Environmental engineer Smruthi Karthikeyan had spent just a couple of days working in her new lab at the University of California, San Diego when the state instituted its first coronavirus…
Category: Health & Medicine
This robotic pill clears mucus from the gut to deliver meds
A mucus-wicking robotic pill may offer a new way to deliver meds. The multivitamin-sized device houses a motor and a cargo hold for drugs, including ones that are typically given…
False teeth could double as hearing aids
Prosthetic teeth could make great hearing aids. Vibrations applied to replacements for lost teeth travel well through jawbones to the inner ear, researchers report in the September Journal of the…
This face mask can sense the presence of an airborne virus
Face masks — the unofficial symbol of the COVID-19 pandemic — are leveling up. A mask outfitted with special electronics can detect SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, and other…
5 people with lupus are in remission after CAR-T cell treatment
After receiving an experimental treatment to stop the body from attacking itself, five people no longer have any symptoms of lupus. That treatment, called CAR-T cell therapy, seems to have…
Poliovirus is spreading in New York. Here’s what you need to know
A particular kind of poliovirus is spreading in the United States. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed that the country now joins a list of around…
How living in a pandemic distorts our sense of time
Time hasn’t made much sense since spring 2020 for many people, myself included. In February 2020, during the Before Times, my family traveled to Barcelona, a relatively carefree trip that…
Can’t comb your kid’s hair? This gene may be to blame
The flurry of frizzy-hair e-mails began in 2016. Human geneticist Regina Betz of University Hospital Bonn in Germany and her team had just linked three genes to a rare disorder…
How the COVID-19 pandemic may leave a long-term imprint on our health
At the start of another school year, I’ve been thinking about the differences between 2021 and 2022. Last year, many schools had mask mandates, testing programs and quarantine rules (SN:…
What you need to know about the new omicron booster shots
Revamped COVID-19 vaccines are poised to do battle with the super-contagious omicron variant. On September 1, U.S. health officials greenlit the first major update of the mRNA-based shots, reformulated to…
