Health
268 articlesCancer Shouldn’t Pose a Threat to Our Lives. We Should Find It First
Identifying the “first cell” could revolutionize the way we treat cancer.
Can Cancer Be Treated by Changing Its Cells?
Tumors grow when cells lose their biological identity. A promising therapeutic might restore their sense of self.
Painkillers That Don’t Kill
Scientists are getting closer to designing safer, more targeted pain drugs to replace opioids.
This Is Some Good Shit
How the sewage plant in our nation’s capital spins human poop into fertilizer gold.
Triggering the Body’s Defenses to Fight Cancer
Experiments once considered crazy are now helping scientists attack tumors.
How the Coronavirus Stays One Step Ahead of Us
As long as there are vulnerable populations, a virus will evolve. That’s nature.
Triggering the Body’s Defenses to Fight Cancer
Experiments once considered crazy are now helping scientists attack tumors.
Everyday Noises Are Making Our Brains Noisier
How to protect yourself from the din that surrounds you.
Everyday Noises Are Making Our Brains Noisier
How to protect yourself from the din that surrounds you.
Seeing Is Believing: Exposing the “Invisible Monster”
In the battle between scientists and COVID-19, imaging gives scientists an upper hand.
The Problem with Depression Doping
Mental health is not what you’d call an “exact science.” For example, if two highly trained mental health providers meet privately with the same patient, they will agree 90 percent of the time on diagnosing schizophrenia and 65 to 70 percent of the time on diagnosing a bipolar disorder. But this reliability drops off sharply […]
Nature’s Antifreeze
Fish that thrive in icy waters provide a key to preserving human cells.
Exponentially Important: The Scientific Origins of PCR
Thanks to lab techniques like PCR, we can detect the presence of dangerous viruses with laser-sharp precision.
How to Outwit Evolution
We can defeat superbugs by staying one step ahead of them.
Here’s the Right Story for Vaccine Holdouts
Two public health experts explain how to cut through the noise about COVID-19 vaccines.
How the Drug Industry Has Exploited Reforms Started in the Fight Against AIDS
The push by AIDS activists for an effective treatment was a breakthrough in the medical industry. It showed the power of a grassroots movement to spur the government and Big Pharma to action. But it had a dangerous and lasting side effect.Photograph by Cagkan Sayin / Shutterstock Three decades ago, a small group from within […]
The Cancer Custodians
To beat our worst enemy, we must first let it grow.
The Cancer Custodians
To beat our worst enemy, we must first let it grow.
Data Crunchers to the Rescue
Genetic diseases that puzzle lab scientists are being solved by quantitative biologists.
Scabs and Failure: Springboards for a History-Making Vaccine
The surprising history of vaccinology that helped produce a COVID-19 vaccine in record time with 95% efficacy.
How to Conquer COVID-19 Amid a Confederacy of Dunces
Science can’t be democratic, says an outspoken virologist.
Put a Mask On It
Understanding How COVID-19 Spreads
A Conversation with “America’s Doctor” about Funding Research
Anthony Fauci discusses the battle against COVID-19 with Robert Bazell.
A Quiet Path Out of the Coronavirus Shadow
Mindfulness helped this ER doctor through a dark time. It can help us through these times.
COVID Experts: We’re Putting Out Campfires but the Forest Fire Rages
After I got my second dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, a wave of euphoria infused me along with the modified messenger RNA. Many friends describe the same feeling. This is the end of the pandemic for me. Life returns to normal. But then my usual, pessimistic view of life returned along with an examination […]
Why Making Our Brains Noisier Feels Good
A counterintuitive approach to improving our mental health.
The Doctor Will Sniff You Now
Step aside, Dr. House, Deep Nose will one day be the best diagnostician in medicine.
The Doctor Will Sniff You Now
Step aside, Dr. House, Deep Nose will one day be the best diagnostician in medicine.
The Dangerous Evolution of the Coronavirus
These scientists have a new model for identifying variants before they kill.
How to Fix the Vaccine Rollout
A computational biologist charts a fair and efficient course for vaccine distribution.
Vaccines Are the Safest Medical Procedure We Have. Make Your Wager Wisely
All drugs and treatments have side effects, but vaccines in general have the fewest.Illustration by eamesBot / Shutterstock In the late 1650’s, the French polymath and renowned scientist Blaise Pascal, having undergone a religious experience that transformed him into something of a zealot, suggested the following logical strategy regarding belief in God: If there is […]
How Does Anyone Stay Healthy in a World Full of Germs?
Computational biology is uncovering the immune system’s tricks for identifying foreign invaders.
How to Build Trust in Covid-19 Vaccines
Why people distrust vaccines and how they can be convinced otherwise.
Scientists Win Nobel Prize for Discovering the Hepatitis C Virus
Harvey Alter, Michael Houghton and Charles Rice were awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discovery of the cause of a major liver disease.
The Importance of Face Masks and the Tragedy of Downplaying Them
An infectious disease expert brings us up to date on the science of wearing a face mask.
Can Vaccines for Wildlife Prevent Human Pandemics?
Studies suggest that self-disseminating vaccines could prevent the 'spillover' of animal viruses into humans as pandemic diseases.
We Don’t Have to Despair
Medical research director Eric Topol sees light at the end of the COVID-19 tunnel.
The Case for Rapid At-Home COVID Testing for Everyone
The time it takes to ship COVID test samples to central labs and back is a burden—people risk infection as they wait days, sometimes weeks, for results.Photograph by MIA Studio / Shutterstock Imagine that every morning your child and her classmates take a COVID-19 test that offers results within a half hour, showing the transmission […]
Why We’re a Lot Better at Fighting Cancer Than We Realized
Using data-mining techniques, doctors have discovered dozens of anti-tumor drugs hiding in plain sight.
How Your Heart Influences What You Perceive and Fear
Reprinted with permission from Quanta Magazine‘s Abstractions blog. We consider the brain the very center of who we are and what we do: ruler of our senses, master of our movements; generator of thought, keeper of memory. But the brain is also rooted in a body, and the connection between the two goes both ways. […]
How Your Heart Influences What You Perceive and Fear
The heartbeat and other bodily processes play a surprising role in shaping perception and cognition.
Steven Pinker on the Tribal Roots of Defying Social Distancing
The images are everywhere: People crowded face-to-face in swimming pools, shoulder-to-shoulder in indoor bars, cheering without masks at a rally held by President Trump, who often downplays the global pandemic. Now, as many public health experts predicted, waves of new COVID-19 infections and deaths are rolling across the South and West. Many, still practicing […]
Males Are the Taller Sex. Estrogen, Not Fights for Mates, May Be Why.
To explain why men are on average taller than women, scientists theorized about competition for mates. But the effects of estrogen on bone growth may be answer enough.
Young and Healthy and Waiting to Get Cancer
The hardest part of living with the BRCA1 gene.
The Health Clinic Crisis on Main Street
Community health centers, a lifeline for Americans, are in critical condition.
Their Giant Steps to a Cure
Battling a rare form of muscular dystrophy, a family finds an activist leader, and hope.
Sugary Camouflage on Coronavirus Offers Vaccine Clues
In the fight against viruses and other pathogens, scientists are looking beyond genes and proteins to the complex sugars, or glycans, on cell surfaces.
A Window on Africa’s Resilience
We called Greg Carr the other day to talk about the spread of the coronavirus in Africa. Carr, who has been featured in Nautilus, is the founder of the Gorongosa Restoration Project, a partnership with the Mozambique government to revive Gorongosa National Park, that environmental treasure trove at the southern end of the Rift […]
How COVID-19 Will Pass from Pandemic to Prosaic
Past outbreaks show the way to relief, even without a vaccine.
Straight Talk About a COVID-19 Vaccine
There are many challenges to developing a vaccine that will be successful against COVID-19.eamesBot / Shutterstock Wayne Koff is one of the world’s experts on vaccine development, the president and CEO of the Human Vaccines Project. He possesses a deep understanding of the opportunities and challenges along the road to a safe and effective vaccine […]
What Role Will Immunity Play in Conquering COVID-19?
It seems like people who get infected with SARS-CoV-2 retain immunity, but we can’t be sure how long that immunity will last. We still lack the testing capabilities to be certain.eamesBot / Shutterstock This story was updated post-publication to include information from a study published on the preprint server medRxiv on April 17, 2020. With […]
Summer Won’t Save Us from COVID-19
Why SARS-CoV-2 will threaten us for months to come.
Can a Battery of New COVID Tests Stem the US Debacle?
Medical testing has been a Pearl Harbor. But the war could be won.
Pursuing COVID-19 at Internet Speed
As scientists grapple with the global pandemic, preprint servers let information be free—and fast
How COVID-19 Picks on the Weakened
The wrath of the coronavirus.
Be Wary of a Model That Shows a Decline in COVID-19 Deaths
We have no idea what will happen if, for example, New York runs out of ventilators or if people are sent away from hospitals too soon and infect many others.Illustration by eamesBot / Shutterstock On April 15, 2020, 2,271 people in the United States will die from COVID-19. That day, the U.S. will be short […]
A Doctor Puts Telemedicine to the Test During COVID-19
An advocate of virtual exams has a second opinion.
Will We Have a COVID-19 Vaccine Before 2021?
Is there a vaccine for SARS-CoV-2? The internet is awash with articles and posts seeking to shed light on this very question. Currently, there is no approved vaccine against SARS-CoV-2. While several companies have announced vaccine candidates in development, it is still unlikely that a vaccine will play a significant role in the current outbreak. […]
The Good and Bad News from a Coronavirus Pandemic Model
An alarming warning from experts before the real outbreak.
The Good and Bad News from a Coronavirus Pandemic Model
Hospitals in the U.S. are above 90 percent capacity without any considerations for COVID-19 demands. According to the planners of Event 201, and other experts, we will soon see a surge in demand at U.S. hospitals that is almost impossible to imagine.Photo illustration by enzoalessandra / Shutterstock How many people could die from a novel […]
A Professor of Disasters and Health on COVID-19
It is no mystery why pandemics happen. Those with the knowledge, wisdom, and resources must choose to decide to avoid these disasters that afflict everyone.Photograph by Pavel L Photo and Video / Shutterstock A new virus sweeps the world, closing borders, shutting down arts and sports, and killing thousands of people. Is this coronavirus pandemic, […]
What Really Inflamed the Coronavirus Epidemic
Censorship didn’t worsen the deadly virus outbreak. Incompetence did.
The Simple Dutch Cure for Stress
“Uitwaaien” is a popular activity around Amsterdam—one believed to have important psychological benefits.Photograph by John Loo / Flickr Recently I was in San Francisco, a city known for its tech companies, steep hills, and fierce winds. Each day I’d run around the neighborhood and up through the park, ending with a spectacular view of the […]
Are We Flushing Our Resistance to Antibiotics Down the Drain?
Taking account of the drug-resistant germs turning up in rivers and soils.
Is the World Making You Sick?
The chemicals in our everyday lives are, argues immunologist Claudia Miller.
The Case for Eating Jellyfish
A few summers ago, Stefano Piraino was walking along the rocky shoreline on a small island off the coast of Sicily when he spotted a washed up jellyfish. Naturally, he tore a piece off and popped it into his mouth. “After a few days in that state they lose their stinging cells, and the UV […]
Meet Harvard’s Own Poet-Physician
Rafael Campo on finding the humanity in medicine and science.
Studies Shoot Down Tech’s Harmful Effects on Kids—So Now What?
Ultimately, what matters most is that we provide our children with a sense of agency and autonomy by teaching them that tools don’t use us, we use them.Photograph by Iakov Filimonov / Shutterstock It looks like grownups can disregard the fear-mongering about the ill effects of digital media on kids. A 2017 study in Child […]
Iron Is the New Cholesterol
Elevated iron is at the center of a web of disease stretching from cancer to diabetes.
An Rx for Doctors
A new psychology of control.
Nobel Prize Awarded for Cancer Immunotherapy
James P. Allison and Tasuku Honjo shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for developing ways to unleash the immune system more effectively against cancers.
The Rise of Cancer Immunotherapy
How Jim Allison saved a whole world.
A Cardiologist’s 9/11 Story
From trauma to arrhythmia, and back again.
The Painful Wait for a Hangover Pill
One survey of 2,000 people found that if you have only one hangover a month, it adds up to two years of total sick time over the course of a lifetime.Photograph by ShotPrime Studio / Shutterstock From freezing showers to ingesting prickly pear to smoking joints, everyone has a home remedy for alcohol’s notorious afterglow: the hangover. […]
30 Weirdly Fascinating Health and Body Facts
The camera doesn’t often linger on all the severed heads in Game of Thrones. But if it did, might we see some sign of awareness—at least for a few seconds? A human head doesn’t lose consciousness until after about four seconds, post-decapitation. That’s resiliency of a kind. And the acid in your stomach? Strong enough […]
Braces Have Made Snoring a Modern Health Problem
Over the ages our teeth and our tongue have become ever more crowded by the shrinking of the human jaw. Not only is this an aesthetic disaster, but it compromises our breathing, which in turn can disrupt sleep. And there, our problems really begin.Photograph by Lisa S. / Shutterstock The apotheosis of my five-year orthodontic […]
Why New Antibiotics Are So Hard to Find
A dispatch from the front lines of the war against antibiotic resistance.
Are Healthcare Metrics Hurting Healthcare?
Performance metrics are supposed to financially incentivize hospitals to improve the healthcare system. And this is exactly where the trouble starts. The list of misapplied performance metrics could go on and on.Photograph by Luis Molinero / Shutterstock In 1975, the British economist Charles Goodhart pointed out that when a measure becomes a target, it ceases […]
The Case for More Pox Research
The horsepox virus could be the basis of an improved smallpox vaccine, more effective and with fewer side effects than the currently available vaccines.Colored etching, “Edward Jenner vaccinating patients in the Smallpox and Inoculation Hospital at St. Pancras: the patients develop features of cows,” by James Gillray / Wikicommons Last year, when news broke that […]
Does Aging Have a Reset Button?
A Stanford researcher’s new take on stem cells.
Does Aging Have a Reset Button?
A Stanford researcher’s new take on stem cells.
What to Do When Your Brain Insists You’re Always on a Boat
Chris Perry had felt the world bobbing beneath her feet for nearly four months, suffering from a disorder rather poetically dubbed Mal de Debarquement syndrome.Photograph by Zvonimir Orec / Shutterstock A few years ago, Chris Perry went on an Alaskan cruise with her family to celebrate her parents’ 50th wedding anniversary. When she boarded the […]
What Needs to Change in Cancer Treatment for Young Adults
For a while, oncologists didn’t get it. Many were, both during and after these young patients’ treatment, often oblivious to and ill-equipped to meet their needs.Photograph by U.S. Air Force photo/Tech. Sgt. Peter Dean I treated an inspiring teenage girl in my clinic the other day. Although Sadie has made a complete recovery from her […]
What Needs to Change in Cancer Treatment for Young Adults
New support groups are driving oncologists to address the psychosocial challenges.
Why Smelling the Opposite Sex Can Age You
The evolutionary tradeoff between longevity and reproduction changes with gender.
Why Stem Cells Are Unfair to Their Children
This leaky barrier in old stem cells contributes to aging.
Why Stem Cells Are Unfair to Their Children
A dividing neural stem cell asymmetrically segregates some cargoes between the two resulting daughter cells—blue shows DNA, red shows cellular cargo.Darcie Moore Darcie Moore is an expert on cargo. Not the kind you’d find on a freight train, though—it’s the cargo you’d find in stem cells, the kind that can transform into the different types […]
How to Tell If You’re a Supertaster
For one thing, you won’t like IPAs.
Why Dementia Is a Population-Level Problem
Dementia is typically thought of and treated as an individual sickness. Unlike something like measles, dementia is non-transferrable, and can’t be vaccinated against. But Malaz Boustani, a professor of medicine at Indiana University, thinks that the right way to think about dementia may be through the lens of epidemiology—“the branch of medicine that deals […]
Why Dementia Is a Population-Level Problem
Malaz Boustani explains the current crisis.
When Cancer Treatment Re-traumatizes Survivors of Sexual Trauma
Shutterstock An optical illusion mesmerizes us with its ability to look entirely different depending on our perspective. Our patients can challenge our perceptions, too. Many people are familiar with the famous illusion of Rubin’s vase; the picture can appear to be two faces in profile or simply a vase. With someone pointing the way, viewers […]
When Cancer Treatment Re-traumatizes Survivors of Sexual Trauma
The need for trauma-sensitive cancer care.
Obsessed With Blastocysts
The discovery of stem cells—made possible by fundamental research in microscopy—sprouted a new field of medicine.Science Philanthropy Alliance / YouTube For the last three decades, Janet Rossant has been obsessed with the puzzle of how you got here. How did a five-day old blastocyst turn into a five-fingered baby? She found part of the answer […]
Obsessed With Blastocysts
Janet Rossant, a rockstar stem cell scientist, was first just curious about blastocysts.
Yes, You Get Wiser with Age
Aging gets a bad rap. But disease, decline and discomfort is far from the whole story. Dilip Jeste, professor of psychiatry and neuroscience at UC San Diego and director of the UCSD Center for Healthy Aging, is challenging us to take another look. In conversation with Nautilus, Jeste points out that some things get better […]
Out for Young Blood
Science has given new life to an old thirst.
Precision Medicine and Aging Have This in Common
We are healthier and living longer than we ever have, and advances like personalized medicine seem to promise an ever brighter future. But as the proportion of elderly people increases, so do the complexities of age-related medical care. Nautilus caught up with Mary Tinetti, a doctor and researcher at the Yale School of Medicine, to […]
Precision Medicine and Aging Have This in Common
They both drive the complexity of medical care up.
Why I Keep Quiet About Being a Cancer Doctor
If I lie or change the subject when you ask me what I do for a living, please don't be offended.
Getting Googled by Your Doctor
Will mental health clinicians become liable for missing your latest Facebook post?
30 Weirdly Fascinating Health and Body Facts
The camera doesn’t often linger on all the severed heads in Game of Thrones. But if it did, might we see some sign of awareness—at least for a few seconds? A human head doesn’t lose consciousness until after about four seconds, post-decapitation. That’s resiliency of a kind. And the acid in your stomach? Strong enough […]
How My Cancer Patient’s Scary Father Emotionally Scarred Me
It may be impossible to make people happy when you have to say or recommend things they do not want to hear.
The Kafkaesque Process of Cancer Diagnosis
Why reading Kafka’s “The Trial” might comfort patients and enrich the work of oncologists.
This Man’s Immune System Got a Cancer-Killing Update
William Ludwig was a 64-year-old retired corrections officer living in Bridgeton, New Jersey, in 2010, when he received a near-hopeless cancer prognosis. The Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania had run out of chemotherapeutic options, and Ludwig was disqualified from most clinical trials since he had three cancers at once—leukemia, lymphoma, and squamous […]
Should You Feed Your Kid Probiotics?
It’s not as simple as you think.
How I Coaxed a Western Medicine Skeptic to Get a Biopsy
Calculated humility in a physician may be the difference between life and death.Photograph by Tonhom1009 / Shutterstock Although I have lived the majority of my life in New Jersey, Utah has always felt like home. Three of my grandparents were multigenerational Utahns, of pioneer stock, and the other grandparent grew up in nearby Idaho. Our […]
This Man’s Immune System Got a Cancer-killing Update
William Ludwig was almost dead when he became Patient Number One in a radical new cancer treatment, one that’s just won the endorsement of F.D.A. advisors.
What Medicine Is Learning from Animals That Resist Cancer
Beating cancer might come from animals that evolved defenses against it.Photograph by Patrick Bouquet / Flickr In recent years, naked mole rats, elephants, and bowhead whales have caught the attention of cancer researchers. At first glance, these three don’t have much in common: naked mole rats are subterranean rodents; elephants roam above ground; and bowhead […]
Ingenious: Jack Gilbert
The professor of surgery explains how health emerges from a healthy microbiome.
How I Coaxed a Western Medicine Skeptic to Get a Biopsy
Calculated humility may be the difference between life and death.
What Medicine Is Learning from Animals That Resist Cancer
Beating cancer might come from animals that evolved defenses against it.
The Crumbling Ancient Texts That May Hold Life-Saving Cures
A page from a Timbuktu manuscript.Photograph by Amy Maxmen Seven hundred years ago, Timbuktu was a dream destination for scholars, traders, and religious men. At the southern edge of the Sahara desert in what is now Mali, travelers from Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, Egypt, and Morocco met in the bygone metropolis to exchange gold, salt, and […]
To a Cigarette Maker, Your Life Is Worth About $10,000
Since there is one death for every million cigarettes sold (or smoked), a tobacco manufacturer will make about $10,000 for every death caused by their products.Illustration by Raxon Rex / Flickr If you had to put a price on your life, what cash amount do you think it would be? What about $100,000? That was […]
How Aging Research Is Changing Our Lives
An interview with Eric Verdin, CEO of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging.
How Aging Research Is Changing Our Lives
An interview with Eric Verdin, CEO of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging.
Getting Googled By Your Doctor Is the New Normal
Will mental health clinicians become liable for missing your latest Facebook post?
The Dark Similarity Between Cancer Docs and Soldiers
They’re uniquely susceptible to burnout and suicide—and creative writing seems to be a promising therapy for both.
Why the Ethical Rules of Human-Subjects Research Need a Fresh Look
A revised law could prevent another Henrietta Lacks situation.
Cancer Isn’t a Logic Problem
A year ago, Joe Biden launched his “cancer moonshot,” a major national push to improve the prevention, detection, and treatment of cancer, a plan that was widely recognized to be incremental. “I believe that we need an absolute national commitment to end cancer as we know it,” Biden said while he was on his tour to cancer […]
Does Having Kids Make Mothers Age Faster?
Evidence is stacking up on both sides of an age-old debate.
A Little Paternalism in Medicine Is a Good Thing
Informed consent has its limits. It isn’t always ideal to treat the patient as a consumer in the decision-making process.Photograph by Monkey Business Images / Shutterstock My family had lived in America for only a handful of years when my grandfather had a heart attack. It was the early 1980s, before statins and baby aspirins […]
A Little Paternalism in Medicine Is a Good Thing
The evolution of the doctor-patient relationship.
To a Cigarette Maker, Your Life Is Worth About $10,000
Why most of the tobacco epidemic remains in our future.
How to Solve Oncology’s Labor Crisis
Cancer doctors are overworked, retire early, and attract fewer recruits than other specialties, leaving the rising cancer-patient population vulnerable. Here’s what must be done.Photograph by Ghislain & Marie David de Lossy / Getty Images I watched a man die today. We were “rounding” when we were summoned to his room. He was struggling to breathe, […]
Why Did My Patient Leave Me?
A patient’s departure is a critique that can help you become a better doctor.
Why Doctors Should Start Taking Your Past Spiritual History
Sharing what meaning you take from illness can enhance your treatment and sense of well-being.
Cancer’s Financial Cost Can Be Almost as Toxic to Patients as the Disease Itself
Financial distress due to cancer treatment could count as another cancer mortality risk factor, alongside smoking, diet, and exercise.Photograph by John Piekos / Flickr Add a new entry to the list of factors that can exacerbate a cancer diagnosis: money. Paying for cancer treatment is expensive, and for many patients, the financial distress can be […]
Why James Watson Has Become Optimistic about Curing Cancer
The genomic cancer strategy shift.
Why Men Don’t Live as Long as Women
It’s the testosterone, don’t you know.
What My Stroke Taught Me
The surprising, quiet nourishment of losing my internal monologue.
Why Men Don’t Live as Long as Women
It’s the testosterone, don’t you know.
No One’s Invincible When It Comes to Cancer
The lessons I learned from letting a superstar patient cloud my better judgment.
Why Cancer Patients and Doctors Should Talk Money
Cancer’s financial cost can be almost as toxic to patients as the disease itself.
Cancer Isn’t a Logic Problem
Silicon Valley wants to solve cancer by hacking it. Here’s why its approach fails.
The Race Problem in Breast Cancer Screening
Here’s a curious fact: Black American women are 37 percent more likely to die from breast cancer than white women, according to a 2015 report by the American Cancer Society, yet they receive early-stage diagnoses much less frequently. Why might that be? Biology’s role isn’t clear. The breast cancer death-rate in the U.S. is on the […]
How One Cancer Doc Struggled to Explain Her Job to Her Daughter
I didn’t know how to reveal that I treat kids with cancer.
This Is Life at 400
Ballooning life expectancies are upending age-old definitions of life stages.
The Real Secret of Youth Is Complexity
Our physiological processes become increasingly simple as we age.
The Man Who Blamed Aging on His Intestines
The productive, bizarre career of Nobel laureate and early aging researcher Elie Metchnikoff.
Will 90 Become The New 60?
As our lifespans have increased, so too have our active years. Can that go on?
Yes, Life in the Fast Lane Kills You
New insights into mitochondria reveal how life expends energy.
This Cancer Treatment Extends Life Without Pills, Radiation, or Surgery
The monumental shift in oncology to have all advanced cancer patients receive palliative care.
Cancer, the Consummate Traveler
Disrupting cancer’s diaspora may lead to new therapies.
Teaching Your Body to Fight the Enemy Within
Could our own immune systems be taught to find and destroy cancer cells?
Feeling Lonely? There’s an App for That
The phone rang; a woman answered. Our awkward opening was brief. “This is my first time,” I said. “I’m not sure how this is supposed to go.” She said she’d be happy to listen. I’d just pressed a button in an app on my phone. The app’s red screen was cheerful, outdoorsy—there were smiling, hip […]
How Circadian Clocks Differ From Sleep
The circadian clock is in nearly every cell, and researchers have untangled many of its secrets. But sleep has been harder to pin down.
Raising the American Weakling
There are two very different interpretations of our dwindling grip strength.
Raising the American Weakling
There are two very different interpretations of our dwindling grip strength.
The Link Between Complicated Pregnancies and Child Prodigies
Wondrous talent—like that of mathematical and artistic savants or child prodigies—is exceedingly rare. It occurs so unexpectedly one may be tempted to think of the phenomena as sui generis, so unusual that no rules or commonalities could apply across cases. However, research is steadily disclosing the mechanisms responsible: not merely that their upbringing provides a crucible […]
From the Bottom of the Sea to the Operating Table
How coral revolutionized human bone repair.
We Spoke to the Surgeon Who Gave a Man His Penis Back
In May this year, Curtis Cetrulo, a plastic-reconstructive surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital, performed the first penis transplant in the United States. Previously his patient, Thomas Manning, 64, had most of his penis amputated to stem penis cancer, a rare form of the disease. Since the transplant, Manning has received a wave of media attention, […]
Will Viruses Save Us From Superbugs?
When antibiotics failed a severely ill patient, it was a pond virus that saved him.
Hope That an Old Drug Might Treat Zika
Scientists are having a difficult time finding a treatment for the Zika virus in part because so few drugs are safe for pregnant women. But one antibiotic has shown promise.
The Strange Case of Typhoid Mary
The infamous case of Typhoid Mary underscores the importance of tolerance in understanding disease.
Inside Alzheimer’s Disease
Discover what it means to 'Think Like a Scientist' about Alzheimer's Disease.
Why You Can’t Help But Act Your Age
The surprising relationship between mindset and getting old.
On Your Birthday, You’re Not Celebrating What You Think
Scientists are trying to study biological aging without defining it, and that’s a problem.
7 DIY Treatments to Avoid the Doctor
A South American legend has it that, centuries ago, a native, suffering from high malarial fever, got lost in the Andes. Thirsty, he drank from a pool of stagnant water. The bitter taste prompted a ghastly realization: The surrounding cinchona trees, whose bark was thought to be poisonous, must have contaminated the water. He thought […]
Natural Selection in an Outbreak
Every time a disease spreads, it has another chance to mutate.
The Trouble with Milk
Only 1 in 3 people have evolved tolerance to lactose.
How Aphasic Patients Understood the Presidential Debate
In The President’s Speech, a 1985 essay by the late neurologist and writer Oliver Sacks, he observes a group of people with aphasia, a language disorder, as they laugh uproariously at the television. The cause of their amusement is an unnamed actor-turned United States president, presumably Ronald Reagan, addressing his audience: “There he was, the […]
Can Dogs Help Us Understand the Link Between Intelligence and Health?
If you’re a dog lover, you may have heard of Chaser, the border collie who has been called a “genius” and the “smartest dog in the world.” Retired psychology professor John Pilley, Chaser’s owner and co-author of a recent book about her, says he was able to teach her 1,000 words, the largest “vocabulary” of […]
Why Are People Losing the Blissful Tingles of ASMR?
In more ways than one, the tingles seem to be fading. Just a few years ago, autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR), a puzzling and blissful sensation, became the sudden focal point for a sizable Internet community. Practitioners liken it to a current of electricity running down the scalp and spine. Audiences marveled at online videos, […]
Alzheimer’s Early Tell
The language of authors who suffered from dementia has a story for the rest of us.
Hallucinogen Therapy Is Coming
How shrooms can spring people from fears and destructive habits.
A Mental Disease by Any Other Name
For Frank Russell, reinterpreting his schizophrenia as shamanism helped his symptoms.
When Exercise Becomes Too Much of a Good Thing
In a world where only 1 in 5 American adults meet the minimum daily exercise requirements, exercise addiction can seem like the opposite of a problem. Don’t let that fool you, says Marilyn Freimuth, a clinical psychologist at Fielding Graduate University, in Santa Barbara. “Exercise addiction can completely take over someone’s life. They’re getting injured, […]
Beyond What’s Possible: The State of the Art of Athletic Doping
Ever since ancient Greek Olympians downed exotic meats, “magic” potions, and animal hearts and testicles, athletes have tried to improve their performances by consuming special substances. Such behavior wasn’t considered cheating back in ancient times, and this attitude continued into the modern revival of the games. When a runner named Thomas Hicks famously won the 1904 […]
Is Gymnastics’ Scoring System Injuring Athletes?
It happened in an instant: a resounding crack and the bottom half of French gymnast Samir Ait Said’s leg was dangling like a marionette’s, his face contorted in pain. At the Rio Olympics, Said had just performed a thrilling triple backflip on the vault. When he landed, his leg snapped on impact. Said’s shot at […]
The Paradox of Doping in Mountain Climbing
In alpinism, supplemental oxygen is a matter of safety—but some say it’s doping.
Cupping, the Rio Olympics Health Trend, Can Do More Harm Than Good
Several days ago, when the Rio Olympics began hitting their stride, many athletes, including champion swimmer Michael Phelps, were sporting a unique look: Their muscled shoulders were spattered with, well, what? Giant purple chicken pox? Alien hickeys? Soon enough, however, the marks were demystified: They were evidence of cupping, a therapy that involves placing suction […]
We Are Nowhere Close to the Limits of Athletic Performance
Genetic engineering will bring us new Bolts and Shaqs.
50 Million Tinnitus Sufferers Just Got Some Bad News and Some Good News
Fifteen years ago, almost as soon as she arrived in the Cleveland suburbs, her hometown, a high-pitched ringing disturbed Katie Hellmuth Martin’s sense of peace. She was looking forward to settling into the gentle sounds of summer she’d grown up with: birdcalls during the day, the relaxing cadence of crickets at night. Instead, her respite […]
How Woodpeckers Will Save Football
It takes a bird brain to play contact sports safely.
The Case For Leaving City Rats Alone
A Vancouver rat study is showing us how pest control can backfire.
Noise Is a Drug and New York Is Full of Addicts
We may complain about a defining feature of the city, but we also feed off it.
These Clumps of Undigested Food Used To Be Medicinal Charms
Digestive Tract Bling: A bezoar mounted in gold filigree, from late-17th century India—now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. When you get right down to it, a body like ours is basically a bony scaffold that a strange collection of organs, interconnected by a complex entanglement of piping, hangs on. In some of these pipes, […]
Running Is Always Blind
How your brain keeps you from falling on your face.
These Feminine Smells Get Sperm Moving
Sperm are the cheetahs of the microscopic world: Made of little more than molecular muscle and batteries, tipped with a payload of genetic information, they are optimized for speed. But to orient themselves before their epic, seven-inch sprint (it’s more impressive if you’re less than one three-thousandth that size), they first need to sniff out […]
Seven Scientists Describe Seven Kinds of Aging
The novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez struck an optimistic note about aging: “The essence of a human being is resistant to the passage of time,” he once wrote. On the other hand, Chuck Palahniuk, author of Fight Club, was a bit less sentimental: “It happens fast for some people and slow for some, accidents or gravity, […]
We Have No Idea How Most Species Age
To humans, aging can seem to be inextricably linked with physical decline. In 1975, “on a whim,” the photographer Nicholas Nixon decided to illustrate this process. That year he took a picture of his wife and her three sisters standing together, shoulder-to-shoulder; and every year after, for four decades, they stood for a picture in […]
This Is Life at 400
Ballooning life expectancies are upending age-old definitions of life stages.
The Real Secret of Youth Is Complexity
Our physiological processes become increasingly simple as we age.
The Immortality Hype
Despite the hyperbole, private funding is changing the science of aging for the better.
Speaking Multiple Languages Staves Off Dementia
Parlez-vous francais? If you answered yes, then you’re well on your way to enjoying the many benefits of bilingualism. Speaking both English and French, for example, can enrich your cultural experiences in multilingual destinations like Belgium, Morocco, or Egypt, and broaden your access to books, music, and films. But the benefits of speaking another language […]
The Man Who Blamed Aging on His Intestines
The productive, bizarre career of Nobel laureate and early aging researcher Elie Metchnikoff.
Will 90 Become The New 60?
As our lifespans have increased, so too have our active years. Can that go on?
How to Survive Doomsday
The high technology that could help us live through the sun’s inevitable transformation.
Your Roommate Is Changing Your Immune System
Our veins are swimming with immune cells of many different kinds. Some bear the memory of previous infections, in case we should encounter them again; some are actively fighting invaders; others are merely on the look-out. Counting all of the varieties of cells and what molecules they are producing gives researchers a profile of someone’s […]
Junk Food Is Bad For Plants, Too
How a steady diet of fertilizers has turned crops into couch potatoes.
How to Adapt to Your Face Transplant
Just last month, Carmen Blandin had a remarkable dream. In it she saw, for the first time, not her old face in the mirror—the one she had for the first 38 years of her life—but the new face she received in a transplant three years ago. “I actually saw me with my new face,” she […]
What It’s Like to Be the Only Doctor in Space
Commander Carmel Johnston gives Chief Science Officer Christiane Heinicke a hand.Photograph by Sheyna Gifford Space is no place to be alone. On Earth, it may be uncomfortable, even oppressive—but by itself, being alone isn’t life-threatening. A person alone in space, however, is definitively lost: dead, or about to be. On simulated Mars—the slopes of a […]
How My Ecstasy Trip Turned Into a Rare Anxiety Disorder
When I was at the Firefly Music Festival in Delaware, in the summer of 2014, I took a 200 mg pill of ecstasy—Red Riddler—something I had done before. After the sets were over, the colors of the overhead lamps seemed more saturated against the sky. Each bulb’s top-right quadrant had a massive, prismatic aura, like […]
Could We See the End of Malaria?
The Nobel laureate Baruch Blumberg once estimated that malaria has killed half of the people who have ever lived. In 2015 alone, it killed almost half a million people, 70 percent of which were children. Today, about 3.2 billion people are, according to the World Health Organization, at risk of contracting it, most of whom […]
The Man Who Would Tame Cancer
Patrick Soon-Shiong is opening a new front in the war on the deadly disease.
The Woman Who Got Lost at Home
A developmental disorder promises a new window onto the brain’s secrets.
The Woman Who Got Lost at Home
A developmental disorder promises a new window onto the brain’s secrets.
The Problem with Nature Therapy
The medicalization of nature turns a relationship into a dose.
Why You Should Fix Your Inconsistent Sleep Schedule
Travelling induced jet lag isn’t the only thing that causes untimely fatigue. Ignoring your biological rhythms can lead to chronic exhaustion, too, something that feels so much like jet lag that Till Roenneberg and his team, at Ludwig-Maximilian University, in Munich, Germany, coined the term “social jet lag” in 2006. It occurs when there’s […]
Stress on Simulated Mars Was Not What I Expected
Welcome to sMars: Christiane Heinicke stands on a hillside southwest of the dome. The solar array that powers the habitat is to her right. To her left are the backup hydrogen fuel cells and the solar water heater.Photograph by Christiane Heinicke/Sheyna Gifford, 2015 For 6 crewmembers who have supposedly traveled 150 million miles—and were, beforehand, […]
Here’s Where “The Walking Dead” Goes Wrong With Zombies
Bill Clark/Getty Images Rick Grimes is cornered. A walker shuffles toward him, thoughtless yet eager for flesh. Sweat drips through Grimes’ thick beard, grown in the hundreds of fearful days and nights since the dead started to roam the earth. He quickly reaches for his knife—a weapon he never used in his days as a […]
Do You Actually Need More Stress?
PathDoc/Shutterstock There’s a New Yorker cartoon that shows a doctor telling the patient lying in bed, “I don’t think you’re getting enough stress.” The cartoon is funny because it plays on the idea that stress is bad—how absurd is it that a doctor would prescribe more of it? Why not just offer the patient poison? […]
Why Living in a Poor Neighborhood Can Change Your Biology
The sheer stress of an environment contributes to obesity and diabetes.
Why Living in a Poor Neighborhood Can Make You Fat
The sheer stress of an environment contributes to obesity and diabetes.
The Curse That Shoes Can Break
The tragic story of the simple solution to one of the world’s most neglected diseases.
What Your Microbiome Wants for Dinner
You may think twice about your diet when you follow the metabolic fate of your food.
Invisible Patients: A Caregiver’s Story
Dementia takes a toll on caregivers, too.
What Alzheimer’s Feels Like from the Inside
An investigative reporter chronicles the progression of his own disease.
What Alzheimer’s Feels Like from the Inside
An investigative reporter chronicles the progression of his own disease.
When Stress Comes with Your Mother’s Milk
Stress hormones in breast milk may help prepare us for a turbulent world.
When Stress Comes with Your Mother’s Milk
Stress hormones in breast milk may help prepare us for a turbulent world.
How Utter Darkness Could Heal Lazy Eye
The email from a professor offered an unusual spring break adventure: Come spend five days in complete darkness. To Morgan Williams, then a sophomore at Swarthmore College and a psychology major, it sounded like a great way to spend his vacation week. “I’m not really one for going to the beach,” he says. For those […]
What to Eat in Atlantis
Five menus for five mythical cities.
Is This New Swim Stroke the Fastest Yet?
The surprising performance and physics of the fish kick.
Is This New Swim Stroke the Fastest Yet?
The surprising performance and physics of the fish kick.
Will Coffee Cure You or Kill You?
Depending on whom you ask, coffee is either the next super food or the next public health hazard. Consult the latest news headlines or scientific studies, and you’ll find that coffee “fights heart disease,” reduces the risk of breast cancer, colon cancer, and multiple sclerosis, and “could keep Alzheimer’s at bay.” One recent study by researchers […]
Why Expectant Mothers Can Just Chill Out
Sodapix/Getty When philosopher Nicolas Malebranche peered at a fetus floating in a glass jar, in a shop of curiosities in Paris in 1672, he blamed its monstrous shape on the mother. At the time it was believed that a mother could deform her fetus simply by looking at something vivid. Malebranche had heard that this […]
How to Unlearn a Disease
Medicine’s latest cure is forgetting you’re sick.
How to Unlearn a Disease
Medicine’s latest cure is forgetting you’re sick.
The Man Who Drank Cholera and Launched the Yogurt Craze
Ilya Metchnikoff laid the foundation for modern probiotics.
The Man Who Drank Cholera and Launched the Yogurt Craze
Ilya Metchnikoff laid the foundation for modern probiotics.
The Disease That Turned Us Into Genetic-Information Junkies
For many people, 1969 felt like a year when technology could solve all of our problems, a sentiment that reached a crescendo with the Apollo 11 moon landing. But back on Earth, Michael Kaback was a faculty member in pediatrics1 at Johns Hopkins Medical Center, and he was frustrated. Kaback had helped some of his […]
Yes, You Can Catch Insanity
A controversial disease revives the debate about the immune system and mental illness.
Yes, You Can Catch Insanity
A controversial disease revives the debate about the immune system and mental illness.
How Slow Responses Made the Ebola Outbreak So Deadly
As a rule, huge organizations move sluggishly, bogged down in democratic decision-making processes and bureaucratic policies. Ebola, on the other hand, moves fast. People become desperately sick and contagious within a few weeks of infection. By the time international agencies effectively responded to the ongoing Ebola outbreak, it had spiraled out of control in West […]
The Impossible Physiology of the Free Diver
The amazing underwater athletes are rewriting the science of the body.
The Man Who Beat HIV at Its Own Game for 30 Years
A survivor’s story is about to change.
Why Egg Freezing Is an Impossible Choice
I don’t want to surrender to a lottery. But will I regret not playing?
Did Grief Give Him Parkinson’s?
These identical twins led virtually identical lives—with one tragic exception.
3 Graphs That Help Show Why Ebola Goes Viral or Dies Out
Fighting Ebola requires lots of equipment and personnel.Morgana Wingard, USAID In September 1854, 600 residents of London’s Golden Square died from an infamous outbreak of cholera. It was no coincidence that this occurred in one of London’s poorest neighborhoods. We now know that markers of poverty—higher population densities, decreased nutrition, lack of medical care, […]
The Most Dangerous Muse
Parkinson’s disease gave her the gift of creativity.
What to Eat After the Apocalypse
Engineer Joshua Pearce explains how to feed 7 billion people after a global catastrophe.
Take Light, Not Drugs
How light therapy can treat disorders from depression to Alzheimer’s disease.
Being Mortal: Atul Gawande’s Rx for How to End Our Lives
Atul Gawande sits across from me in a cafe in Berkeley, California, sipping an Izze fruit drink and trying to catch his breath. He just came from an appearance across the bay, in San Francisco, and is soon headed to a radio interview down the street, followed by a drive via the Golden Gate […]
Stop Developing Drugs for the Cancer That Killed My Mother
Funding drug development for rare cancers can hurt patients.
Stop Developing Drugs for the Cancer That Killed My Mother
Funding drug development for rare cancers can hurt patients.
When Eating Dairy Was a Life-or-Death Question
Clay sieves used to filter cheese in Poland 7,500 years ago are remarkably similar to ones used in recent times.Salque et al. / Nature Perforated pottery shards sat alongside cattle bones at the Polish dig site. There archaeologists collected fragments from bowls, cooking pots, and flasks and brought them back to the United Kingdom. At […]
How World of Warcraft Might Help Head Off the Next Pandemic
Gamers are giving scientists insights into how people react to a plague.
At Death’s Door, He Was Put on Ice
How a new technology is resurrecting patients from what was once certain death.
A Deadly Virus Is Arrested in the Middle East
Halting a MERS pandemic may hold lessons for the Ebola crisis—until the next outbreak.
Take Two Sugar Pills and Call Me in the Morning
Genetic tests can predict when placebos may be the best medicine.
Is the World Making You Sick?
The chemicals in our everyday lives are, argues immunologist Claudia Miller.
Fruits and Vegetables Are Trying to Kill You
Antioxidant vitamins don’t stress us like plants do—and don’t have their beneficial effect.
America Is Getting the Science of Sun Exposure Wrong
Why U.S. dermatologists won’t base recommendations on skin color.
The Health Costs of our Late-Night Light Addiction
A study at RPI’s Lighting Research Center tested the effects of digital tablets and different colors of light on subjects’ circadian rhythms.Brittany Wood et al. / RPI In the summer of 2012, the American Medical Association (AMA) adopted a new policy stating that nighttime light exposure is hazardous to human health. “The primary human concerns […]
Take Light, Not Drugs
How light therapy can treat disorders from depression to Alzheimer’s disease.
Losing His Sight, a Scientist Sees an End to a Deadly Disease
Bill Jacobs lights the way to better tuberculosis drugs.
A Grandfather’s Final Gift Recalls a Different Way of Life
One evening four years ago, photographer Andrea Tese received a phone call from a home-care nurse. Could she come to her grandfather’s house to assess the situation? the nurse asked. Her grandfather had been very ill and had stipulated he did not want to die inside a hospital; he wanted to stay at home. But […]
The Crumbling Ancient Texts That May Hold Life-Saving Cures
Seven hundred years ago, Timbuktu was a dream destination for scholars, traders, and religious men. At the southern edge of the Sahara desert in what is now Mali, travelers from Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, Egypt, and Morocco met in the bygone metropolis to exchange gold, salt, and ideas. According to a description of Timbuktu in […]
The Big Benefits of Doing HIV Tests Yourself, at Home
The next time you stop at the local drug store to pick up household standbys like shampoo, ibuprofen, and tissues, you might also consider picking up something rather more serious: an HIV test. Show your ID (the test is only approved for adults aged 17+), pay $40, and you can return home and learn your […]
Cancer, the Consummate Traveler
Disrupting cancer’s diaspora may lead to new therapies.
Chernobyl’s Hot Mess, “the Elephant’s Foot,” Is Still Lethal
The Elephant’s Foot could be the most dangerous piece of waste in the world.
The Curious Case of the Exploding Pig Farms
This pig farm was devastated by an explosion due to foaming. Ross Muhlbauer, Iowa State University At first, the manure was just harmlessly foaming. Only later on did things get lethal. Hog farms in the Midwest are great big barns sitting on top of great big pits filled with a great deal of awful-smelling manure. […]
Nature, the IT Wizard
Nature manages information, the currency of life, with exquisite efficiency.
What If Obesity Is Nobody’s Fault?
Meet the mice that are changing the obesity conversation.
For Preventing Disease, Data Are the New Drugs
Is giving up your biological secrets too bitter a pill?
For Preventing Disease, Data Are the New Drugs
Is giving up your biological secrets too bitter a pill?
An Unlikely Cure Signals New Hope for Cancer
How “exceptional responders” are revolutionizing treatment for the deadly disease.
Bring Out Your (Very Infrequent) Dead!
If you imagine the bubonic plague, based on what you learned as a kid, you probably imagine something similar to Pieter Bruegel’s 1562 painting, The Triumph of Death. Dead bodies in piles. Helpless civilians sprawled on the ground in anguish. Panicked crowds trying to flee as the village burns and falls into disarray. Total mayhem. […]
The Near-Mythical Beast That Spread an All-Too-Real Disease
January 1996 was, in most respects, a month like any other in Jefferson County, Colorado, the “Gateway to the Rocky Mountains.”* But one thing distinguished that particular month in that particular county in Colorado: an outbreak of salmonellosis among children, most of whom were under 13 years of age. The Colorado Department of Public Health and […]
Their Giant Steps to a Cure
Battling a rare form of muscular dystrophy, a family finds an activist leader, and hope.
Mind-Control Helicopters and the Healing Power of Poop
Five unlikely breakthroughs in medical science today.
When Pigs Fly
It’s no fairy tale—factory farms and air travel form a viral expressway to pandemics.
When Pigs Fly
It’s no fairy tale—factory farms and air travel form a viral expressway to pandemics.
Pandemics Are the Dark Side of Global Mobility
How the 2009 swine flu raced around the world.
Getting Straight to the Site of Disease
Nanomedicine is going to battle against brain disease in Iraq veterans.
Why Autopsy Gandolfini? Death Is Certain; Its Cause Is Not
When Italian authorities confirmed Wednesday that James Gandolfini had just died in Rome of an apparent heart attack, many of the US reports fronted the fact that Gandolfini’s body would be autopsied, “as required by Italian law.” They fronted this news for understandable reasons—an autopsy on someone who died in medical care seemed unusual. In […]
Be Careful With the Powerful Medicine That Is Poop
It has recently become clear that each one of us is more microbe than human—at least when it comes to the number of cells in our bodies. The bacteria that swarm through our guts, across our skin, and in every orifice you have outnumber our human cells by at least 10 to 1, though their […]