Contributor

B. David Zarley

Senior Staff Writer

Contact

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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!

Virology

A virus "chimera" reveals new dengue targets

Using a flavivirus that only infects insects, Australian researchers can safely study more dangerous viruses.

B. David Zarley

Neuroscience

Google and Harvard have created the most detailed brain map yet

Google and Harvard have released the most detailed map yet, called a connectome, of a section of the human brain.

B. David Zarley

Virology

Did the flu lose diversity during the pandemic?

After a record-low flu season, an entire clade of flu may be gone. If so, making vaccines may have become easier.

B. David Zarley

Art

Bacteria are cleaning Michelangelo's Reanaissance sculptures

Faced with stubborn, literal stains of the family’s violent past, the Medici Chapel has used bacteria to clean Michelangelos.

B. David Zarley

Medicine

Hope and controversy: FDA approves first new Alzheimer's drug in decades

The FDA has approved the first new Alzheimer’s drug in decades, but the decision brings not only hope, but controversy.

B. David Zarley

This high schooler created a drug discovery search engine

While looking for drugs to potentially fight Alzheimer’s, a high school researcher's AI did “comically” bad, until he thought of it as a search engine.

B. David Zarley

Public Health

Can a dog vaccine for Valley fever lead to a human one?

Cases of Valley fever, a fungal infection, have risen dramatically over the decade. Researchers hope a dog vaccine may lead to one for humans.

B. David Zarley

Drugs

A small dose of an ibogaine-like drug cures stress in mice

A novel drug designed like ibogaine but without the ibogaine trip or toxicity has corrected the effects of stress in mice.

B. David Zarley

Neuroscience

What happens when your brain imagines the future?

Research out of the University of Pennsylvania suggests imagining the future is a two-brain region job.

B. David Zarley

Medicine

"Light-shrinking" material cranks normal microscopes up to 11

Researchers have developed a light-shrinking slide coating that allows light microscopes to image in “super-resolution.”

B. David Zarley