Juliann Bluitt Foster, an African-American woman, became a dentist at a time when only about 2 percent of dental school graduates were women and “maybe 2 percent of that 2 percent” were African-American, said Dr. Jeanne Craig Sinkford, a former dean of Howard University’s dental school. Dr. Bluitt Foster made it her goal to change…
Dr. James S. Ketchum, an Army psychiatrist who in the 1960s conducted experiments with LSD and other powerful hallucinogens using volunteer soldiers as test subjects in secret research on chemical agents that might incapacitate the minds of battlefield adversaries, died on May 27 at his home in Peoria, Ariz. He was 87. His wife, Judy…
Posture is the positioning of the body when a person is sitting, standing, lying down, or performing different tasks. Researchers have linked bad posture with some uncomfortable health conditions and a high risk of injury, especially during exercise. Having good posture is very important. Poor body positioning and alignment can cause various health problems, such…
Seventeen years ago, when she was in her thirties, Cindy and her female partner decided they wanted to have children. The couple spent hours pouring over sperm donor profiles, finally settling on an anonymous man with a clean medical record and few health issues in his family. He was an anonymous donor, and they knew…
REEDS BEACH, N.J. — On a recent spring day at this remote beach, hundreds of shorebirds flapped frantically beneath a net trapping them on the sand. Dozens of volunteers rushed to disentangle the birds and place them gently in covered crates. On a nearby sand dune, teams of scientists and volunteers attached metal leg bands,…
Image CreditVictoria Roberts Q. To keep things in my ice chest cold, should I drain the cold water as the ice melts or leave it in the chest? A. Under most conditions, it is better to keep the cold water in the chest, most scientists, campers, and manufacturers and retailers conclude. Campers have even conducted…
Image New graduates of Fayetteville State University last month in North Carolina. A college degree is linked to higher life expectancy, but does it cause it?CreditTravis Dove for The New York Times Education is associated with better health outcomes, but trying to figure out whether it actually causes better health is tricky. People with at…
When a child is born with a rare disorder that few doctors recognize or know how to manage, it can pay big dividends for parents to be proactive, learn everything they can about the condition, and with expert medical guidance, come up with the best way to treat it. That is the approach Lara C.…
There has been a lot of worry about adolescents and social media over the past couple of weeks, with new studies and reports raising questions about mental health and vulnerability, sleep and suicide. I recently wrote about the question of whether the word “addiction” is helpful in understanding our worries about adolescents and their relationships…
Christiane C. didn’t think anything of it when her 10-year-old daughter and a friend uploaded a video of themselves playing in a backyard pool. “The video is innocent, it’s not a big deal,” said Christiane, who lives in a Rio de Janeiro suburb. A few days later, her daughter shared exciting news: The video had…