: Stromatolites, microbial mats built by cyanobacteria, are autotrophs that thrived in ancient shallow seas.

Can you crack our science word of the day puzzle, Chain Word ?

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Award-winning entomologist Dino Martins, known for his work on pollinators, shows in his latest book that even the most gruesome creatures have vital roles to play

Dino J Martins has never been able to resist the small things. The renowned entomologist and evolutionary biologist spent his formative years in biodiversity-rich western Kenya with his foster parents, Joe and Sarah Ellen, looking at birds, flowers and insects on Mt Elgon, and in Kakamega forest and Kerio valley.

He was especially transfixed by the miniature world beneath his feet – dung beetles rolling mounds of cattle dung; safari ants’ migrations across the plains; male butterflies that suck salt and other nutrients from the mud to produce “nuptial gifts” during mating; and bees pollinating the critically endangered African violet alongside crops in a farmer’s field.

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