Permission to Marry? Is It 1950?

My girlfriend and I have decided we’d like to get engaged. Before we do, I want to ask her parents’ permission — not because she belongs to them. I just think it’s polite and would start our relationship on the right note. I would also like to do this in person. But my girlfriend wants…

What’s Meat Got to Do With It?

In case you haven’t heard, they’re making meat out of plants. Burgers out of soy and coconut. Fried chicken out of jackfruit. Steaks out of “cooked wheat gluten.” Brands like Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat have expanded into fast food, infiltrating chains like Burger King and Dunkin’ with meatless patties and breakfast sausage. Meat people…

36 Hours in Niagara-on-the-Lake

After watching a performance of the Shaw Festival’s “Brigadoon,” the streets of this magical town on Lake Ontario might seem like a real-life version of the Scottish village depicted in the Lerner and Loewe musical. On a recent evening, the place felt frozen in time, with horse-drawn carriages rolling down a main street lined with…

Living Intimately With Thoughts of Death

Since my cancer diagnosis, I have lived intimately with thoughts of death. Cancer patients of all ages and stages, as well as people with other ruinous conditions, often experience “a double frame of mind,” as the polemicist Christopher Hitchens once put it. Laboring to survive in the present, we simultaneously imagine our future demise. Of…

How Job Stress Can Age Us

I noticed my first gray hair during my medical residency. It sneaked up on me at the end of a long, frenzied shift — one of those nights when Murphy’s Law seems stronger than the law of gravity. Two of my patients did slip and fall, though, so Newton made a strong showing too. The…

Bacteria-killing gel heals itself while healing you

IMAGE: McMaster engineers specializing in infectious diseases have created a bacteria-killing gel composed entirely of friendly viruses. The gel can heal itself when cut. view more  Credit: JD Howell, McMaster University HAMILTON, ON July 25, 2019 – McMaster researchers have developed a novel new gel made entirely from bacteria-killing viruses. The anti-bacterial gel, which can be…