Is This the Future of Face Masks?

After all, what are shoes, Will.i.am said, but protective equipment for the feet? We’ve just forgotten that was their original purpose because shoes have become a form of self-expression. You could not, he pointed out, “walk into a mall or a restaurant or an airplane without shoes on,” just as you aren’t supposed to walk…

How Many Is a Trillion?

That show debuted in 1999. But it was around the turn of the new century, and concurrent with the rise of Silicon Valley fortunes, when a few zeros got added in the popular imagination. Billion replaced million as the impossibly large yet routinely cited number. Imagine bestowing a TV show with the title “Billions” in…

Why I Gave My Mosaic Embryo a Chance

Five months later, I got a call from a physician who was filling in for my doctor; she canceled my appointment, claiming she was uncomfortable transferring a mosaic embryo. I was livid and overcome with grief. “The larger question that emerges with embryo testing is who gets to take on the risk of possibly bringing…

Gift to enable research into rare cancers

Curing cancer has been the dream of countless doctors and researchers over the decades. Yet some types of cancer, whether because they affect relatively few people or lack influential advocates, receive less attention and funding than others. A recent gift to Harvard Medical School is boosting efforts to understand and combat these understudied malignancies. Established…