I love sleep, but I’ve been getting far too little of it. My harried days have been stretching into late nights spent staring at the computer. And I’m not alone. The National Sleep Foundation estimates that the average American gets just 6.7 hours of sleep a night on weekdays. We’re all familiar with the side […]
As a journalist, I live in constant terror of making mistakes. This anxiety typically simmers just below the surface of my consciousness, occasionally bubbling up to grab me in a full choke hold. But errors are more or less inevitable in this business. And last week, I made one. A new Nature study showed that […]
Scientists know a lot about infectious diseases. But a new study in the Archives of Internal Medicine finds that the treatment guidelines created by the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) are based on imperfect evidence. Only one in seven treatment recommendations relied on evidence from a randomized controlled trial, the gold standard in medicine. […]
On a crisp fall day in November 2008, a wildlife biologist killed a deer in Eastern Virginia. He slit the carcass open from breast to tail and removed the animal’s internal organs. Hunting knives are very sharp. And, in the process of field dressing the deer, he nicked his knuckle. I imagine he didn’t think […]
Once upon a time, in a far off land, a boy and a girl courted and fell in love. Although they lived in the big city, they decided to tie the knot in Montana, where the boy’s parents live. But before the state would recognize their union, the girl had to have a blood test. […]
Scientific articles published in prestigious medical journals don’t usually begin like this: A Little Red Hen lived in a university hospital where she took care of the sick animals in the different wards. She did this under the overseeing eye of her wise and learned mentors. There was the Cow, who had a degree from […]
Amateur beekeeper Gita Nandan began to suspect something wasn’t right about mid-summer. That’s when her bees’ honey, normally amber, turned the color of cherry cough syrup. After a day of foraging, her bees would return to their Brooklyn hives, their distended bellies glowing bright red. She posted photos on the Facebook page of the New […]
Each year my mother asks for my Christmas list. No, I’m not eight. I’m more than two decades older than that. Yet she still asks. And I still send one. (I also cc Santa just to be on the safe side.) This year, I’m inclined to ask for a kitchen thermometer. It’s not that I […]