On Feb. 26, 175 executives at the biotech company Biogen gathered at a Boston hotel for the first night of a conference. At the time, the coronavirus seemed a faraway problem, limited mostly to China. But the virus was right there at the conference, spreading from person to person. A new study suggests that the…
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In June, Charles Kunz stayed at the Westin Atlanta Airport and found “the largest cockroach I’ve ever seen” on his bed the next morning. The lawyer from Durham, N.C., a Titanium member of Marriott’s Bonvoy loyalty program, said the insect “was the size of my pinkie. I live in the South and I’m no stranger…
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Even during this socially restrained pandemic, there are still likely to be times when you’ll want to bake an enormous batch of cookies quickly — whether it’s for sharing with others, or for your own future bingeing. Sheet-pan sugar cookies are here for you. The dough is pretty much like any other sugar cookie, heavy…
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If you are an athlete, you may gain greater immunity from a flu shot than people who are less active, according to two complementary and timely new studies of exercise and vaccinations. The two studies, which involved the same group of elite runners, swimmers, wrestlers, cyclists and other athletes, suggest that intense training amplifies our…
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Hello, NYT cooks! I’m taking over this newsletter from Tejal Rao, and somehow we will get through the last gasp of summer together. (Sam Sifton will return after Labor Day.) And what a summer it has been: waiting on a 40-yard-long line for farmstand tomatoes, staying locked inside my car during a drive-in showing of…
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Many antibiotics may be linked to unintended pregnancy in women taking hormonal contraceptives. It has long been known that certain drugs, including the antibiotics rifampin and rifabutin as well as various antifungal, anti-epileptic and antiretroviral drugs, cause the liver to produce enzymes that can reduce the efficacy of hormonal contraceptives. Now a new analysis of…
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As Covid-19 heightens the anxieties of cancer patients, online support groups step up efforts to help by means of social networking. One such group, Twist Out Cancer, sponsors an innovative program called Brushes With Cancer that matches patients with artists who create a unique piece of artwork to capture the experience of their disease. When…
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The photo in a recent newsletter from Katherine Tracey, a garden designer in Massachusetts, filled me with longing, and not a small amount of regret. Why didn’t I think to fill my pots with succulents as she did — plants like Echeveria, Senecio, Sempervivum and even certain Sedum that deliver a long show with relatively…
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I was reading Michael Smith’s chronicle of designing the Obama White House, feeling serene, marinating in a luxurious world of wine-colored swatches and embossed mohair velvet and carpet border details desperately in need of tweaking. Suddenly, I was confronted with violence. Beneath a black-and-white picture of Jacqueline Kennedy looking at the blueprints for her White…
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The coronavirus may infect anyone, young or old, but older men are up to twice as likely to become severely sick and to die as women of the same age. Why? The first study to look at immune response by sex has turned up a clue: Men produce a weaker immune response to the virus…
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