Health

The future of fertility, from artificial wombs to AI-assisted IVF

A look back at the history of infertility treatments and ahead to the tech that could change everything we thought we knew about reproduction.

Kristin Houser

Overlay of hands and abstract patterns in purple and blue tones, symbolizing hope for Parkinson's cure.

Drugs

The exciting research that may cure Parkinson’s

GeneCode is developing a drug it hopes won’t just alleviate Parkinson’s symptoms but also protect and restore patient’s neural health.

Kevin Dickinson

A child sitting on a couch in a dimly lit room, holding and looking intently at a tablet, as if testing the Goldilocks hypothesis for the perfect screen brightness.

Mental Health

Beyond screen time: Rethinking kids’ tech use with the “Goldilocks hypothesis”

The “Goldilocks hypothesis” asks parents to think beyond screen time and consider the habits that teens build around technology use.

Kevin Dickinson

a man holds a smartphone screen to another man's forehead to measure his temperature

Public Health

Your smartphone may become a thermometer

Researchers at the University of Washington are developing an app that can turn the ubiquitous smartphone into an accurate thermometer.

B. David Zarley

Medicine

One shot epilepsy treatment reduced seizures by 95% in first two patients

A stem cell-based treatment for epilepsy slashed the number of seizures experienced by two trial participants by 95%.

Kristin Houser

Aging

Could switching off a neural “death response” slow aging?

A sensory mechanism that governs how quickly flies age may also have a corollary in people.

James Kingsland

a head of lettuce on a colorful background

Medicine

Insulin grown in lettuce can be taken orally

New synthetic insulin harvested from lettuce plants can be made cheaply, taken orally, and transported at room temperature.

Kristin Houser

Brain

Cancer med appears to prevent brain aneurysms

Japanese researchers have discovered that the cancer drug sunitinib can prevent the formation of brain aneurysms in mice.

Kristin Houser

“Nature’s own Ozempic” or berberine is all over social media

Does berberine work as well as Ozempic to help people lose weight? Social media seems to think so, but it's not likely.

Rebecca Roubin and Nial Wheate and Tina Hinton

Microbiome

How intestinal viruses could help you live to be 100

People who live past age 100 have a greater diversity of bacteriophages (that is, viruses that infect bacteria) in their intestines.

Peter Rogers

Coronavirus

Cheap drug appears to cut long COVID risk by 41% in small study

The diabetes drug metformin cut COVID-19 patients’ risk of later developing long COVID by 41% in a small study.

Kristin Houser

a white powder with a scooper on a blue background

Aging

Taurine appears to reverse aging in animals. Can it do the same for us?

Animals given taurine lived longer, healthier lives, suggesting that the compound may also increase human longevity.

Kristin Houser

Brain

Have we got the brain all wrong? Study shows its shape is more important than its wiring

Neural activity may be more influenced by the shape of the brain – its grooves, contours, and folds – than by its complex interconnections.

Alex Fornito and James Pang

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