Babies love lullabies, and a new study suggests they don’t much care what culture the songs come from, what language they are sung in, or even who sings them. The study, led by Constance M. Bainbridge, a doctoral student at the University of California, Los Angeles, and Mila Bertolo, a researcher at Harvard, enrolled 144…
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The fear of snakes has plagued Sydney Masters as long as she can remember. Ms. Masters, a New York public relations executive, experiences an overwhelming panic-attack type of fear — shortness of breath, rapid heartbeat — whenever she’s near anything that slithers. Several years ago, while she was walking in Washington Square Park, a man…
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The pandemic has decimated urban tourism as Americans, if they choose to travel, have fled populated areas to spread out in rural and wilderness destinations where social distancing comes easier. With business travel all but stopped, city hotels and tourist organizations have made a full-court press to attract especially locals and nearby leisure travelers with…
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Around this time four years ago, a grass-roots movement began on Facebook urging women to adopt a specific uniform as they went to the polls. And though #wearwhitetovote and #pantsuitnation were superficially about fashion, they were really about symbolism and female solidarity, about the precedent-changing candidacy of Hillary Clinton and the long line of feminists…
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Motherhood was a dream of love planted in my heart before I was born, always a “when,” never an “if.” Even after I divorced at 34, childless, I still assumed my future would follow the date-marry-procreate blueprint I’d always imagined. But four years, dozens of dates and not a single serious boyfriend later, it seemed…
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When I learned this summer that the clinical trial of the cancer drug that seems to be keeping me alive had unexpectedly shut down, I discovered the murky rules governing drug trials and the stressful confusion they breed in participants. In August, Alesha, the research nurse who has overseen my care since I entered a…
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The school year is still young, yet parents and students alike may have noticed that academic motivation is already low. No surprise there. Whether school is remote, in-person or hybrid, many students have come to feel that, if this year were a meal, it would be all vegetables and no dessert. Gone, or hamstrung by…
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From the early days of the pandemic, Carly Cushnie was worried. “It’s at a point now where everyone is really freaking out,” Ms. Cushnie, a 36-year-old designer, told The New York Times this spring. “I’m definitely concerned about getting through it. I haven’t even thought about September.” Ms. Cushnie and her company made it through…
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Immunotherapies, such as checkpoint inhibitor drugs, have made worlds of difference for the treatment of cancer. Most clinicians and scientists understand these drugs to act on what’s known as the adaptive immune system, the T cells and B cells that respond to specific threats to the body. New research from an international team co-led by…
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Novel approach to measuring antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 Current antibody testing strategies are known for their lack of specificity, leading to a large proportion of false positive results. German researchers lead by Prof. Anette-G. Ziegler at Helmholtz Zentrum München developed a novel approach to measuring antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 by defining antibody positivity as a dual-positive response…
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