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The growing case for doing less: How harmless cancers are being overdiagnosed in America
In 2009, Laura Esserman, a breast cancer surgeon and oncology specialist in San Francisco, co-published an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) suggesting that it was time to rethink routine screening for breast and prostate cancer. The current approach, she wrote, wasn’t reducing aggressive or late-stage disease as much as had been hoped. Instead, it […]
Long COVID. Shorter Life? New research reveals an arduous road to recovery
With or without a declaration from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, COVID-19 cases continue to rise. Fortunately, the number and severity of those new cases is nowhere near the terrible peaks of the past three years, and deaths are very low. But that’s not the whole story. Practically since the term “long COVID” was […]
America turned to hospital-at-home programs during the pandemic–but their stunning success calls for a permanent fix
On the first day of May this year, George Hardy appeared at the Emergency Department of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. The diagnosis was clear: Hardy was suffering from congestive heart failure–and the 84-year-old spent most of the next 24 hours at the emergency department. Then he went home. But he didn’t leave the hospital. […]
Engineers build a small home using disposable diapers in Indonesia
It was an idea born of equal parts inspiration and desperation. Indonesia, facing a steadily rising urban population and high building material costs, was falling farther into a deficit of affordable living space. At the same time, the urban population growth was spurring a massive increase in the use of non-recyclable waste products, including tons […]
From space taxis to Mars missions, five space industry insiders discuss the biggest extra-terrestrial opportunities
Seemingly dormant for decades, space activity over the past several years has ramped up to unprecedented levels. The year 2022 saw a record 186 successful rocket launches, as private companies, led by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, continued to press into an industry that once was associated mostly with government entities and competing nations. The relationship is […]
E-bike injuries: ‘We’re only seeing the tip of the iceberg,’ trauma experts warn
The irony for Meghan Glaser was that she was already checking for a bicyclist–the one to her right, stationary at a stop sign in the coastal La Jolla neighborhood near San Diego. She never saw the two cyclists on her left, high-school students who’d blown through their own stop and were trying to beat her […]
The next wave of virus detection: A good boy
On some level, Carol Glaser thought, the idea was almost too obvious not to work. For decades, localities and governments around the world had employed dogs to sniff for illicit drugs, explosives, landmines, and missing people–even for disease. Why not COVID? After all, with as many as 300 million olfactory receptors, a dog’s ability to scent or […]
Climate change is making the skies less friendly. Prepare for a future where you always have your seatbelt on
In his early days in the business, aviation expert John Nance used to make “Tornado Alley runs,” as he and other pilots with Braniff Airlines called them. They involved multiple takeoffs and landings in places like Kansas City and Wichita on the way to Minneapolis and back, traversing a Midwest corridor in which weather conditions […]
Tranq, the new ‘zombie’ drug that causes skin rotting, is fueling overdoses across the U.S.
James Sherman sees the telltale signs every day in his job as the director of men’s programs at Savage Sisters Recovery center, in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia. Some of the drug users arrive there in a stupor, some unable to stay awake, some with open sores or wounds on their hands, arms, legs, heads. Xylazine, the […]
3D-printed organs may soon be a reality. ‘Looking ahead, we’ll not need donor hearts’
Last year, in San Antonio, Texas, Dr. Arturo Bonilla carefully implanted an outer ear on a 20-year-old woman born without one. The ear on the woman’s right side, had been constructed in the size and shape of her left. For Bonilla, a pediatric microtia surgeon (a doctor who treats birth defects of the ear) for […]
