Contributor

B. David Zarley

Senior Staff Writer

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B. David Zarley is a senior staff writer for Freethink, where he covers health and medicine, including infectious disease, psychedelic research, mental health, and the brain. A graduate of SUNY Fredonia, his work has also appeared in The Atlantic, The Verge, Jezebel, Frieze, Sports Illustrated, VICE, Paste Magazine, and numerous other publications. He lives in Chicago and can be reached via Signal by request. Send him story ideas!

Medicine

“Synthetic biomarkers” could catch your cancer in the future

When the body’s own biomarkers aren’t enough, researchers have begun creating their own to help fight cancer.

B. David Zarley

Genetics

An international team sets out to cure genetic heart diseases with one shot

Researchers from the UK, US, and Singapore are beginning work on a genetic heart cure they hope to begin clinically testing within five years.

B. David Zarley

Surgery

Scientists convert kidney to universal “O” blood type

Kidneys still need to be tissue matched, but by converting them to type O, more will be available for transplant.

B. David Zarley

Clean Energy

Researchers have found a way to pull more than 95% of uranium from seawater

Seawater contains millions of tons of uranium, but it’s too expensive to extract. A new material may change that.

B. David Zarley

Medicine

A sepsis-catching AI has proven effective in hospitals

A new AI for spotting sepsis, which accounts for ⅓ of hospital deaths, was found to be effective in a large trial.

B. David Zarley

Cars

Free Lyft robotaxis are hitting Las Vegas

Motional and Lyft are now offering robotaxi rides in Las Vegas.

B. David Zarley

Food

Light pulses can stop dangerous food poisoning like Salmonella

A team at Penn State has developed a pulsed light technique capable of killing common food poisoning pathogens.

B. David Zarley

Medicine

Synthetic cartilage is now stronger than the real stuff

Using a heating process, Duke researchers have created a synthetic cartilage hydrogel that can outperform the real thing.

B. David Zarley

Biology

Mouse embryos with beating hearts have been created entirely in the lab

Researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science have developed mouse embryos, complete with organ structures, purely from stem cells.

B. David Zarley

Clean Energy

Gates-backed company is using robots to build mega solar farms

With new capital from a Bill Gates-backed VC firm, Terabase wants to automate solar farm construction.

B. David Zarley