As Alzheimer’s disease lowers its veil over my father, one of the few ways to penetrate through his fog is music. Luckily, he prepared for that decades ago by encouraging my love of singing. As a child, I was classically trained as an opera singer. My career took me in the direction of words rather…
When my 15-year-old son was given a diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder at age 7, I was told that it was a lifelong chronic condition. So I felt a little bit hopeful when a study published last winter in the Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics said that “an estimated 30 percent to 60…
Name: Mallory Merk Age: 20 Hometown: Born in Shreveport, La., she grew up in Harlem (where her mother lived) and Trenton, N.J. (where her father lived). Now lives: A two-bedroom apartment in Venice Beach, Calif., with her best friend. Claim to fame: Ms. Merk is a fashion model and singer-songwriter whose guitar-soaked melodies and candid…
AUCKLAND, New Zealand — Leo Mulipola found a lifeline in a load of fish heads. Mr. Mulipola, 49, has struggled to find even an entry-level job at a gas station during the coronavirus pandemic and is now unemployed. So, with a household of six to feed, he jumped at the chance to pick up donated…
Across much of Europe, even as coronavirus cases rise anew, governments are keeping classrooms open while forcing restaurants and bars to shut their doors. But in some American cities, officials have opted to keep students home even as dining rooms bustle with customers. Facing a second wave of the virus, New York City stands on…
This past spring, my inboxes began filling with messages from heartbroken women. The first came through Instagram: “Hey, I am Lina. I live in Germany. Someone is using your pictures for scamming!” Her profile revealed a woman who looked to be near my age, late 40s, wearing black-framed glasses. She told me she had met…
The turning point for people with COVID-19 typically comes in the second week of symptoms. As most people begin to recover, a few others find it increasingly difficult to breathe and wind up in the hospital. It has been theorized that those whose lungs begin to fail are victims of their own overactive immune systems.…
A clinical study involving 601 patients in Italy and Spain suggests that the JAK inhibitor drug baricitinib may enhance survival rates of patients with severe COVID-19, primarily by blunting the runaway immune inflammation known as “cytokine storm.” While the authors are careful to note that their study was not a fully randomized trial with a…
DALLAS, Nov. 13, 2020 – Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., the top infectious disease expert in the U.S., will present at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2020. His recorded remarks, titled, “COVID-19: Public Health and Scientific Challenges,” is a keynote presentation featured on Tuesday, November 17 at 10:30 a.m. Central Time/11:30 a.m. Eastern Time. The…
De’Broski Herbert has a philosophy that’s guided his career researching helminths, or parasitic worms, and their interaction with their hosts’ immune systems: “Follow the worm.” “The mantra of my lab since its inception has been that parasitic worms manipulate their hosts in very interesting ways to maintain their survival,” says Herbert, an associate professor of…