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…

What is long COVID and who’s at risk? This NIH project may find out

You may have heard the big long COVID news that came out recently: A Scottish study reported that about half of people infected with SARS-CoV-2 have not fully recovered six…

A study questioning colonoscopy screening’s benefits has big caveats

A recent study reported a smaller-than-expected benefit from screening colonoscopies. But the study has important caveats, gastroenterologists say, making it ripe for misinterpretation if that context isn’t included. The study…

Black Death immunity came at a cost to modern-day health

A genetic variant that appears to have boosted medieval Europeans’ ability to survive the Black Death centuries ago may contribute — albeit in a small way — to an inflammatory…

Ancient DNA unveils Siberian Neandertals’ small-scale social lives

DNA from a group of Neandertals who lived together and a couple of others who lived not far away has yielded the best genetic peek to date into the social…

Black Death immunity came at a cost to modern-day health

A genetic variant that appears to have boosted medieval Europeans’ ability to survive the Black Death centuries ago may contribute — albeit in a small way — to an inflammatory…

The pandemic shows us how crises derail young adults’ lives for decades

Ninna Ragasa was 24 years old when doctors discovered a mass on the left hemisphere of her brain. Further imaging revealed that Ragasa had an arteriovenous malformation, a tangle of…

A swarm of sneaky omicron variants could cause a COVID-19 surge this fall

Fall and winter have not been kind to us over the last couple of years. In 2020, cases of COVID-19 began to climb in October. And at this time last…

Drone photos reveal an early Mesopotamian city made of marsh islands

A ground-penetrating eye in the sky has helped to rehydrate an ancient southern Mesopotamian city, tagging it as what amounted to a Venice of the Fertile Crescent. Identifying the watery…