For Ryan Sherman*, a 34-year-old lawyer, something changed eight years ago when he moved from Texas to Europe and then to Boston and New York City: The shorter winter days of the more…

People may call cancer cells all sorts of derogatory names, but homebody isn’t one of them. Born into tumor cells, they relocate to surrounding tissues when their original homes…

Why don’t we have an arsenal of fast-acting cures for tuberculosis, malaria, and pneumonia? In part it’s because scientists can’t fully understand what they can’t observe:…

The word “macrophage” means “a big eater” in Greek, and it’s a fitting description. Macrophages are our body’s garbage-devouring cells. They consume the pathogens in our…

Last year, Harvard University sent Peter Ferket mouse poo to light on fire. A professor of poultry science at North Carolina State University, Ferket began by adding flammable flour…

Jeffrey Hawkins Writer likes to say that the average drop of water entering the Mississippi River headwaters north of Minnesota will be used 11 times before it reaches the Gulf of…

A few key data points about Amelia Sloan: She likes to suck her own toes. She wears pink tutus. She doesn’t do interviews with journalists. She was born in Falls Church, Va. on April…

Back in 2000, before MRSA—Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus—had become a household word, Nobel Laureate Joshua Lederberg wrote in the journal Science that “the future…

Just like every new drug the oncologists at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center tested against bladder cancer in the last 20 years, this one didn’t seem to be doing any good.…

In 2007, at her high school graduation in Quesnel, British Columbia, Ivana Topic stood at the top of the auditorium stairs, her long gown skimming the floor, her dark brown hair spilling…