In the jungles of Ivory Coast, monkeys and chimps forage for food, sleep in trees and travel in groups. Not far behind follow primatologists, like Jan Gogarten, a postdoctoral researcher at the Robert Koch Institute in Germany. Dr. Gogarten was spending a lot of time in the jungle tracking mangabey monkeys when his attention was…
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…
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…
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…
Among men who are at high risk for H.I.V. infection, only about one in three is taking a drug to prevent transmission of the virus, according to a survey from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The drug, Truvada, is taken daily as part of a preventive strategy called pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP. For…
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…
When the producer Simon Fuller reached out to Lupita Nyong’o to gauge her interest in narrating his latest project — a wildlife documentary directed by John Downer — the Kenyan-Mexican actress was intrigued. But once she watched the first two episodes, she was sold. Ms. Nyong’o understood that these shows can be mundane and repetitive,…
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…
VIDEO: A Purdue University team of engineers has built a wearable device designed to automatically detect when a person’s respiration rate decreases to a certain level – converted from electrocardiography (EKG)… view more WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Opioid users tend to be alone and incapacitated during an overdose. Purdue University researchers are developing a device that…
My favorite thing about John Herrman (c. 2069) is that he’s still alive. My least favorite thing about him is that he can’t talk. He knows what’s coming. He probably also has some ideas about what really mattered, in hindsight, and I’d probably agree with his ideas, because he is me. There are many things…