Wearing bifocal contact lenses may slow the progression of nearsightedness in children, a new study in JAMA suggests. Researchers randomly assigned 294 myopic children, average age 10, to one of three groups: the first wore high-power bifocal contact lenses, the second medium-power bifocal lenses and the third regular single-vision contacts. The researchers gave them eye…
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In 2017, the first season of Leon Neyfakh’s podcast, “Slow Burn,” retold the story of the Watergate scandal, unearthing key details and subjecting them to close analysis. It was a hit, something Mr. Neyfakh, then working for Slate, attributes to its timing: The Trump administration was in the midst of its own scandal, under investigation…
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An emergency room doctor in Illinois was accused in April of profiting from naming coronavirus as the cause of a patient’s death, a rumor spreading online. An internist in New York treated a vomiting patient in May who drank a bleach mixture as part of a fake virus cure found on YouTube. And in June…
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Good morning! It’s Monday, in case you need a reminder, and this is Tejal, filling in for Sam. I’m still finding my way around my new kitchen in Los Angeles, and I’ve taken notes from the expert organizer Faith Roberson, who recently tackled Priya Krishna’s fridge, using lazy susans to help with an overabundance of…
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Ellis Whiteaker, 11, didn’t know what he might find when he went hunting in his basement in Fayetteville, N.C. But he had seen a call for fishing antiques on a social-networking app he uses (he’s been an avid fishermen since age 4) and knew that his grandfather, a former Air Force pilot who passed away…
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The shutdowns and fears provoked by the Covid-19 pandemic threw a monkey wrench into many aspects of routine medical care, especially for older people justifiably wary about being exposed to the virus in a medical setting. While many facilities have now created “safe spaces” to resume in-person exams, some of the resulting postponements of routine…
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So how are you sleeping these days? Some children — and adolescents — may actually be getting more sleep, or better sleep, while others are struggling with disrupted routines, anxiety and electronics, sometimes all at the same time. And even for those who have settled into new schedules that leave them reasonably well rested, back-to-school…
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Mild cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) can trigger robust memory T cell responses, even in the absence of detectable virus-specific antibody responses, researchers report August 14 in the journal Cell. The authors say that memory T cell responses generated by natural exposure to or infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)–the virus…
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Opioid use, particularly in high doses, can cause deafness, according to Rutgers researchers. The study, published in The Journal of Medical Toxicology, reviewed records from the New Jersey Poison Control Center, based at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, from 1999 to 2018 to determine the association between opioid use and degrees of hearing loss. Researchers…
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Patients who need surgery to fix major bone fractures use fewer opioid pills after their procedure if they’re reminded of their values – and those reminders don’t necessarily need to come from a doctor, according to a new study published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research. “We showed that opioid medication utilization could be…
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