In “The Last of Us,” a video game and recently-wrapped HBO series, giant mutant fungi turn much of humanity into zombies. In…
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post The New Fungus Among Us, Candida aurisRead more
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post Partial Fetus in Sister’s Brain Supports Role of DNA Repeats in DevelopmentRead more
Startling images in the journal Neurology made the media rounds last week. CT scans show a partial fetus wedged within a space…
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post The Dogs of Chernobyl Reveal the Genomic Aftermath of a Human-Made Environmental DisasterRead more
In the original Planet of the Apes, the Forbidden Zone is a future radiation-devastated landscape from which hardy new mutants arise, shifting…
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post Rare Disease Day 2023: Isla’s Story and NGLY1 DeficiencyRead more
The road to naming an unusual collection of unfolding symptoms is called the “diagnostic odyssey” for good reason: the journey takes, on…
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post Why COVID Vaccines Proliferate as Monoclonal Antibody Drugs FadeRead more
Monoclonal antibody drugs to fight COVID are being taken off the market while new COVID vaccines are arriving, even as the old…
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post Why Race-Based Health Care is Bad Medicine: From BiDil to Kidney TransplantsRead more
Choosing a medical treatment based on patient traits historically used to define races is fundamentally flawed, because race in the context of…
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post Science Fairs Counter Science IlliteracyRead more
The pandemic ignited public interest in science, introducing the phrase “doing my research.” But the persistence of the idea that science aims…
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post COVID Virus Ventures Beyond the Lungs, Often Lodging in the BrainRead more
In early 2020, COVID appeared to be mostly respiratory, with blame for the shattering of delicate lung tissues initially placed on the…
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post Yet Another Reason to Not Eat Beef: Cancer-Causing MutationsRead more
I stopped eating beef 5 years ago, following a trip to Costa Rica just days after being diagnosed with breast cancer. Our…
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post Do Shrinking Chromosomes Put Older People at Higher Risk of Severe COVID?Read more
When a headline in the Washington Post dubbed COVID “A Plague of the Elderly,” I cringed, envisioning Logan’s Run, the sci-fi classic…
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post On the Third Anniversary of the Pandemic, My 100th COVID Article, With Links to AllRead more
Three years ago, health officials in China announced the first cases of infection with a “novel coronavirus.” Dr. Zhang Jixian reported the…
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post In Search of a Religiosity GeneRead more
Do our genes predispose us to follow a religion? I searched Google Scholar for reports on the inheritance of religiosity. I sought…