Engraved into the side of a nearly 4,000-year-old ivory comb is a simple wish: Get these lice out of my hair. This faint inscription, written in the early language of…
Category: Humans
Here’s how mysterious last-resort antibiotics kill bacteria
To kill drug-resistant bacteria, “last-resort” antibiotics borrow a tactic from Medusa’s playbook: petrification. New high-resolution microscope images show that a class of antibiotics called polymyxins crystallize the cell membranes of…
Cat allergies may be tamed by adding an asthma therapy to allergy shots
Adding lab-made antibodies to allergy shots may better groom the immune system against cat allergies than standard shots alone. The combination therapy also reduced allergy symptoms for a year after…
The U.S.’s alcohol-induced death rate rose sharply in the pandemic’s first year
The death rate from alcohol use rose sharply in the United States in the first year of the pandemic. From 2019 to 2020, the rate of alcohol-induced deaths climbed 26…
Where are the long COVID clinics?
For the millions of people in the United States with long COVID, getting help comes down to where they live. Long COVID clinics have been popping up, but their accessibility…
A major malaria outbreak in Ethiopia came from an invasive Asian mosquito
In early 2022, malaria cases in the Ethiopian city of Dire Dawa surged, with more than 2,400 people sickened. The spike in infections was the work of an invasive mosquito…
King Tut’s tomb still has secrets to reveal 100 years after its discovery
One hundred years ago, archaeologist Howard Carter stumbled across the tomb of ancient Egypt’s King Tutankhamun. Carter’s life was never the same. Neither was the young pharaoh’s afterlife. Newspapers around…
King Tut’s tomb still has secrets to reveal 100 years after its discovery
One hundred years ago, archaeologist Howard Carter stumbled across the tomb of ancient Egypt’s King Tutankhamun. Carter’s life was never the same. Neither was the young pharaoh’s afterlife. Newspapers around…
A new treatment for debilitating nightmares offers sweeter dreams
For people haunted by recurring nightmares, untroubled sleep would be a dream come true. Now in a small experiment, neuroscientists have demonstrated a technique that, for some, may chase the…
Need a fall read? ‘The Song of the Cell’ offers tales from biology and history
The Song of the CellSiddhartha MukherjeeScribner, $32.50 In the summer of 1960, doctors extracted “crimson sludge” from 6-year-old Barbara Lowry’s bones and gave it to her twin. That surgery, one…
