Author: Michelle Korhonen

With cholera on the rise around the world, the global vaccine stockpile is running dry. New doses go right to active outbreaks, with none left for prevention campaigns. Can vaccine makers catch up?

In January, Donald Trump laid out in stark terms what consequences await America if charges against him for conspiring to overturn the 2020 election wind up interfering with his presidential victory in 2024. “It’ll be bedlam in the country,” he told reporters after an appeals-court hearing. Just before a reporter began asking if he would rule out violence from his supporters, Trump walked away.This would be a shocking display from a presidential candidate—except the presidential candidate was Donald Trump. In the three years since the January 6 insurrection, when Trump supporters went to the U.S. Capitol armed with zip ties,…

A Florida man who went to doctors complaining of persistent migraines was found to be suffering from a parasite in his brain.The unnamed patient, 52, sought medical help after his chronic headaches became more frequent over the past four months and his medications stopped working.Scans showed multiple cysts in both hemispheres of his brain, as well as swelling, which infectious disease experts confirmed was the result of a pork tapeworm that had laid eggs in his brain and was irritating the tissue under his skull.It’s believed that he contracted the illness from eating undercooked bacon after the patient told doctors…

Hi friends! Happy Friday! I hope you’ve had a wonderful week. We are 100% in chaos and construction mode over here, but I’m so excited for the finished product. I’ve been wanting to replace our upstairs carpet for YEARS and am so pumped that the time is finally here! We kept waiting for the “best time” to do it regarding travel, work, dance, and school schedules, and finally realized there will never be an ideal time. So, here we go! We’ve slept on air mattresses downstairs all week; like a big family slumber party 🙂 I’m looking forward to girls’…

Recently, a photo of rice left me confused. The rice itself looked tasty enough—fluffy, well formed—but its oddly fleshy hue gave me the creeps. According to the scientists who’d developed it, each pink-tinged grain was seeded with muscle and fat cells from a cow, imparting a nutty, umami flavor.In one sense, this “beef rice” was just another example of lab-grown meat, touted as a way to eat animals without the ethical and environmental impacts. Though not yet commercially available, the rice was developed by researchers in Korea as a nutrition-dense food that can be produced sustainably, at least more so…

An unexpected move by the FDA to delay approval of a potentially life-changing Alzheimer’s drug has let down doctors and patients eagerly awaiting its availability. Eli Lilly, the maker of the drug known as donanemab, said the approval would be delayed beyond March as the FDA plans to call a last-minute meeting of outside experts to review its safety and efficacy.The medicine had been expected to obtain approval by the end of the first quarter of the year, after clinical trials showed that it was able to modestly slow the rate of cognitive decline associated with the disease.But the FDA wants…

Israel says Palestinian attackers committed sexual violence on Oct. 7. Some accounts of rape were substantiated by a U.N. report, but the allegations continue to face intense scrutiny.

Lately, I’ve been getting acquainted with Google’s new Gemini AI product. I wanted to know how it thinks. More important, I wanted to know how it could affect my thinking. So I spent some time typing queries.For instance, I asked Gemini to give me some taglines for a campaign to persuade people to eat more meat. No can do, Gemini told me, because some public-health organizations recommend “moderate meat consumption,” because of the “environmental impact” of the meat industry, and because some people ethically object to eating meat. Instead, it gave me taglines for a campaign encouraging a “balanced diet”:…

There has been fury on International Women’s Day as a Care Quality Commission report on NHS maternity services referred repeatedly to genderless ‘people’. Campaigners have accused officials of not only downgrading a hospital trust found to be failing patients but also ‘dehumanising’ women with their choice of language.The CQC announced it was dropping its overall rating for maternity services at Great Western Hospital in Swindon from ‘good’ to ‘needs improvement’ after an inspection.But throughout its findings the commission often used the word ‘people’ when referring to those treated at the maternity unit – a choice critics called ‘enraging’.At other times the…

Maria E. Garay-Serratos holds a framed photograph of her mother, who died after suffering decades of domestic violence. Scientists are trying to understand how domestic violence damages the brain. Julio Serratos/Maria E. Garay-Serratos hide caption toggle caption Julio Serratos/Maria E. Garay-Serratos Maria E. Garay-Serratos holds a framed photograph of her mother, who died after suffering decades of domestic violence. Scientists are trying to understand how domestic violence damages the brain. Julio Serratos/Maria E. Garay-Serratos María E. Garay-Serratos was about 4 years old when she first saw her father assault her mother. “My mom was hit a lot,” says Garay-Serratos. “There…